59 Fun Facts About Alain Delon

Delon played the assassin of which revolutionary in Joseph Losey's 1972 film co-starring Richard Burton?

Leon Trotsky. Delon played the Soviet agent who befriended one of the exile's followers to get inside his Mexican home and kill him, with Richard Burton as the victim.

Delon's father later ran a cinema in Bourg-la-Reine; what was his job there when Alain was born?

Projectionist. His mother worked in a pharmacy in the same town; the couple divorced when Alain was four and placed him with a foster family.

Whose execution did the young Delon hear from his foster family's home next to Fresnes prison in 1945?

Pierre Laval. Vichy's former premier swallowed poison on the morning of his execution, so doctors revived him to face the firing squad whose volley the nine-year-old heard next door.

In which trade did the teenage Delon earn a vocational certificate?

Charcuterie. His mother had married a pork butcher in Bourg-la-Reine and put the boy to work in the family shop, a future he escaped at 17 by enlisting.

Which branch of the armed forces did Delon join at 17, serving in Indochina?

The Navy. Posted ashore in Saigon, he spent almost a year of his service locked up for indiscipline and was dishonourably discharged.

What did Delon steal while serving in Indochina, one of the offences behind his dishonourable discharge?

A jeep. He took it without permission and crashed it, one of a string of offences that had him spending his 20th birthday in a military prison.

Which Hollywood producer offered the young Delon a seven-year contract on condition he learn English?

David O. Selznick, whose offer Delon never took up: director Yves Allégret gave him a small part in a French crime film, and he chose to stay and start his career at home.

Which American star played the Sicilian prince at the centre of The Leopard, opposite Delon?

Burt Lancaster. A decade later the two were reunited in the spy thriller Scorpio, with Delon as the assassin the CIA sends to kill his old mentor.

Which actress chose Delon as her leading man in Christine (1958) and became his fiancee?

Romy Schneider. The Sissi star and the newcomer first met at Orly airport for the press with no language in common, and were a couple by the end of the shoot.

Which Patricia Highsmith character did Delon play in Purple Noon (1960)?

Tom Ripley. Highsmith approved of Delon in the part but not of the ending: in her novel the murderer gets away with it, while the film leaves the police closing in.

Who directed Rocco and His Brothers (1960), in which Delon played the title role?

Luchino Visconti. He cast the Frenchman as a gentle southern migrant who boxes only to keep his family afloat in Milan, and had him dubbed into Italian.

Which veteran French star played the old crook who recruits Delon's young thief in Any Number Can Win (1963)?

Jean Gabin. Delon had been captivated by him in Touchez pas au grisbi, seen in a Saigon cinema during his military service; the pair made two more crime films together.

Which Antonioni film paired Delon with Monica Vitti in 1962?

L'Eclisse. Delon's stockbroker and Vitti's translator agree to meet that evening at their usual spot, but in the famous final sequence the camera waits there alone: neither of them comes.

What did Delon take instead of a salary for the heist film Any Number Can Win?

Its rights in several countries. The backers said he could do the film for free, so he sold it himself in Japan and elsewhere, and his co-star grumbled that Delon made ten times his own fee.

Which character did Delon play in the 1963 epic The Leopard?

Tancredi. The prince's penniless nephew fights for Garibaldi's rebels, then courts the rich mayor's daughter, a match his uncle backs because the boy's ambitions will need her money.

In The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), Delon's Italian photographer romances a gangster's girlfriend played by which star?

Shirley MacLaine. Her character falls for the photographer while the mobster is away on business, then gives him up and goes back to the gangster.

Which singer-actor starred opposite Delon in the 1966 comedy Western Texas Across the River?

Dean Martin. He plays a rough frontier guide who nicknames Delon's fugitive Spanish duke 'Baldy' as the two ride into Texas together.

Who directed Delon as the hitman Jef Costello in Le Samourai (1967)?

Jean-Pierre Melville. By his own account he read Delon the script aloud; after seven and a half minutes without a word of dialogue, the actor stopped him and said he would do it.

What pet does hitman Jef Costello keep in his spartan Paris apartment in Le Samourai?

A small bird in a cage. The director cast a female bullfinch for its muted colours, and it earns its keep: scattered feathers warn Costello that the police have been in to bug the room.

Le Samourai reached US cinemas dubbed in 1972 under which new title?

The Godson. The New York Times headed its review 'No Relation to Godfather', and its critic praised the original while calling the English dubbing dreadful.

