Alain Delon obituary

Blessed with stunning good looks, Alain Delon, who has died aged 88, was destined for stardom. Beauty, drive and charisma more than compensated for lack of formal training. Together with the good fortune of working with gifted filmmakers such as Luchino Visconti, René Clément, Jean-Pierre Melville and Joseph Losey, they made him one of the greatest stars of post-war French cinema, across both auteur and popular films. He indelibly marked his era, projecting a powerful but enigmatic and ambiguous type of masculinity.

Delon was born in 1935 to a modest family in the suburbs of Paris. His mother wanted him to follow in the footsteps of his charcutier stepfather. Having reluctantly completed his apprenticeship, he rapidly escaped by volunteering to fight in Indochina. Back in France he picked up odd jobs, but his looks soon attracted attention, notably from the influential film journalist and agent Georges Beaume….