Alain Delon, Romy Schneider and the other women who marked the life of the French actor who died at the age of 88

Romy Schneider, Mireille Darc and Nathalie Delon They were perhaps the most important women in the life of the French actor, whose death was announced on Sunday, August 18, at the age of 88. “Women saved me, without them things would have gone wrong,” Alain Delon liked to say. His beauty and his power of seduction, however, led him to conquer other beauties who fell for the charm of the Gallic actor. Starting with the actress Brigitte Auber, who launched him into the profession by introducing him to Yves Allégret. “I entered this profession thanks to women,” he said in Le Monde in September 2018. “They are the ones who make me make films. They are the women who love me, give me everything, women who have fallen in love with me.” In Cannes in May 2019, when he had just received the Palme d’Or that crowned his career, Alain Delon, very emotional, said: “Before leaving, I would simply like to tell you that I am thinking of Mireille and Romy.” In 1987 he met Rosalie van Breemen, 31 years his junior. She is the mother of his two youngest children, Anoushka and Alain-Fabien.

Romy Schneider

The leading lady of Sissi Empress was undoubtedly his great love. They met in 1958. She was at the height of her career because of her success in Sissi. He was still a young actor and not so well known. They moved in together on the Avenue de Messine in Paris and got engaged. Until the German actress found a bouquet of roses and a note on her return home. Alain Delon left with Nathalie, whom he married a year later. Their son Anthony was born in 1964. It took Romy Schneider years to recover. They met again in 1969, on the set of The Pool. Romy Schneider, devastated by the accidental death of her son in 1981, committed suicide in 1982. “She told me: ‘I can’t live any more. There was nothing to do. She deliberately let herself die, it’s a voluntary suicide because she never tolerated David’s death. That’s the truth,” she explains in Sarah Briand’s book Romy, a long night of silence.

Nathalie Delon

Nathalie was Nathalie Barthélémy, whom Alain had met in a Parisian nightclub the previous year. Her real name was Francine Canovas. Since 1963, she has been known as Nathalie Delon. She is the only woman Alain Delon married. They met in a nightclub in 1962. They married in 1964 and settled in Los Angeles, where their son Anthony was born. But their love was short-lived. “I was very naive. He was unfaithful to me and I wasn’t,” she confessed in 2001. They divorced in 1969, after having shared the bill in 1967 in The Samurai by Jean-Pierre Melville.

Mireille Darc

Mireille succumbed to Alain Delon’s charm in 1968, while he was still married to Nathalie. Their story lasted fifteen years. Mireille Darc gave him the stability he said he needed to prepare for his roles, leaving (her) own career in the background. Because she was unable to have children due to a heart defect, they eventually separated in 1983. “Mireille built my father’s universe. He trusted her completely,” Anthony Delon explained in a documentary about the actress in August 2018. One day he told me: “If Mimi had been able to have children, I would have married her and we would still be together.” Mireille Darc died in August 2017, with Delon at her bedside.