Which 1968 Delon film with Marianne Faithfull was the first to receive an X rating in the United States?

The Girl on a Motorcycle. Warner Bros. later trimmed it to win an R and re-released it to Americans under a new title, Naked Under Leather.

Which 1969 thriller reunited Delon and his former fiancee on the French Riviera?

La Piscine. Delon insisted she be cast over the producers' misgivings, and they played a couple whose lazy summer by the pool ends with a house guest drowned.

Stefan Markovic, whose 1968 murder grew into a scandal touching Georges Pompidou, had worked for Delon as what?

His bodyguard. Markovic had written to his brother that if he were killed, Delon and a Corsican gangster friend would be to blame; both were questioned, but the case was never solved.

Which fellow French star co-starred with Delon in the 1970 gangster hit Borsalino?

Jean-Paul Belmondo. He then took Delon, who was also the producer, to court because the billing put Delon's name ahead of his, against their contract.

What do Delon and his partners rob in Le Cercle Rouge's long near-silent heist?

A jewellery shop. The break-in on Place Vendôme goes off perfectly; the gang is undone afterwards, when their fence refuses to take the haul.

Which Japanese star joined Delon and Charles Bronson in the Western Red Sun (1971)?

Toshiro Mifune. He plays a samurai with seven days to win back the ceremonial sword that Delon's bandit steals from Japan's ambassador, or take his own life in disgrace.

With which singer did Delon record the spoken part of the 1973 hit Paroles, paroles?

Dalida. The two had been friends since the 1950s, when both were unknowns in Paris; on the record he murmurs sweet nothings and she brushes them off as mere words.

Which masked hero did Delon play in a 1975 Italian-French film?

Zorro. One of the first Western films shown in China after the Cultural Revolution, it reportedly drew tens of millions there and made Delon a household name.

In Monsieur Klein (1976), Delon's art dealer in occupied Paris is mistaken for what?

A Jewish man of the same name. Klein has been buying art on the cheap from Jews desperate to flee; unable to shake off the other man's identity, he ends up deported himself.

Delon's last bid for Hollywood stardom was a 1979 disaster sequel set aboard which aircraft?

Concorde. He played the French captain flying it to Paris under attack; the fourth Airport film did poorly in America, and he went back to making thrillers at home.

Playing an alcoholic in Notre histoire (1984) brought Delon which acting award, one he won only that once?

A César. Nominated for Monsieur Klein, he had lost; France's top film prize came years later for a garage owner whose life is upended by a stranger on a train.

In which 1990 Jean-Luc Godard film did Delon play a dual role?

Nouvelle Vague. A drifter is left to drown by the rich woman who took him in; then a harder man with the same face arrives, calling himself his brother, and takes over her affairs.

Which Roman leader did Delon play in the 2008 hit Asterix at the Olympic Games?

Julius Caesar. He sent himself up: the vain emperor's big speech name-checks the leopard, the samurai, Rocco and the Sicilian clan, then ends 'Ave me!'

What did Delon receive at Cannes 2019 amid controversy over his remarks about women?

An honorary Palme d'Or. His daughter Anouchka handed it to him, and a tearful Delon told the audience it felt like a posthumous tribute paid while he was still alive.

Which world middleweight champion did Delon promote title fights for in the 1970s?

Carlos Monzon. Delon staged his 1974 defence against José Nápoles under a circus big top at Puteaux, outside Paris, where the Argentine kept his title.

Delon-branded sunglasses sold out in Asia after which actor's trench-coat-and-shades look in A Better Tomorrow (1986)?

Chow Yun-fat. His gangster Mark was dressed after Delon's hitman in Le Samouraï, coat and all, and young men across Hong Kong copied the look despite the heat.

Which role in Lawrence of Arabia did Delon decline after a successful audition?

Sherif Ali. Accounts differ on why he walked away, brown contact lenses he disliked or a clash with The Leopard; the part went to the Egyptian star Omar Sharif.

Producer Robert Evans considered Delon for which role in The Godfather?

Michael Corleone. Evans thought Delon was the type the novel described, but director Francis Ford Coppola dug in for the little-known Al Pacino and got his way.

Bernardo Bertolucci considered Delon for the lead in which film before the part went to an American star?

Last Tango in Paris. In one account Delon would do it only if he could produce it too; in another he passed and put forward Marlon Brando, who took the part either way.

