Alain Delon (born November 8, 1935) is a French actor, one of the best known outside his native country.
Delon was born in Sceaux, France and at 17 he enlisted in the French Marines, serving in Indochina as a parachutist. His breakthrough as a film star came with Plein Soleil, a 1962 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. He also gave tremendous performances in Luchino Visconti's The Leopard and, perhaps his finest moment, Le Samourai. His later work has not reached these heights, and his decline is characteristic of the nouvelle vague of French actors, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo.
In 1973, he made a duet with the French pop singer Dalida on "Paroles... Paroles...", which was a big hit in France, Japan, Canada, etc...
After a string of box office disasters in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the unexpected failure of Patrice Leconte's film Une Chance sur deux , Alain Delon announced his decision to give up acting in 1997. In 1968, Delon and his wife Natalie were at the center of a massive sex, drug and murder scandal when their bodyguard was found shot dead in a garbage dump.
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Last updated: 10-23-2005 20:24:45
