PARIS (AP) — Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, died at age 88, French media reported.
With his handsome looks and tender manner, the prolific actor was able to combine toughness with an appealing, vulnerable quality that made him one of France’s memorable leading men.
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PARIS (AP) — Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, died at age 88, French media reported.
FILE - Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, left, stands next to French actor Alain Delon after she was awarded the "Legion of Honor" at the Elysee Palace in Paris on July 3, 2008. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Benoit Tessier, Pool, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon, right, and French actress Mireille Darc arrive at the funeral ceremony of French actress Annie Girardot held at the Saint Roch church in Paris on March 4, 2011. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon receives a Lifetime Award during an awarding show at the Locarno Film Festival, on Aug. 2, 2012, in Locarno, Switzerland. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Keystone, Urs Flueeler, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon and model Bianca di Sofia arrive for the screening of the film "Chacun Son Cinema" ("To Each His Own Cinema"), at the 60th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Sunday, May 20, 2007. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Actor Alain Delon, right, waves as festival director Gilles Jacob looks on as Delon arrives for the screening of Plein Soleil at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 25, 2013. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
FILE - Romy Schneider is kissed by French actor Alain Delon in Morcote near Lugano, Switzerland, after their engagement on March 22, 1959. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon wipes away a tear prior to being awarded his honorary Palme D'Or award at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France on May 19, 2019. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - French Actor Alain Delon arrives for the screening of "Chacun Son Cinema" (To Each His Own Cinema), at the 60th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 20, 2007. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon talks at a press conference after receiving a Lifetime Award at the Locarno Film Festival in Locarno, Switzerland, on Aug. 3, 2012. (Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Karl Mathis/Keystone via AP, File)
FILE - French actors Alain Delon, left, and Jean-Paul Belmondo, right, arrive for the inauguration of a giant Ferris wheel, in Paris on Nov. 17, 2017. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon of France gets the attention of actress Angie Dickinson during a conversation at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills, Calif.on April 16, 1963. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported(AP Photo/Harold Matosian, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon waves on stage prior being declared the winner of the Miss France 2011 pageant during Miss France 2011 in Brest, western France on Dec. 3, 2011. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon and actress Lauren Bacall talk as they leave a news conference in the city of Cuernavaca, state of Morelos, Mexico on May 25, 1966. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon is escorted by American actresses Jane Davenport, left, and Pamela Huntington after their arrival from New York at Orly airport in Paris on Aug.19, 1970. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours, File)
FILE - Actor Alain Delon gets the attention of actress Angie Dickinson during a conversation at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills, Calif., on April 16, 1963 in honor of the French actor. Delon was in Hollywood for a brief visit, following the windup of a movie job in Tokyo. Singer Eddie Fisher was host at the party. (AP Photo/Harold Matosian, File)
FILE - In this May 19, 2019 file photo, French actor Alain Delon poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'A Hidden Life' at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - Actor Alain Delon holds aloft his honorary Palme D'Or award at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 19, 2019. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
FILE - Romy Schneider and French actor Alain Delon, recently engaged, sit with friends attending the Easter Gala on March 30, 1959 at the Sporting Club of Monaco. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon takes a short walk away from the set of a new film, "The Sicilians," during a break in the shooting in the center of Rome, on March 27, 1969. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Jim Pringle, File)
FILE- In this May 19, 2019 file photo, French actor Alain Delon poses for photographers at the photo call for his honorary Palme D'Or award at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP, File)
Delon was also a producer. He also appeared in plays, and in later years, in television movies.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on X to “a French monument."
“Alain Delon has played legendary roles and made the world dream,” he wrote. “Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star.”
Delon's children announced the death on Sunday in a statement to the French national news agency Agence France-Presse, a common practice in France. Tributes to Delon immediately started pouring in on social platforms, and all leading French media switched to full-fledged coverage of his rich career.
Earlier this year, his son Anthony had said his father had been diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma, a type of cancer.
Over the past year, Delon's fragile health condition had been at the heart of a family dispute over his care that gave rise to bitter exchanges through the media among his three children.