A still of Delon from The Unvanquished appears on the cover of which 1986 album by The Smiths?

The Queen Is Dead. Delon wrote to approve the use of his image, though by Morrissey's account he added that his parents were upset anyone would give an album that title.

Which singer maintained that Delon was the father of her son Ari, born in 1962?

Nico. Delon always denied it, yet his own mother raised the boy, who took the surname of her second husband, Boulogne.

Which actress, his co-star in Jeff (1969), was Delon's partner for some fifteen years?

Mireille Darc. They stayed close after parting: in 2007 the former couple went back on stage together in Paris, as the lovers of The Bridges of Madison County.

Delon's daughter Anouchka and son Alain-Fabien were born to which Dutch model?

Rosalie van Breemen. She was cast in the video for his 1987 single Comme au cinéma, and the couple stayed together for fourteen years.

Which neighbouring country gave Delon a second citizenship after he settled there?

Switzerland. He had lived at Chêne-Bougeries, outside Geneva, since the 1980s; in March 2000 he took the oath in Geneva with some 70 others, then left before the traditional toast.

Which political tradition did Delon say he was raised in?

Gaullism. 'I was raised in the spirit of General de Gaulle,' he said on French television in 2010, adding that it had never stopped him being friends with the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Which world leader did Delon interview for TV5Monde in September 2022?

Volodymyr Zelensky. The two spoke by video link, one former actor to another, and Delon remarked that the Ukrainian president was having a finer end to his career than he was.

Police who searched Delon's house in February 2024 took away 72 of what?

Firearms. He had a permit for none of them: a court official visiting the house had noticed a weapon and alerted a judge, and officers also found a shooting range in the grounds.

What did Delon ask should happen to his dog Loubo after his own death?

Be put down and buried with him. Animal charities protested, and his children agreed that Loubo would not be killed and would stay with the family.

Where did Delon die on 18 August 2024, aged 88?

His home in Douchy. He had asked for no national ceremony and was laid to rest privately in the chapel he had built in the grounds, on an estate he had owned since the 1970s.

What verbal habit was Delon known for?

Referring to himself in the third person. 'Delon' had become a label, he said in a 1991 television interview, and he had to go on being it and playing it because the public wanted it.

Which French screen icon played opposite Delon in Louis Malle's segment of Spirits of the Dead (1968)?

Brigitte Bardot. She plays the courtesan his cruel officer battles at cards all night in the Poe tale William Wilson; the two stayed friends, and when he died she said she had lost an alter ego.

Which role is producer Albert Broccoli said to have offered Delon in 1979?

James Bond. The story is producer Alain Terzian's: he says Broccoli made the offer while shooting a 007 film in the studio next to Delon's own set, and nothing came of it.

In Le Samourai, Delon's hitman wears a belted trench coat with which kind of hat?

A fedora. The silhouette was borrowed from Alan Ladd's hired gun in the 1942 Hollywood thriller This Gun for Hire, and screen hitmen have been copying it ever since.

Which Madonna song, from her album MDNA, is a tribute to Delon?

Beautiful Killer. French DJ Martin Solveig drafted it with Madonna after the two found they shared a love of Le Samouraï, Delon's 1967 film about a solitary hitman.

Which Welsh singer duetted with Delon on the 1983 single 'Thought I'd Ring You'?

Shirley Bassey joined him for his return to the recording studio, ten years after his first hit duet, and a year later she released the song again with Dynasty actor Al Corley in his place.

In the hit French TV crime drama Fabio Montale, Delon played what kind of character?

A stylish ageing policeman, taken from Jean-Claude Izzo's Marseille crime novels. The TF1 trilogy did so well that Delon went on to produce and star in a second police series, Frank Riva.

Christian Dior's 2009 campaign used a 1960s photograph of the young Delon to sell which men's cologne?

Eau Sauvage. Dior's posters used a 1960s shot by the photographer Jean-Marie Périer, but the cigarette Delon held in the original was erased for the advertisement.

Which Hong Kong director calls Delon one of his idols and wrote Criterion essays on Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge?

Delon reportedly wrote to Chow Yun-fat to thank him for boosting his sunglasses sales via A Better Tomorrow.

Which organisation did Delon quit as honorary life president in 2013 after it criticised his praise for the National Front?

The Miss France committee publicly distanced itself from his remarks, so a stung Delon resigned by letter. 'It is not you who are dropping me; it is I who am leaving,' he wrote, calling the row absurd.