Of his roughly 90 films, French film star Alain Delon’s most iconic roles were in the 1960s, when he was considered one of the most handsome men in the world.
Here are five of his standout performances:
‘Purple Noon’
Delon, then a 24-year-old dreamboat, captivated cinemagoers as the charming anti-hero Tom Ripley in an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s famous suspense novel, “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”
He played a charismatic con man who kills a wealthy friend with an oar on his yacht and takes his identity, setting off a spiral of sociopathic deception.
Called “Plein Soliel” (“Full Sun”) in French, the deep blue of the dazzling Mediterranean was a fitting frame for the bronzed Adonis Delon, announcing the arrival of a new star.
‘Rocco and his Brothers’
Delon confirmed his talent and status as a screen pin-up later that year as the troubled Rocco in Luchino Visconti’s neo-realist masterpiece, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Although Italian censors cut some violent scenes, Delon was both stunning and heartbreaking in this story of his doomed love for a young prostitute in grim post-war Milan.
‘The Leopard’
Again with the Italian master Visconti at the helm, Delon starred alongside Burt Lancaster in the screen version of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel charting the decline of an Italian aristocratic family in the 1860s.
It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with its epic ballroom scene ensuring its place – and Delon’s – in film history. Delon’s sex appeal and elegance found a fine partner in the sultry Italian-Tunisian actress Claudia Cardinale.
‘The Samurai’
Hollywood’s fascination with hitmen owes much to this brilliant French film noir. Maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville was at the peak of his powers with this tale of a lonesome professional killer played by a severe, ghostly Delon, whose stark, impassive figure in black hat and beige trench coat inspired film-makers from Quentin Tarantino to John Woo and Jim Jarmusch.
‘The Swimming Pool’
Of his many female conquests, Delon said his German co-star in this movie, Romy Schneider – who committed suicide in 1982 – was “the love of his life.”
After a complicated relationship, they were reunited on the set of this dark study of seduction set on the French Riviera where passion turns to jealousy and worse.
‘Monsieur Klein’
Joseph Losey’s now classic psychological chiller of an art dealer who is mistaken for a Jew in Nazi-occupied France was pipped for the top prize at Cannes by Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” but it went on to win a royal flush of Cesars or “French Oscars” for best film, best director and best actor for Delon.
