Nathalie Delon

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Nathalie Delon
Born
Francine Canovas

(1941-08-01)1 August 1941
Oujda, Morocco
Died21 January 2021(2021-01-21) (aged 79)
Paris, France
OccupationActress, film director
Years active1965–2010
Spouse(s)
Guy Barthélémy
​
​
(m. 1959; div. 1962)​
​
​
(m. 1964; div. 1969)​
Children2; including Anthony Delon

Nathalie Delon (born Francine Canovas, also known as Nathalie Barthélémy; 1 August 1941 – 21 January 2021) was a French actress and film director.[1] She is notable for her first acting role, appearing opposite her husband, actor Alain Delon, in the neo-noir film Le Samouraï directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (1967). Their highly publicized marriage dissolved after four-and-a-half years, but she went on to appear in some 30 films and directed two more.

Early life[]

Francine Canovas was born on 1 August 1941 in Oujda, Morocco,[2][3] then under French Protectorate in Morocco, to a family of Spanish origin.[4] She was the daughter of Louis Canovas (1915–2003), pied-noir of Oran (Algeria), manager of a transport company in Morocco, who abandoned her at the age of eight months in 1942.[5] Her mother was from Melilla.[6]

In 1959,[7] Nathalie married for the first time to a conscript from the north of France, Guy Barthélémy, who later become the signing officer of the Omnium Marocain d'Assurance. They had a daughter also named Nathalie. They soon divorced, and in 1962, she moved to Paris.[8]

Life in film[]

On 13 August 1964, Nathalie married the actor Alain Delon, with whom she was expecting a child, in the Loir-et-Cher. At 21, she had met him at a nightclub with his fiancée, actress Romy Schneider.[4] The actor, at the height of his career at 29, was under media scrutiny following his tumultuous engagement with Schneider.[9]

After the wedding, attended by the mayor and two witnesses and kept secret until after they left the country,[4] the couple boarded the SS France at Le Havre for a honeymoon in the United States.[8] They then went to Hollywood because Alain Delon had a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), but it was soon terminated by the American company.[9] Their son, Anthony Delon, was born the following month at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.[4]

In 1967, Nathalie became a film actress, starring opposite her husband in the film Le Samouraï by Jean-Pierre Melville, which became a hit.[4] Writing of the Delons' performances in Le Figaro, Bertrand Guyard notes husband and wife are both nearly silent but "their gazes, fraught with meaning, are enough to thrill the camera" with the director drawing from their portrayals "a mythical couple in the seventh art."[5]

On 14 February 1969, the couple divorced after four and a half years of marriage, after Alain Delon became involved with Mireille Darc, his costar in the 1969 film Jeff by Jean Herman.[8][9]

Thereafter, Nathalie Delon continued her acting career until the 1980s. In 1971 she appeared in When Eight Bells Toll with Anthony Hopkins. In a review in The New York Times, critic Vincent Canby said her performance "evokes all the mystery and enchantment of Bella Darvi's performance as the physicist in Samuel Fuller's Hell and High Water."[10] In 1973, she appeared in Le Sex Shop, her turn one of the film's "moments of real pleasure" as one of its "really marvelous girls", Roger Greenspun wrote in The New York Times.[11]

In addition to acting in 30 films in her career, she also directed two,  [fr] (transl. They Call It an Accident) in 1982 and Sweet Lies in 1988. They Call It an Accident, which Delon directed and wrote, is the story of a mother whose son dies in surgery.[12]

Later life[]

In 2006, Delon published a memoir, Pleure pas, c'est pas grave (Don't cry, it's okay). Le Figaro described it as an account of a dark period in her life—her painful marriage to Delon and his infidelities, her descent into drug use—yet includes moments that made her laugh and the reader too by extension: "delicious and entertaining anecdotes".[13]

Delon died at the age of 79, on 21 January 2021 in Paris, from cancer.[14]

Filmography[]

