Controversial French actor Alain Delon declared it was the women he had met throughout his life who had propelled him to success as an actor, at a masterclass in Cannes on Sunday as the festival proceeded with its tribute to the French star in spite of protests by #MeToo activists.
The 83-year-old was greeted with a standing ovation as he entered the Salle Buñuel theatre at the top of the Palais des Festivals for the masterclass, which was packed with mixed gender inter-generational crowd.
Delon told that his audience he had fallen into cinema by accident on returning from military service in Southeast Asia [then Indochina], after being introduced to the cinema scene by an early girlfriend, who took him to Cannes, introducing him among others to the actor and director Jean-Claude Brialy.
“I came down with a girl that I liked, who loved me… I took it all in, did the red carpet but even then, I felt at home… not least and I say this without pretension because it was made clear to me that I was not bad-looking.”
He continued: “When I came back from Indochina I didn’t know what I want to do. If I hadn’t met the women I met, I would have died long ago. It’s the women - I don’t know why - who loved me, who got me into this profession, who wanted me to do it, and who fought for me to do it.”
In another anecdote, he recounted how it was Réné Clement’s first wife Bella Gurwich who had sealed the deal for his breakthrough role as Tom Ripley in the 1960 hit Plein Soleil, after a furious argument at the director’s house with the producers who had assigned him a lesser role.
“It got heated… and I told them would have to find someone else for the role they were offering… there was a silence and then from the back of the kitchen, came Bella’s voice, ’Réné, le petit a raison’,” said Delon, saying her words won him the role.
The Delon tribute continues this evening with a gala screening of Joseph Losey’s 1976 drama Mr. Klein
