One of the most emblematic and popular actors of French cinema, Alain Delon, was born in 1935 in Sceaux and will play in more than 80 films.
He will begin his career in 1956 with the film Quand la femme s'en mêle by Yves Allégret. Aged 21, he appears for his first scene with Sophie Daumier coming out of a pastry shop.
He reached the rank of movie star in 1960 with Purple Noon, l’adaptation of the novel "Monsieur Ripley" by Patricia Highsmith, directed by René Clément. The following year he will tour Rocco and his brothers by Luchino Visconti, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
The Cinémathèque française devoted a retrospective to him in 1964 when he was not yet 30 years old.
In 1969 he is already a huge actor. Plein Soleil will reveal it internationally. In a decade he will play in more than thirty films directed among others by René Clément, Visconti, Verneuil, Antonioni, Enrico, and Melville...
The American Adventure
Alain Delon will think of a career in Hollywood and will even win a seven-year contract at MGM. Filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah and Tony Richardson plan to shoot with him but the projects do not come to fruition.
Ralph Nelson will direct Once a Thief, adaptation of a novel by John Trinian, the author of The Big Grab (which will give Any Number can win).
The charisma of the actor will not be enough and the success of the film is mixed. He will break his contract and return to France after two other films "Texas Across the River", a parody western by Michael Gordon, and "Lost Command", a war film by Mark Robson.
More references
Alain Delon : "I have a very, very bad temper" (1975) – Les archives de la RTS
M. Klein or the Hell of Curiosity - French Podcast
Bibliography (French Edition)
The Delon Encyclopedia by Patrice Leconte et Guillaume Evin
Alain Delon : A career, a myth by Baptiste Vignol