Alain Delon ✝

Alain Delon was born in Sceaux, Seine (now Hauts-de-Seine), Île-de-France, an upscale suburb of Paris. His parents, Édith (née Arnold; 1911—1995) and Fabien Delon (1904—1977), divorced when Delon was four. Both remarried and as a result, Delon has a half-sister and two half-brothers. His paternal grandmother was Corsican, from Prunelli-di-Fiumorbo. When his parents divorced, Delon was sent to live with foster parents. When those died, his parents shared him but the arrangement proved unsatisfactory. He attended a Catholic boarding school, the first of several schools from which he was expelled because of unruly behavior. Teachers once tried to persuade him to enter the priesthood because of his aptitude in religious studies.[citation needed] At 14, Delon left school, and worked for a brief time at his stepfather\'s butcher shop. He enlisted in the French Navy three years later, aged 17, and in 1953-1954, he served as a fusilier marin in the First Indochina War. Delon has said that out of his four years of military service he spent 11 months in a military jail for being "undisciplined".[citation needed]\n', 'In 1956, after being dishonorably discharged from the military, he returned to France. He had little money, and got by on whatever employment he could find. He spent time working as a waiter, a porter, a secretary and a sales assistant. During this time he became friends with the actress Brigitte Auber, and joined her on a trip to the Cannes Film Festival, where his film career would begin.\n', 'At Cannes, Delon was seen by a talent scout for David O. Selznick. After a screen test Selznick offered him a contract, provided he learn English. Delon returned to Paris to study the language, but when he met French director Yves Allégret, he was convinced that he should stay in France to begin his career. Selznick allowed Delon to cancel his contract, and Allégret gave him his debut in the film with Edwige Feuillère, Quand la femme s\'en mêle (1957) (Send a Woman When the Devil Fails). Marc Allégret cast him in Be Beautiful But Shut Up (1958), which featured a young Jean-Paul Belmondo. He was then given his first lead, supporting Romy Schneider in the period romance Christine (1958), based on a novel by Arthur Schnitzler. He and Schneider began a highly publicised romance in real life. The film was the seventeenth most popular movie at the French box office that year.\n', '