The mortal remains of Alain Delon, the French film star of international fame, were laid to rest in a religious ceremony on Saturday at a country estate in Douchy in central France, attended by close family and friends. Shortly before the funeral service – at 4.00 pm – his two sons, Anthony and Alain-Fabien, greeted around one hundred admirers of Delon at the fence of the estate.
Delon died on 18 August at the age of 88, surrounded by his children Anthony (59), Annouchka (33) and Alain-Fabien (30). The actor himself had already decided on his funeral years before his death, which was celebrated by Jean-Michel di Falco, the former Bishop of Gap and long-time pastor of French celebrities.
Only around fifty people attended the ceremony, including Rosalie van Breemen, the actor’s ex-wife and mother of his two younger children, and Paul Belmondo, son of an old friend and rival, the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Delon’s former partner, the heroine from the film ‘The Leopard’, Claudia Cardinale, 86, did not take part in the farewell ceremony because it would have been ‘too painful’ for her. Everyone present at the farewell ceremony had to hand in their mobile phones due to the confidential nature of the event. At the request of the family, the authorities banned all flights over the site for the weekend. The funeral service took place in the chapel of the La Brulerie estate, which Delon had bought in 1971. Delon was buried near the graves of his dogs.
‘Delon will always be Delon. He always looks good’
Delon had the closest relationship with his daughter Anouchka, who adored her father throughout her life:
‘Because no matter what happens, as they say, ‘the show must go on!’ Delon will always be Delon. He always looks good. Always immaculate. Always elegant. Like a good wine. Eternally great.’
– as Annouchka Delon wrote about a photo in July. It shows Alain during a hairdressing appointment – the last published photos of Delon.
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‘How beautiful I thought he was. He thought he was beautiful too.’
– Anouchka added. She also thanked hairstylist Fabien Provost for his ‘unwavering friendship’.
Anouchka adores her father Alain Delon
The world was able to share their deep mutual affection back in May 2024, when Anouchka released footage from 2019 during the Cannes Film Festival:
‘One of the most beautiful moments of my life … You and me against the whole world, ad vitam aeternam [engl.: for all eternity].’
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Anouchka comes from Delon’s relationship with Dutch model Rosalie van Breemen, 55, and works as an actress. The 33-year-old lives in Switzerland with her husband Julien Dereims and their son.
The last of a lost era
The hole left by Alain Delon can be recognised by the fact that he is the last of the old-world style of the old, white, wise man. Even the postmodern, belibig-not-saying French President Emmanuel Macron put it this way on ‘X’:
‘Melancholic, popular, mysterious, he was more than a star: a French monument.’
And Delon’s friend, the right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen:
‘The legend has disappeared. Alain Delon leaves us orphans of the golden age of French cinema, which he embodied so well. It is a small part of France that we love that goes with him.’,
Alain Delon had never made a secret of his conservative convictions and his spiritual closeness to the right. The latter now honoured him with his last words:
‘As a sincere patriot and man of the right, Alain Delon always defended a certain idea of France.’
– as Eric Ciotti, leader of the Republicans, who wrote to the RN. (rfi)
Alain Delon:
A szép és a nagyszerű a jobb oldalon van, a csúnya és a mocskos a bal oldalon! pic.twitter.com/M6hufZWFxF
— Bede Zsolt (@Bede_Zsolti) August 18, 2024
And the resigned Minister for Equality between Women and Men, Aurore Bergé, recalled…
… ‘his beauty, his looks, his voice, his elegance, his style, his freedom… Giants are eternal and our national emotions are immense.’
And even the leader of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, paid tribute to him
‘With the death of Alain Delon, an icon of cinema has gone, and for whom the whole world is mourning this morning.’
The socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who had supported Alain Delon in the 2014 municipal elections, also paid tribute to him as a…
… ‘giant’ who ‘will have moulded minds and hearts (…) and leaves behind a career of extraordinary longevity.’ (rfi)
Delon and the women
Alain cultivated – like few before and after him – the heterosexual desire for female seduction. In this way, he also took the sublimated passion of the French troubadours to its logical conclusion and took Goethe at his word:
‘The eternal feminine draws us on.’
Like any successful old, white, wise man, Delon flirted with the fact that he had never understood women:
‘Women are a necessary evil. I’ll probably die without ever having understood them.’
And because Delon’s women in particular understood this coquetry as such, they probably never felt as touched to their core by anyone else as they did by him as their lover. Albeit with the painful realisation of transience.
There are few moments as poignant between a man and a woman, a father and a daughter, which show how an old, white, wise man, at the end of his life, marked by frailty, grief and a longing for death, sets out once again, somewhat reluctantly, to pay homage in public, in order to accept his daughter’s new role as mother. As she seems to whisper to him: ‘You’ll manage!’ (see video below).
But that too is one of the secrets of successful and sought-after white men: to always mix the playful lightness of a child inside…
‘You watch the sun go down in the evening. And then you are startled when it gets dark.’ (Franz Kafka)
Like all great men and women, Alain left too soon. But the impatience that they all had to take with them to the grave now gives way to a confident nonchalance from the spirit of eternity.
‘Reason, eternal and quietly patient, can wait and persevere. Sometimes, when the others rage drunkenly, it must remain silent and mute. But its time comes, it always comes again.’ (Stefan Zweig)
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