The French actor Alain Delonan instrumental figure in more than five decades of constant transformations in national cinematography, He died at the age of 88 at his residence in Douchy, his children announced in a statement on Sunday.

In the message, sent to the French agency AFP, the three children have explained that the death occurred “peacefully” in the house that Alain Delon owned in Douchy, in central France. On behalf of the family, they asked that the “your privacy at this time of extremely painful mourning.”

Delon leaves behind a legacy of 122 films, 88 of them as an actor, two as a director and 32 as a producer, in a career linked to transcendental directors such as Jean-Pierre Melville (‘‘The Red Circle’, ‘The Silence of a Man’), Luchino Visconti (‘Rocco and his Brothers’, ‘The Leopard’), René Clément (‘In Full Sunlight’) and Louis Malle, during which he expressed the elusive figure of a stoic and vulnerable heartthrob.

In terms of awards, since his first appearance on the big screen in 1957, Delon has been awarded a César for Best Actor in 1985 for Bertrand Blier’s ‘Our Story’; the Honorary Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1995 and the Berlin International Film Festival award. In May 2019, his most notable recognition came with the reception of the Honorary Palme d’Or in Cannes.

Of particular note are his eight collaborations with another unmistakable name, Jean-Paul Belmondo, who died in 2021. Precisely the failure of the last of them, One of Two (Patrice Leconte, 1988), would mark his gradual withdrawal from the screen. Since then, Delon limited himself to sporadic appearances as ‘The Actors’ while he left the public light.