Biography for Alain Delon

The product of a broken home, expelled from several schools, Delon enlisted in the French marines in 1953 at age 17 and was a parachutist at the siege of Dienbienphu in Indochina. Back in France, he drifted until discovered by director Yves Allegret, who cast him in "Quand la femme s'en mele/When the Woman Butts In" (1957). Within a year, Delon was playing leads and made his first real international mark in completely opposed roles in two stunning films helmed by two of the stalwarts of art cinema. "Rocco and His Brothers" (1960) was Luchino Visconti at both his operatic and realistic finest, and Delon's martyred title role was a key part of a harshly haunting landscape. "Purple Noon" (1960), meanwhile, directed by Rene Clement, was a study of evil filmed in bright sunshine, with Delon truly unsettling as a scheming playboy who murders a man and takes his place.

Unlike France's other nascent male sex symbol, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Delon never worked with the innovative directors of the legendary "New Wave". Recognizing Delon's coolly modernist style, Michelangelo Antonioni put the actor to fine, typical use in one of his most important studies of contemporary alienation, "L'Eclisse/The Eclipse" (1962), while Visconti put him in period garb for the superb historical saga, "The Leopard" (1963). Delon alternated these films with routine but popular mainstream features, one of the most popular of which was "Melodie en sous-sol/Any Number Can Win" (1963), which teamed him with Jean Gabin in a story of an aging thief and his new rookie partner. The film suggested both a changing of the guard and the direction Delon's career would soon take.

English-language cinema did, of course, beckon the international matinee idol, but Delon's appearances and successes in British and US fare have been fitful at best, covering comedy ("The Yellow Rolls-Royce" 1964), crime and spy dramas ("Once a Thief" 1965, "Scorpio" 1973), a Western ("Texas Across the River" 1966) and an all-star disaster epic ("The Concorde--Airport '79" 1979). He never seemed fully comfortable in his roles and the films had little of the mystique which was so essential for him to succeed. Those qualities, however, were present in spades for a trilogy of crime dramas helmed by the unique, borderline New Wave filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. "The Samurai" (1967), "Le cercle rouge/The Red Circle" (1970) and "Un flic/A Cop" (1972). These films richly explored the contemporary mythology of gangsters and film noir, in which Delon's angelic-looking but dangerously schizoid characters perfectly set the mood.

Delon's success in crime drama (especially the disappointing but immensely popular "Borsalino" 1970) and the approach of middle age led the actor to continue trying to shake off the "pretty boy" image which had long dogged him. Having briefly established a first production company, Delbeau, in 1964, he set up Adel Productions in 1968, a concern which would produce most of his vehicles until the late 80s, as well as other efforts not starring Delon. If his ambitions in producing and screenwriting suggested a maturing, the shadow of his persona grew dark indeed when he and his then-wife Natalie were involved in a sex, drugs and murder scandal which implicated a number of prominent celebrities and politicians. Delon's bodyguard was found dead in a garbage dump; Delon was ultimately cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, though the incident did highlight the actor's long-standing connections with the French underworld.

Delon's career, though, was untarnished and, often working with smooth visual craftsman Jacques Deray, he embarked on a long series of "policiers", crime dramas in which played smooth criminals and cynical detectives alike. The inevitable sequel "Borsalino & Co." (1974), "Flic Story/Cop Story" (1975) and "Le Gang" (1977) were typical credits, as were two efforts Delon himself directed, "Pour la peau d'un flic/For a Cop's Hide" (1981) and "Le Battant/The Cache" (1983). Among many increasingly routine films, Delon's outstanding 70s credit was Joseph Losey's powerful "Mr. Klein" (1976), a study of a womanizer unfazed by the Nazi era and its treatment of the Jews until he is mistaken for one, requiring identity switches reminiscent of several of the enigmatic Delon's glory roles of past days.

As the "policier" genre sputtered out in the 80s, Delon gradually made fewer films. He did set up a third concern, Leda Productions, and alternated still more routine crime dramas with returns to the art cinema where his career first took off. His sexually amorphous persona suited the homosexual Baron DeCharlus in Volker Schlondorff's Proust adaptation "Swann in Love" (1984), and Delon won a Cesar in Bertrand Blier's offbeat study of a sexually restless young woman and her middle-aged hanger-on, "Notre Histoire/Our Story" (1984). Delon accused the Cannes Film Festival of snubbing the latter partly because of his right-wing politics but nothing came of it. The aging star kept revisiting his past persona via the likes of "Un Crime" (1993) and "The Return of Casanova" (1992). Ironically, he finally made a film, "Nouvelle Vague" (1990), with Jean-Luc Godard, whose New Wave innovations for so long paralleled Delon's tamer journey from art cinema to genre fare.