Alain Delon has “a rather self-destructive personality and is in search of his own identity,” said director Joseph Losey, whose actor starred in the film “Monsieur Klein,” about him. In 1967 he starred in the cult film “Samurai” and then in “Swimming Pool” together with his ex-lover Romy Schneider. This film was remade in 2016 as A Bigger Splash with Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes.
The “swimming pool” coincided with a huge public scandal, the so-called “Markovic affair”, which reached the highest echelons of France after Delon’s bodyguard Stefan Markovic was found dead in a landfill in 1968, writes The Guardian. François Marcantoni, a well-known underworld figure and long-time friend of Delon, was charged with murder. The charges against the actor were eventually dropped.
But the story fell apart when incriminating photographs belonging to Markovic were discovered, allegedly showing members of the French elite, including the wife of presidential candidate Georges Pompidou. In the end, nothing was proven, but Delon’s close connection to the “gallery of dubious personalities” became widely known to the public, the publication notes.
“I dealt a lot with organized crime, I even touched it,” the actor admitted in 2021.
Delon has recently been plagued by scandals, many of which have been reported in the media. In his later years, he became the victim of a bitter family dispute between his own children.
With the eldest Anthony, born in marriage to Natalie Delon, also Anushka and Alain-Fabien, the fruit of a union with the Dutch model Rosalie van Bremen, with whom Delon broke up at the end of the 2000s. Antonio was born in 1964.
“The same blue eyes, cat-like gait… After spending time in a correctional facility and then in prison for weapons possession, he began acting in films, but found it difficult to shake off the “son” label and decided to devote himself to fashion. He launched a line of leather jackets called AD, against which his father sued him,” writes 20 Minutes.
Later, Delon began to be perceived ambiguously because of his political views. In his old age, he expressed his support for the right-wing National Front (later renamed the National Rally) and its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, whom he called a “dear friend.” In 2016, Delon sparked a new controversy by defending former minister Nadine Morano, who declared France a “white race country” and would not want the republic to become Muslim.
In January this year, Alain Delon’s legal capacity was limited by a court decision. He could no longer take important steps on his own, such as selling his property. His official guardian’s responsibilities also included the selection of doctors who were to monitor the physical condition of the “samurai”, who played the lead role in the crime film of the same name.
at the height of his rise to cinematic Olympus in 1967. As Alain Delon grew older and weaker, the children entered into an open war over his estate. Three, Anthony, Anushka and Alain-Fabien, filed a lawsuit accusing their Japanese partner and former nurse Hiromi Rollin of trying to take advantage of their father.
An art lover, collector of paintings, wines and weapons, he was also a great admirer of General Charles de Gaulle. He spent the last years of his life confined to his home in Douchy, on the Loire. In April 2024, at the insistence of his children, he was placed under reinforced guardianship.
“A hero must always know how to die,” the actor told Le Monde in 2018. “I liked dying because it is the end.”