At the prime of his career, in the 1960s and 1970s, Delon was sought out by some of the world’s top directors, from Luchino Visconti to Joseph Losey.
In his later years, Delon grew disillusioned with the movie industry, saying that money had killed the dream. “Money, commerce and television have wrecked the dream machine,” he wrote in a 2003 edition of the newsweekly, Le Nouvel Observateur. “My cinema is dead. And me, too.”
But he continued to work frequently, appearing in several TV movies in his 70s.
Delon’s presence was unforgettable, whether playing morally depraved heroes or romantic leading men. He first drew acclaim in 1960 with “Plein Soleil,” directed by Réne Clément, in which he played a murderer trying to take on the identity of his victims.
He made several Italian movies, working, most notably with Visconti in the 1961 film “Rocco and His Brothers,” in which Delon portrays a self-sacrificing brother intent on helping his sibling. The movie won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
The 1963 Visconti film “Le Guepard” (The Leopard) starring Delon won the Palme d’Or, the highest honor at the Cannes Film Festival. His other films included Clément’s “Is Paris Burning,” with a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola among others; “La Piscine” (The Sinners), directed by Jacques Deray; and, in a departure, Losey’s “The Assassination of Trotsky” in 1972.
In 1968, Delon began producing movies — 26 of them by 1990 — part of a frenzied and self-assured momentum that he maintained throughout his life.
His confidence was palpable in his statement to Femme in 1996, ‘I like to be loved the way I love myself!’ This echoed his charismatic screen persona.
Delon continued to captivate audiences for years — on the way courting criticism for comments deemed outdated. In 2010, he appeared in “Un mari de trop” (“One Husband Too Many”) and returned to the stage in 2011 with “An Ordinary Day,” alongside his daughter Anouchka.
He briefly presided over the Miss France jury but stepped down in 2013 after a disagreement over some controversial statements, which included critiques on women, LGBTQIA+ rights, and migrants. Despite these controversies, he received a Palme d’Honneur at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, a decision that sparked further debate.
The Cannes Film Festival on Sunday expressed its “sadness.” Delon “embodied French cinema far beyond its borders,” it said, in a statement.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation, dedicated to animal protection, paid tribute to “an exceptional man, an unforgettable artist and a great friend of animals,” in a statement released on social media. Delon was “a close friend” of French film legend Brigitte Bardot “who is deeply saddened by his passing,” the statement said. “We lose a precious friend and a man with a big heart.”
French film producer Alain Terzian said Delon was “the last of the giants.”
“It’s a page being turned in the history of French cinema,” he told France Inter radio. Terzian, who produced several films directed by Delon, recalled that “every time he arrived somewhere ... there was a kind of almost mystical, quasi-religious respect. He was fascinating.”
Born on Nov. 8, 1935, in Sceaux, just south of Paris, Delon was placed with a foster family after his parents’ separation when he was 4. He then attended a Roman Catholic boarding school.
At 17, Delon joined the navy and was sent to Indochina. Back in France in 1956, he held various odd jobs from waiter to a carrier in the Paris meat market before turning to acting.
Delon had a son, Anthony, in 1964 with his then-wife Nathalie Canovas, who played alongside him in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “The Samurai” in 1967. He had two more children, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien, with a later companion, Rosalie van Breemen, with whom he produced a song and video clip in 1987. He was also widely believed to have been the father of Ari Boulogne, the son of German model and singer Nico, although he never publicly acknowledged paternity.
“I am very good at three things: my job, foolishness and children,” he said in a 1995 L’Express interview.
Delon juggled diverse activities throughout his life, from setting up a stable of trotting horses to developing cologne for men and women, followed by watches, glasses and other accessories. He also collected paintings and sculptures.
Delon announced an end to his acting career in 1999, only to continue, appearing in Bertrand Blier’s “Les Acteurs” (The Actors) the same year. Later he appeared in several television police shows.
His good looks sustained him. In August 2002, Delon told a weekly magazine, L’Humanite Hebdo, that he wouldn’t still be in the business if that weren’t so.
