Alain Delon was the only child of his parents, Edith Marie Suzanne Arnold and Francois Fabien Delon. But when he was four, his folks called it quits on their marriage, and soon after they sent him to a foster family.
Following the separation, his dad and mom remarried and went on to have more kids. As a result, from his father’s side, he had two half brothers and an adopted sister.
Likewise, on his mother’s side, he had two half-siblings. After being in a foster family, it resulted in a childhood wound that never wound.
But this very family also made him passionate about bicycle racing and he also had hoped to become a bicycle racer like Frausto Coppi.
His foster dad was a prison guard and after the demise of his foster parents, his birth givers took shared custody of him!
The French actor was born Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon on November 8, 1935, in Sceaux, a large suburb in the south of Paris.
His dad, Fabien, was a director of a neighborhood cinema Le Régina in Bourg-la-Reine. Before that, he was a projectionist. Unfortunately, Fabien passed away in 1977.
Alain’s mom worked as an assistant in a pharmacy and a theater usher at the cinema. She passed away in 1955.
As mentioned earlier, when he was four, his folks divorced. Soon after they remarried and went on to have more kids with their respective partners.
Soon after, the actor went to his foster family, whose dad was a prison guard in Fresnes Prison, Val-de-Marne.
He belonged to the generation that experienced World War II. He lived near Fresnes prison, when the wartime collaborator, Pierre Laval, was shot in the courtyard. The actor recounted that they had dragged him to four or six to put him against the pole and he was not standing.
Unfortunately, his foster parents succumbed to the injuries sustained in an accident. Then, he returned to his family home after his mom’s second marriage to Paul Boulogne.
At 14, he unhappily trained under his stepfather, who was a butcher. This was after he finished his sporadic education. As a child, many schools expelled him for bad behavior.
Being in a foster home after his folks separated, left some unhealed bruises that he experienced very early in his life. Alain talked about it in an interview with Paris Match in January 2018.
Delon stated, “I understood early what the breakup was, abandonment and loneliness [.] I wasn’t their priority. I was four and they fired me.”
Despite everything that happened to him as a child, Alain Delon’s father and mother became close to him in his adult life.
Additional Information
- Alain Delon got engaged to actress Romy Schneider on March 20, 1959. They met while they were working on the movie, Christine. They broke up in 1964 and despite that, they remained close until their demise in 1982.
- He spent four years in the military and 11 months in prison for being “undisciplined.” In 1956, he was dishonorably discharged and following that, he started working as a porter, a waiter, and a salesman.
- Alain Delon had an affair with the German actress, model, and singer, Nico. She birthed a son, Christian Aaron Boulogne (Ari Päffgen) “Ari.” However, he never recognized Ari as his child and he was raised mostly by his dad and mom. Ari passed away in 2023 after struggling with drug addiction.
- In 1964, the actor got married to Nathalie Barthélémy, who later made her screen acting debut in Le Samourai (1967) opposite him. They welcomed their son, Anthony Delon, and eventually divorced on February 14, 1969.
- Alain Delon also shared two children, Anouchka Delon and Alain-Fabien Delon and Alain-Fabien Delon, with Rosalie van Breemen. They broke up in 2001.
- The French actor passed away on August 18, 2024, at his home in Douchy, surrounded by his loving family members.
