Since his stroke in 2019, Alain Delon has been very discreet in the media. His daughter, Anouchka Delon, recently broke the silence on her father’s health, a few weeks after the death of Ari Boulogne, who claimed to be his son but whom the actor never recognized.
[Updated June 07, 2023 at 5:11 p.m.] After celebrating his 87th birthday last November, Alain Delon would rest in his home in Douchy. His health is regularly questioned by his fans, despite the reassuring news shared by his family. Recently, it was his daughter, Anouchka Delon, who gave information on the health of her illustrious father, on the sidelines of an exhibition dedicated to him in Hong Kong.
“He’s fine, he can’t wait. Thanks for asking. Maybe he’ll be there,” she replied during an Instagram Q&A session, as her followers asked about the actor. With the JDD on May 29, 2022, he said he felt “physically rather well” while admitting to being “tired”.
Alain Delon has been very discreet in recent weeks, especially after the announcement of the death of Ari Boulogne. The latter claimed to be the illegitimate son that the actor would have had with the singer Nico, but the Cheetah has always refused to recognize him as his son. Photographer and actor, Ari Boulogne died at the age of 60 on May 20, 2023. His body was found in an advanced state of decomposition by his companion, who was indicted for failure to assist a person in danger, manslaughter, transportation, possession, acquisition and disposal of narcotics. She claims that her companion would have died of an overdose but that she would not have warned the authorities so as not to be the subject of legal proceedings.
Alain Delon has been one of the greatest French actors of his generation since the launch of his career in 1957. Born on November 8, 1935, the “beautiful face” of French cinema quickly established himself as a giant in his profession thanks to his obvious magnetism and his charismatic presence. Nicknamed “Le Guépard” or “Le Samouraï”, he is one of the last great artists of the French seventh art still alive.
We have also seen him in other great classics, such as “Rocco et ses frères”, “La Piscine or even “Borsalino” opposite his friend and sometimes rival, Jean-Paul Belmondo. He also frequented great artists, like Romy Schneider or Mireille Darc, which helped fuel his legend with peoples magazines. Alain Delon received an honorary Palme d’Or for Lifetime Achievement at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. But since the 2000s , he was very rare in the cinema. His stroke, which occurred in 2019, took him away from film sets for good.
Alain Delon was born on November 8, 1935 in Sceaux, near Paris. After the divorce of his parents when he was only four years old, Alain Delon was placed in a foster family. His adoptive father is a prison guard, so he grew up in the middle of the Fresnes prison. When his adoptive parents died, he returned to live with his mother and stepfather in the Paris region.
In an interview for Paris Match in January 2018, the great actor explains the bruises he experienced very early in his life and especially the separation from his parents, who decided to place him in a foster family while he was only four years old. “I never saw my parents together. My father on one side, my mother on the other. Each on one shore and me on an island in between.” Alain Delon says he “understood early on what breakup, abandonment and loneliness was […] I was not their priority. I was four years old and they fired me.” Bitter, he recalls his parents becoming close to him after he became famous. “But all that doesn’t make up for what I didn’t have as a child, what I wasn’t given, the love of my parents.”
At 14, Alain Delon passed a CAP Charcuterie and worked with his father-in-law. At 17, he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Indochina. He returned before the end of the war and went to Paris in 1956 to find work. During this period, he worked as a longshoreman at Les Halles and a waiter in a café. He also rubs shoulders with gigolos and the world of the underworld, in particular the Three Ducks gang. Two years after his installation, his meeting with Jean-Claude Brialy, who took him with him to the Cannes Film Festival, will allow him to get noticed in the cinema world.
Alain Delon plays for the first time at the cinema in When the woman gets involved, by Yves Allégret, before appearing in the comedy Sois belle et tais-toi, alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, who is also starting out his career. However, it was in 1960 that the young actor became a real film star in Plein Soleil by René Clément, followed in 1961 by Rocco et ses frères by Luchino Visconti. Alain Delon then turned more to dramatic films, notably playing the role of Tancrède in Le Guépard in 1963. The French actor began an international career, notably filming The Centurions, The Killers of San Francisco and Texas, here we are in Hollywood. But it will be in France that Alain Delon will know his greatest successes.
