The death of Alain Delon leaves a 70-year body of onscreen work to be admired. Following the French screen legend’s death at age 88 on Sunday, fans are remembering the memorable performances he served with such directors as Jean-Luc Godard, Luchino Visconti and Jean-Pierre Melville, earning a Palme d’Or and being inducted into France’s Legion of Honour during his storied career. After a rough upbringing and serving in the First Indochina War, Delon was discovered at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, despite having no training as an actor.
“I came down with a girl that I liked, who loved me...
I took it all in, did the red carpet but even then, I felt at home...
not least and I say this without pretension because it was made clear to me that I was not bad looking,” he told a Cannes masterclass in 2019. Amid his affair with actress Michèle Cordoue, she convinced her husband, director Yves Allégret, to give him a small role in his film Send a Woman When the Devil Fails (1957). The actor was candid about the role women played in his career.
“If I hadn’t met the women I met, I would have died long ago. It’ s the women – I don’t know why – who loved me, who got me into this profession, who wanted me to do it, and who fought for me to do it,” said Delon in the masterclass. Delon went on to find success as a leading man in such films as Three Murderesses , Purple Noon , Rocco and His Brothers , The Leopard , The Girl on a Motorcycle , Scorpio and Zorro .
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