Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon (born 8 November
1935) is a
CĂ©sar Award-winning
French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 he
was garnering comparisons to famed French actors such as
GĂ©rard Philipe and
Jean Marais, as well as American actor
James Dean. He was even called the male
Brigitte Bardot. Over the course of his
career, Delon has worked with many well-known directors, including
Luchino Visconti,
Jean-Luc Godard,
Jean-Pierre Melville,
Michelangelo Antonioni and
Louis Malle.
Delon
acquired Swiss citizenship in 1999 and the company managing
products sold under his name is based in Geneva
.
Early life
Delon was
born in Sceaux, Seine
(now Hauts-de-Seine
), ĂŽle-de-France
, a suburb of Paris. His parents, Édith
(
née Arnold) and Fabien
Delon, divorced when Delon was four. Both remarried, and Delon has
a half-sister and two half-brothers. He attended a
Roman Catholic boarding school, the first of
several schools from which he was expelled because of unruly
behavior. Teachers once tried to convince him to enter the
priesthood because of his aptitude in religious studies.
At 14, Delon left school, and worked for a brief time at his
stepfather's butcher shop. He enlisted in the
French Navy three years later, and in 1953/54 he
served as a
fusilier marin
in the
First Indochina War.
Delon has said that out of his four years of military service he
spent 11 months in prison for being "undisciplined". In 1956, after
being dishonorably discharged from the military he returned to
Paris. He had no money, and got by on whatever employment he could
find. He spent time working as a waiter, a porter, and a sales
clerk.
During this time he became friends with the
actress Brigitte Auber, and joined
her on a trip to the Cannes Film Festival
, where his film career would begin.
Career
At
Cannes
, Delon was seen by a talent scout for David O. Selznick. After a successful screen test
Selznick offered him a contract, provided he learn
English.
Delon returned to Paris to study English,
but when he met French director Yves
Allégret, he was convinced that he should stay in France
to begin his
career. Selznick allowed Delon to cancel his contract, and
Allégret gave him his debut in the film
Quand la Femme s'en
MĂŞle (
When the Woman Butts In). Delon then got to
show a comedic aspect of himself in the film
Faibles
Femmes (
Women Are Weak/
Three Murderesses).
This was also the first of his films to be seen in America, where
it became a success.
In 1960, Delon appeared in
René
Clément's
Purple Noon,
which was based on the
Patricia
Highsmith novel
The
Talented Mr. Ripley. He played protagonist
Tom Ripley to critical acclaim. He then appeared
in
Luchino Visconti's
Rocco and His Brothers. Critic
Bosley Crowther of the
New York Times said Delon's work was :
"touchingly pliant and expressive." John Beaufort in the
Christian Science
Monitor said:
- "Rocco's heartbroken steadfastness furnishes the film with the
foremost of its ironic tragedies ... [I]ts believability rests
finally on Mr. Delon's compelling performance."
Delon made his stage debut in 1961 in
John Ford’s play,
Tis Pity
She’s a Whore alongside Romy
Schneider in Paris. Visconti directed
the production. Delon would work with him
again for Il Gattopardo
(The Leopard). Delon also
worked with Jean-Pierre
Melville, who directed him in Un
Flic, Le Cercle
Rouge, and Le
SamouraĂŻ.
In 1964,
the Cinémathèque Française
held a showcase of Delon's films and Delon started
a production company, Delbeau Production, with Georges
Beaume. They produced a film called
L’insoumis,
which had to be re-edited due to legal issues. Delon then started
his own production company, Adel, and starred in the company’s
first film,
Jeff. Delon followed the success of the film
with
Borsalino, which became one
of France’s highest grossing films of the time. In 1973, he made a
duet with the French
pop singer
Dalida on
"
Paroles, paroles". He also played
Johnston McCulley's popular masked
hero in 1975's
Zorro. In 1976
Delon starred in the CĂ©sar awards (French equivalent of
Oscars) - winning
Monsieur
Klein, which proved to be an impressively controlled
performance and a golden opportunity for Delon to add psychological
depth to his acting style.
He was awarded the Best Actor CĂ©sar Award for his role in
Bertrand Blier's
Notre histoire
(1984), and portrayed the aristocratic
dandy
Baron de Charlus with a subtly restrained comic touch in
Swann in Love in the same year. Then followed
a string of
box office failures in the
late 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the failure of
Patrice Leconte's
Une chance sur
deux. Delon announced his decision to give up acting in 1997,
although he still occasionally accepts roles.
In 1990, he worked with
auteur Jean-Luc Godard, on
Nouvelle vague,
in which he played twins. In 2003, the Walter Reade Theater showed
a series of Delon's films under the
aegis,
Man in the Shadows: The Films of Alain Delon.
Products
Since the formation of a perfume label in his name, Delon has had a
variety of products sold under his name including wristwatches,
clothing, eyewear, stationery and cigarettes.
Delon's
sunglasses brand became particularly popular in Hong Kong
after actor Chow Yun
Fat wore them in the 1986 crime film A Better Tomorrow (as well as two
sequels). Delon reportedly wrote a letter thanking Chow for
helping the sunglasses sell out in the region. The film's director
John Woo has acknowledged Delon as one of
his idols and wrote a short essay on
Le
Samourai as well as
Le
Cercle Rouge for the
Criterion Collection DVD
releases.
Relationships
On 20 March 1959, Delon was engaged to actress
Romy Schneider, whom he met when they
co-starred in the film
Christine (1958). During their
relationship, it was speculated he had an affair with
German actress and singer
Nico. On 11 August 1962 Nico gave birth to a son,
Ari (Christian Aaron), who she
claimed was fathered by Delon. The child was raised mostly by
Delon's parents.
In December 1963, Schneider and Delon decided to break the
engagement. On 13 August 1964, Delon married
Nathalie Barthélemy. Their son,
Anthony Delon, was born in September. The
couple divorced on 14 February 1969.
In 1968, during the shooting of
Jeff, he met French actress
Mireille Darc with whom he had a 15-year
relationship until 1982.
In 1987, Delon met
Dutch model
Rosalie van Breemen on the shooting of
the video clip for his song "
Comme au cinéma" and started
a relationship. They had two children: Anouschka (1990) and
Alain-Fabien (1994). The relationship ended in October 2002.
Scandal
In 1968, one of Delon’s bodyguards,
Stevan Markovic, was found shot in the head
in a dumpster outside Delon’s home.
Delon’s friend, Corsican
gangster François Marcantoni, was charged
with accessory to murder.
Delon
himself was held by police for questioning, despite the fact that
the murder took place in Paris, and Delon was filming in St. Tropez
. Delon's then-wife, Nathalie, was also
questioned.
Honours
Filmography
References
- Alain Delon Biography (1935-)
- ALAIN DELON - Products - Introduction
- The Films of John Woo and the Art of Heroic
Bloodshed by Anthony Leong from MediaCircus.net
- The Criterion Collection: Le samourai by
Jean-Pierre Melville
External links
actress Jeon Do-yeon
for her role in Lee Chang Dong's Secret
Sunshine. She became the first South Korean to win a
prize at the Cannes Film
Festival
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