by Christos Zampounis

After the Depardieu case, France stands embarrassed in front of the removal of another idol, this time that of Alain Delon himself. The case began last summer, when the actor’s three children filed a lawsuit against Mrs. Hizomi Rollin, who, according to her statement, was their father’s last partner of 35 years. The Japanese-born dame de compagnie was forcibly removed from the country house where Delon had retired since 2006. It was the time when, on the strength of his name, he made continuous statements of support for the National Front and its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. His eldest son had, at the time, distanced himself from his father, stating that he would rather “make movies and give us an ending like Clint Eastwood, than play a citizen”.

Answer of the protagonist of “Le Samourai”: “Shut up!”. In any case, relations with his successor have been strained for decades, with violence dominating his education. And while everyone expected, after the removal of the Japanese woman, a smooth family continuity, the readers of “Paris Match” were surprised to see Anthony Delon on the cover of the weekly magazine with the enigmatic title: “Au nom du pere” (= In the name of the father). In his vitriolic interview, the first-born accused his sister, from another mother, Anouchka, of being “an accomplice in the abuse of their vulnerable father”. At the same time, he filed a lawsuit against her. Immediate reaction of the 88-year-old father. Lawsuit against his son.

For days I have been watching round table discussions on French TV about who and what will inherit from the not inconsiderable fortune of the leading French actor. He himself, at an unsuspecting time, had declared that he has everything arranged with his lawyers. It seems that his weakness after the stroke he suffered in 2019 does not allow him to have the absolute control he had until then over his estranged children. Hence the sad intra-family war. After all, there was sadness in Alain Delon’s gaze, in most of the 90 films in which he starred. A sadness that made his beauty unsurpassed.