On January 11, 2024, justice mandated a doctor to assess the state of health of Alain Delon, 88 years old and very weakened by a stroke that occurred in 2019. Since the start of the year, through media interventions and judicial, Anouchka (33 years old), Anthony (59 years old) and Alain-Fabien (29 years old), the actor’s three children are torn apart over their father’s inheritance, estimated at several tens of millions of euros.
Far from this dull outcome, the first mentions of the actor in The world suggest a career very quickly promised to legend: on May 14, 1958, the journalist Michel Legris published a review of Be beautiful and stop talking, by Marc Allégret, in which he states that “young Alain Delon confirms his qualities”. For the film critic Jean de Baroncelli, on June 1, 1959, the actor also showed “an obvious personality” throughout his first roles, at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. On the release of the masterpieces Full sun, by René Clément (1960), Rocco and his brothers, de Luchino Visconti (1960), ou The Samurai, by Jean-Pierre Melville (1967), each column praises the talents of the young star of French cinema.
But, from October 15, 1968, cinematic praise was intertwined with a murder investigation. Two weeks earlier, Stevan Markovitch, bodyguard of the couple formed by Alain and Nathalie Delon, was found dead, tied up and gagged, in a dump in Yvelines. The newspaper follows the case in every detail: the numerous hearings of the actor, placed in police custody in January 1969, his presentation before the investigating judge and this letter addressed to the President of the Republic, April 27, 1970 , in which Alain Delon denounces “a police plot hatched against him”.
“Sympathy” for Jean-Marie Le Pen
Cinema seems to be gradually moving into the background. The idol disconcerted in the mid-1980s, notably because of his political positions. In November 1984, Daniel Schneidermann took advantage of the Swiss residence permit granted to the actor, who set up his company’s headquarters in Geneva, to detail his ideas: “Alain Delon does not like the left, he has never made a secret of it. He also does not hide his sympathy for Mr. Jean-Marie Le Pen, a “sincere man”.” writes the journalist.