Alain Delon has starred in over 90 films throughout his film career. Even if he is best known for his roles as a gangster such as in Le Samouraï or Borsalino, the actor has never ceased to change register, from drama to action or even thriller, passing a few times by comedy. Alain Delon has also established himself in adventure films such as La Tulipe Noire, in detective films such as Mélodie en sous-sol by Henri Verneuil or Adieu L’ami by Jean Herman. Among his most famous roles, we must add the couple he played in La Piscine with Romy Schneider. Alain Delon, in the mid-1970s, also started producing films and tried his hand at directing with, among others, Pour la peau d’un flic and Jeff.
After announcing the end of his film career in 1999, Alain Delon will play again in a few films: The Actors released in 2000 and Asterix at the Olympic Games in 2008. But between the years 1990 and 2010, it is mainly on the theater boards or in a few television series that the public has been able to see. Since then, his appearances on the big screen have become increasingly rare: he nevertheless played his own role in 2018 in Tout resemblance…, and should appear in Patrice Leconte’s next film, La Maison vide, alongside Juliette Binoche. . In 2019, he received a Palme d’honneur at the Cannes Film Festival for his entire career.
Alain Delon has lived many love stories. In particular, the actor is credited with relationships with singer Dalida, actress Maddly Bamy and Anne Parillaud. Among his most publicized relationships are those he has had with Romy Schneider, Nathalie Delon (his only wife), Mireille Darc or even Rosalie Van Breemen, the mother of his last two children. In 2021, Alain Delon announces that he has been in a relationship with a certain Hiromi for several years, without revealing more about their love life.
The first woman who marked Alain Delon’s life was Romy Schneider. The couple met on the set of the film Christine, in 1958. It was love at first sight: the two stars got engaged a year later, on March 22, 1959. Nicknamed “the fiancés of Europe”, the two actors will live more than 5 years a passionate story. They nevertheless separated in 1963. The mythical couple of the seventh art will nevertheless find themselves in front of the camera of Jacques Deray in 1969, in La Piscine.
It was in a Parisian nightclub that Alain Delon met Nathalie for the first time. The words shared are then only uncordial as she recounted on Dim Dam Dom “Would you mind getting up just a little bit, so I can get my bag? Take it, your bag , I really don’t give a shit.” Shortly after, while the Delon-Schneider couple struggled until the engagement broke down, Nathalie and Alain Delon married on August 13, 1964, facing the priest and two witnesses. They then set sail aboard the France for Los Angeles where Anthony Delon was born on September 30, 1964. But happiness was only short-lived for Nathalie Delon. “When I left him, I left everything behind me, I left with my son and my governess, that’s all”. She divorced Alain Delon in 1969 when he began a relationship with Mireille Darc.
Nathalie Delon died on January 21, 2021 from cancer. She was 79 years old. Alain Delon then wanted to pay tribute to the one who was “the only Mrs. Delon” with AFP: “Nathalie was my first wife and the only Mrs. Delon. We got married in 1964. We had remained constantly in touch. We saw each other often. I was part of her life, she was part of mine […] It always hurts me a lot when those I loved leave. She was a very good actress. I made her debut in the cinema. She was made for that.”
After his divorce with Nathalie Sand, Alain Delon begins a new story with Mireille Darc. They met on the set of Jeff in 1969 before starting a romantic relationship. They will become one of the most glamorous and prominent couples of the 70s and 80s. However, the leading couple of French cinema separated in 1987, the actress not being able to have children. Although they separated after 15 years together, Mireille Darc and Alain Delon have never ceased to be friends. This is why the actor will also be affected by the death of Mireille Darc. Died at the end of August 2017, the actress represented for him much more than a large part of his life. “It’s not a part of my life that is leaving, it’s my life,” he told Paris Match before uttering disturbing words: “Without her, I can leave too.”
After his separation from Mireille Darc, Alain Delon found love again in the arms of the Dutch model Rosalie Van Breemen. Together, they will have two children, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien Delon, but will separate a few years later in 2001.
