Alain Delon , the French actor most famous for his roles in the films of New Wave director Jean-Pierre Melville, especially “Le Samourai,” has died. He was 88. “He passed away peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family,” according to a statement released to the AFP news agency by his family.
In addition to “Le Samourai,” Delon also appeared in Melville’s brilliant heist film “Le Cercle rouge” and “Un Flic.” Some of his other significant films were Rene Clement’s “Purple Noon”; Visconti’s “Rocco and His Brothers” and “The Leopard”; Antonioni’s “L’Eclisse”; Jose Giovanni’s “Two Men in Town”; and Joseph Losey’s “Mr. Klein.
” After Jean-Paul Belmondo defined French cool at the beginning of the New Wave in Godard’s “Breathless,” Delon and director Melville very consciously redefined it in “Le Samourai,” in which he played a killer for hire always adjusting his fedora so it was just so, and the actor was consequently compared to James Dean. But the comparison to Dean was limited; while the American actor was given to emotional outbursts in his performances, Delon was far from effusive. What was taken for cool in “Le Samourai” could just seem cold in a lesser movie, such as Melville’s “Un Flic.
” Nevertheless it is hard for Americans to understand the extent of Delon’s fame during the 1960s and ’70s not just in France but in regions as diverse as Japan, Communist Ch.