French actor, heartthrob Alain Delon dies

Paris, August 18

French actor Alain Delon, who melted the hearts of millions of film fans whether playing a murderer, hoodlum or hitman in his postwar heyday, has died, his three children said on Sunday. He was 88.

Delon had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2019, rarely leaving his estate in Douchy, in France’s Val de Loire region.

President Emmanuel Macron hailed him as a giant of French culture. “Alain Delon has played legendary roles and made the world dream. Lending his unforgettable face to shake up our lives. Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star: he was a French monument,” he posted on X.

With striking blue eyes, Delon was sometimes referred to as the “French Frank Sinatra” for his handsome looks, a comparison Delon disliked. Unlike Sinatra, who always denied connections with the Mafia, Delon openly acknowledged his shady pals in the underworld.

In a 1970 interview with the New York Times, Delon was asked about such acquaintances, one of whom was among the last “Godfathers” of the underworld in the Mediterranean port of Marseille.

“Most of them the gangsters I know... were my friends before I became an actor,” he said. “I don’t worry about what a friend does. Each is responsible for his own act. It doesn’t matter what he does.”

Delon shot to fame in two films by Italian director Luchino Visconti, “Rocco and His Brothers” in 1960 and “The Leopard” in 1963.

Delon became a star in France and was idolised by men and women in Japan, but never made it as big in Hollywood despite performing with American cinema giants, including Burt Lancaster when the Frenchman played apprentice-hitman Scorpio in the eponymous 1973 film. — Reuters