“You’ll never see me old and ugly,” he said when he was already nearing 70, “because I’ll leave before, or I’ll die.”
However, it was in 2019 that Delon encapsulated his feelings about his life’s meaning during a gala event honoring him at the Cannes Film Festival. “One thing I’m sure about is that if there’s something I’m proud of, really, the only thing, it’s my career.”
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Retired AP correspondent Elaine Ganley contributed biographical material to this story.
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This story has been corrected to delete reference to Delon appearing in “The Empty House” in 2022.
American actress Shirley MacLaine, done up as a gangster's moll, dabs the hand of her French co-star, Alain Delon, on the set of the film "The Yellow Rolls-Rovce" at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England on Aug. 5, 1964. (AP Photo/Roy Boynton)
FILE - Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, left, stands next to French actor Alain Delon after she was awarded the "Legion of Honor" at the Elysee Palace in Paris on July 3, 2008. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Benoit Tessier, Pool, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon, right, and French actress Mireille Darc arrive at the funeral ceremony of French actress Annie Girardot held at the Saint Roch church in Paris on March 4, 2011. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon receives a Lifetime Award during an awarding show at the Locarno Film Festival, on Aug. 2, 2012, in Locarno, Switzerland. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Keystone, Urs Flueeler, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon and model Bianca di Sofia arrive for the screening of the film "Chacun Son Cinema" ("To Each His Own Cinema"), at the 60th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Sunday, May 20, 2007. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Actor Alain Delon, right, waves as festival director Gilles Jacob looks on as Delon arrives for the screening of Plein Soleil at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 25, 2013. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
FILE - Romy Schneider is kissed by French actor Alain Delon in Morcote near Lugano, Switzerland, after their engagement on March 22, 1959. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon wipes away a tear prior to being awarded his honorary Palme D'Or award at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France on May 19, 2019. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - French Actor Alain Delon arrives for the screening of "Chacun Son Cinema" (To Each His Own Cinema), at the 60th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 20, 2007. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon talks at a press conference after receiving a Lifetime Award at the Locarno Film Festival in Locarno, Switzerland, on Aug. 3, 2012. (Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Karl Mathis/Keystone via AP, File)
FILE - French actors Alain Delon, left, and Jean-Paul Belmondo, right, arrive for the inauguration of a giant Ferris wheel, in Paris on Nov. 17, 2017. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon of France gets the attention of actress Angie Dickinson during a conversation at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills, Calif.on April 16, 1963. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported(AP Photo/Harold Matosian, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon waves on stage prior being declared the winner of the Miss France 2011 pageant during Miss France 2011 in Brest, western France on Dec. 3, 2011. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon and actress Lauren Bacall talk as they leave a news conference in the city of Cuernavaca, state of Morelos, Mexico on May 25, 1966. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon is escorted by American actresses Jane Davenport, left, and Pamela Huntington after their arrival from New York at Orly airport in Paris on Aug.19, 1970. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours, File)
FILE - Actor Alain Delon gets the attention of actress Angie Dickinson during a conversation at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills, Calif., on April 16, 1963 in honor of the French actor. Delon was in Hollywood for a brief visit, following the windup of a movie job in Tokyo. Singer Eddie Fisher was host at the party. (AP Photo/Harold Matosian, File)
FILE - In this May 19, 2019 file photo, French actor Alain Delon poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'A Hidden Life' at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - Actor Alain Delon holds aloft his honorary Palme D'Or award at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 19, 2019. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
FILE - Romy Schneider and French actor Alain Delon, recently engaged, sit with friends attending the Easter Gala on March 30, 1959 at the Sporting Club of Monaco. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - French actor Alain Delon takes a short walk away from the set of a new film, "The Sicilians," during a break in the shooting in the center of Rome, on March 27, 1969. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (AP Photo/Jim Pringle, File)
FILE- In this May 19, 2019 file photo, French actor Alain Delon poses for photographers at the photo call for his honorary Palme D'Or award at the 72nd international film festival, Cannes, southern France. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died at age 88, French media reported. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP, File)
