Film legend Alain Delon was buried on Saturday in a personal funeral attended by his youngsters, family and shut associates as followers mourned exterior the gates of his nation property the place he was laid to relaxation close to his beloved canine.
The 88-year-old star of such classics as “Le Samourai” and “Purple Noon”, who was as soon as described as “Europe’s James Dean”, died on Sunday.
French police had arrange roadblocks close to the manor within the village of Douchy, with the airspace overhead additionally closed for all the weekend.
The 50 or so mourners allowed into the property’s personal chapel needed to go away their cellphones on the door to make sure strict privateness.
Veteran Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, 86, who starred reverse Delon in “The Leopard”, was “too sad” to come back, her agent informed AFP.
“They ask me to put into words (the grief),” she mentioned after his dying, “but the sadness is too intense”.
But Rosalie van Breemen, Delon’s ex-wife and mom of his youngsters Anouchka and Alain-Fabien, was current, sources near proceedings informed AFP.
Fans had left numerous floral tributes and playing cards on the manor gates all week, with round 100 individuals gathered there on Saturday to say goodbye.
“I wanted to pay him homage, even from behind the gates, on the day of the funeral, as a symbolic gesture,” Marie-Christine Guibert, a neighbour, informed AFP.
“I really had to be here,” mentioned Maxime Ducharme, 28. “I inherited a passion for Delon from my parents.”
Delon’s three youngsters — who have been with him when he died — informed AFP that they have been “extremely touched by the fervor and affection shown by his fans in France and across the world.”
Since his dying, France has been paying homage to Delon, one of many nation’s largest however most divisive stars.
He was one of many final residing legends of a golden period of French cinema within the Sixties.
While he had legions of followers around the globe, Delon’s relations with ladies precipitated controversy. His sons accused him of home violence, which Delon denied whereas admitting to slapping ladies.
The actor additionally drew criticism for supporting Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the far-right National Front, and for his opposition to same-sex relationships.
Feminists have been appalled by the lifetime achievement award the Cannes Film Festival gave him in 2019.
Delon lived his later years largely as a recluse, although his private life saved him within the headlines.
In 2023, his three youngsters filed a grievance in opposition to his live-in assistant Hiromi Rollin, accusing her of harassment and threatening conduct.
The siblings went on to wage a public battle within the media and the courts, arguing over his well being, which worsened after a stroke in 2019.
Even in dying, he was nonetheless making headlines after it emerged that he requested for his favourite canine to be put down and buried with him.
But his longtime good friend and fellow Sixties display icon Brigitte Bardot mentioned the Belgian malinois known as Loubo can be spared.
“The family of Alain Delon have confirmed to us that they will take care of him. Loubo will of course not be euthanised,” her basis mentioned on the X social media platform.
French TV presenter Stephane Bern mentioned Delon’s want to be buried along with his canine was very him, evaluating him to Frederick the Great of Prussia who did the identical.
It was a gesture “of majesty and panache”, he mentioned, “very Delon, worthy of a Leopard who had become a misanthrope.”
“I have absolutely no fear of death,” the actor insisted in 2011, posing for images exterior the tomb the place he supposed to be buried.
Despite his repute as an inveterate womaniser each on and off the display, Delon, a Catholic, mentioned his “mad passion” was for the Virgin Mary.
“She is the woman I love most in the world,” he mentioned, “the one I talk most to.”
© 2024 AFP