Cinema isn’t a beauty contest, but if it were, Alain Delon surely would have won the title of the 1960s’ most handsome actor. That’s a subjective call, of course, and as such, Delon is the kind of figure about whom writers tend to fall back on the word “arguably” — as in, “arguably the most handsome” — which is kind of a cop-out, as it leaves the argument to somebody else. When it comes to Delon, plenty have made the case.
I loved Anthony Lane’s longform analysis of Delon’s allure in The New Yorker earlier this year. And none other than Jane Fonda, who co-starred with Delon in 1964’s “Joy House,” described him as “the most beautiful human being.” The French star, made more than 100 movies in a career that spanned 50 years, but for that one transformative decade in film history — beginning with the Patricia Highsmith adaptation “Purple Noon” (“Plein Soleil”) in 1960 and stretching through to his iconic turn in Jacques Deray’s “La Piscine” — Delon came to represent an unattainable ideal, with his piercing wolf-blue eyes, Elvis Presley cheekbones and fit, ready-to-wrestle physique.
But looks were only part of the equation. Given his own working-class background, Delon possessed a streetwise toughness from the start, but read as slightly puppy-like in his earliest roles (the eponymous Italian bruiser in Luchino Visconti’s “Rocco and His Brothers,” the amorous stockbroker in Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’eclisse”). It d.