“EBeing an actress is an accident. I’m an accident. My life is an accident. My career is an accident”

A cinema legend whose stormy life could have been a movie passed away on Sunday. The reason for Alain Delon, whose death was announced by his children. The great French actor, born on November 8, 1935, passed away this morning at the age of 88.

“Alain Fabian, Anouska, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Lubo, announce with immense sadness that their father has passed away. He passed away peacefully at his home in Doushi, surrounded by his three children and his own. (…) His family asks that you respect their private moments at this time of extremely painful bereavement,” stated in the announcement.

With angelic beauty, but also an excellent actor, who did not hesitate to “wrinkle” for the sake of his role, Delon starred, among others, in the films of Clément, Melville and Visconti, while Hollywood was not unmoved by his presence.

In recent years marked his life the intra-family squabbles between his children over property.

He was known as one of Europe’s most prominent actors and sex symbols in the 1960s and 1970s.

He won accolades for his roles in films such as: Naked in the Sun (1960), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), The Eclipse (1962), The Cheetah (1963), The Angel Face Killer (1967), The Pool (1969), The Red Circle (1970), The Cop (1972) and Mr. Klein (1976). During his career, Delon collaborated with many well-known directors, including Luchino Visconti, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Louis Malle.

In 1985 he won the César Award for Best Actor for his performance in Our Story (1984). In 1991, he was awarded the Legion of Honor of France. At the 45th Berlin International Film Festival he was awarded the honorary Golden Bear. Also in 2019 at the Cannes Film Festival, he received the honorary Palme d’Or for his overall contribution to the seventh art.

In 1997 he announced his retirement from acting, at the age of 62.

Delon was born in Saus (now Hauts-de-Seine), Île-de-France, a wealthy suburb of Paris. His parents, Edith (née Arnold, 1911–1995) and Fabian Delon (1904–1977), divorced when Delon was four years old. Both remarried, and as a result, Delon has a half-sister and two half-brothers. His paternal grandmother was Corsican, from Prunelli di Fiumorbo. When his parents divorced, Delon was sent to live with foster parents. After the death of the foster parents, Delon’s parents jointly assumed custody of him, but the arrangement did not prove satisfactory. He attended a Catholic boarding school, the first of many schools from which he was expelled for unruly behavior. Delon left school at 14 and worked briefly in his stepfather’s butcher shop. He enlisted in the French Navy three years later, aged 17, and during 1953-1954 served as a marine in First Indochina War.