Alain Delon officially has three children. Anthony Delon, born in 1964 from his union with Nathalie Sand. After a difficult youth, and many conflicts with his father, Anthony will follow in the footsteps of Alain Delon by starting a career as an actor. He would star in films such as The Truth If I Lie! or Polisse before devoting himself to the theater. With Rosalie Van Breemen, the actor will have had two other children, Anouchka Delon, actress with whom he played on the boards the play An ordinary day and Alain-Fabien Delon. At 23, the last son of the actor is a model for the biggest brands and has notably become one of the muses of Dior, like his father before him.
Alain Delon would have had a fourth child, the fruit of the actor’s affair with the German singer Nico. Alain Delon will never recognize him as his son. Ari Boulogne is now a photographer.
In June 2019, Alain Delon suffered a stroke, reported a few weeks later by his son Antony in the media. “My father had a cardiovascular accident and a slight cerebral hemorrhage a few weeks ago,” said the latter. Operated at Pitié Salpêtrière, Alain Delon remained there for three weeks in intensive care before taking rest in a luxury clinic in Switzerland. Anthony Delon clarified that the vital functions of the legend of French cinema were “perfect” and that his condition had “stabilized”. A snap posted to Instagram a few days later showed the actor all smiles. “As you can see he is getting better and better and he kisses you,” Alain Delon’s son wrote on the photo to his followers. After several weeks of convalescence in Switzerland, the actor could have returned to his domain of Douchy, in the Loiret.
On November 8, 2020, Alain Delon celebrated his 85th birthday. For the occasion, he answered a few questions at the microphone of RTL, taking the opportunity to give some quick news on the way he is doing, relatively reassuring but very succinct: “I’m fine […] I’m doing as you can to be 85. There are ups and downs, but it’s okay,” he said simply. However, he did not go to the funeral of his ex-wife, Nathalie Delon, in January 2021, for health reasons.
Alain Delon regularly evokes his own death in the media, after seeing several of his relatives leave, including Mireille Darc. In a special issue of Paris Match, in 2018, before his stroke, the French actor said he was already ready for death: “I know that I will leave this world without regrets. Everything is ready, I have my grave in my chapel, there are six seats.” During the Cannes Film Festival 2019, Alain Delon was also extremely lucid about his state of health. At the time of receiving his palme d’honneur, given by his daughter Anouchka in person, the French actor had declared that this distinction was “a bit of a posthumous tribute, but in [s]on vivant”. “Now what’s difficult is to leave, because I’m going to leave (…) For me, more than the end of a career, I think it’s an end of life,” he added. . The man nicknamed “the Cheetah” has several times referred to his death and said he is in favor of assisted suicide, a legal practice in Switzerland, a country of which he has been a citizen since 1999.
In an interview with the JDD on May 29, 2022, Alain Delon confided “not to be afraid of dying”, while being aware that “all [his] friends are gone”, just like “the women of his life”. The actor is “not afraid of dying” but is “afraid of suffering”. “I don’t want to end up in a hospital bed.” Alain Delon has never hidden being in favor of euthanasia and the right to die with dignity. However, the actor would like to shoot one last film, “the one that will stay forever, he explained to TV5 Monde in 2021. And then I can leave, I won’t have anything else to do.”
Alain Delon will forever be associated, in one way or another, with Jean-Paul Belmondo. Constantly compared, the two men had woven very strong bonds, made of respect, rivalry, affection and friendship. They toured together several times, notably in Borsalino and Une chance sur deux. For the actor of the Clan of the Sicilians, the death of Jean-Paul Belmondo, September 6, 2021, was a real test. He confided in Monday evening at the microphone of CNews. “I’m completely devastated, I’m going to try to hold on so I don’t do the same thing in 5 hours. Mind you, it would be nice if we both left together”, he reacted. “We started together 60 years ago. We met on the set of the movie ‘Weak Women’, he was no more than me, I was no more than him”.
At the microphone of Europe 1, Alain Delon added a few words: “There was Belmondo, there was Gabin, there was Ventura, there are not many others. […] He’s a colleague, we’ve known each other for 60 years, worked together and been so close to each other. I’m overwhelmed. […] It made me crazy, he was my age. We both made French cinema, he and I, we are two icons of French cinema, we can’t talk about one without talking about the other “.