Year Title Role Notes
1967 Le Samouraï[5] Jane Lagrange
1968 The Private Lesson[15] Frederique Dampierre
1969  [fr][16] Diana
1969  [it][15] Sylvie
1969 Army of Shadows[9] a friend of Jean-François Uncredited
1971 Doucement les basses (Easy Down There!)[9] Rita
1971 When Eight Bells Toll[10] Charlotte
1972 Bluebeard[17] Erika
1972  [fr][11] Jacqueline
1972 Repeated Absences[15] Sophie
1972 The Monk[18] Mathilde
1973  [fr][15] Bertrade
1973  [fr][15] Marie Chapuis
1974  [fr][19] Lise
1974 Hold-Up – Atraco en la Costa Azul[15]
1975 The Romantic Englishwoman[20] Miranda
1975  [fr][21] Karine
1976 Une femme fidèle[2] Flora de Saint-Gilles
1976 Un sussurro nel buio[15]
1977 Fire in the Water[22] as herself With Peter Whitehead
1977 L'avventurosa fuga: Gli ultimi angeli[23] Elisabetta
1978 The Man in the Rushes[15] Loraine
1978 Seagulls Fly Low[24] Isabelle Michereau
1978 Occhi dalle stelle[15]
1979  [fr][15] Martine
1980  [fr][15] Janine
1982  [fr][12] Julie Fabre
1983 Pair-impairment[15]
2008 Nuit de chien[25] Risso
2009  [fr][26]

Publications[]

Novel[]

  • Au plus fort de l'orage : roman (in French). Paris: R. Laffont. 1994. ISBN 978-2221075630.

Memoir[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Nathalie Delon est morte". Paris Match (in French). 21 January 2021. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "L'actrice française Nathalie Delon, ex-épouse d'Alain Delon, est morte". Radio-Canada (in French). Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  3. ^ Birth extract Archived 28 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine on Les gens du cinéma
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Glamorous French star Nathalie Delon dies at 79". France 24. 21 January 2021. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c Guyard, Bertrand (21 January 2021). "Nathalie Delon, éternelle complice du Samouraï". Le Figaro (in French). Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  6. ^ Forster, Siegfried (21 January 2021). "L'actrice Nathalie Delon est décédée à l'âge de 79 ans" (in French). Radio France Internationale. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  7. ^ "Mort de Nathalie Delon: qui était son premier mari Guy Barthélémy qui l'a privée de sa fille?". yahoo!actualités (in French). 21 January 2021. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c Bonnet, Solène (21 January 2021). "Alain et Nathalie Delon, un couple fulgurant en images". Madame Figaro. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Grater, Tom (22 January 2021). "Nathalie Delon Dies: Glamorous French Actress Who Starred In 'Le Samourai' Opposite Husband Alain Delon Was 79". Deadline. Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b Canby, Vincent (27 May 1971). "'When Eight Bells, Toll,' Melodrama by MacLean". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Greenspun, Roger (3 August 1973). "'Le Sex Shop' Sells the Devil's Merchandise, Purely". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b "The trials of Nathalie Delon". The Guardian. 19 March 1983. p. 11. ProQuest 186433385.
  13. ^ "BIOGRAPHIE DE NATHALIE DELON". LeFigaro.fr Scope (in French). Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  14. ^ "Mort de Nathalie Delon, actrice et ancienne épouse d'Alain Delon". Le Figaro (in French). Agence France-Presse. 21 January 2021. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  15. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l "Murió Nathalie Delon: en qué películas encontrar a la talentosa actriz francesa". www.lanacion.com.ar (in Spanish). 22 January 2021. Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  16. ^ Curti, Robert (21 May 2018). Mavericks of Italian Cinema: Eight Unorthodox Filmmakers, 1940s–2000s. McFarland & Company. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-4766-3300-8.
  17. ^ Landis, John (19 September 2011). Monsters in the Movies. Penguin Books. p. 287. ISBN 978-0-7566-8846-2.
  18. ^ Lachasse, Jerôme. "Mort de l'actrice Nathalie Delon, ex-femme d'Alain et mère d'Anthony Delon" (in French). BFM TV. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  19. ^ Goble, Alan (8 September 2011). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. De Gruyter. p. 149. ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3.
  20. ^ Canby, Vincent (27 November 1975). "Obsessed 'Romantic Englishwoman'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  21. ^ Moscati, Massimo (1986). I predatori del sogno: i fumetti e il cinema (in Italian). Edizioni Dedalo. p. 156. ISBN 978-88-220-4517-1. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  22. ^ Rascaroli, Laura (2011). "Burning Passions, Flammable Decade: Cinema, Avant-Garde, Self, and Society in Fire in the Water (1977)". Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. 52 (2): 654–666. doi:10.1353/frm.2011.0094. ISSN 1559-7989. S2CID 190491180.
  23. ^ Chiti, Roberto; Poppi, Roberto; Pecorari, Mario (1991). Dizionario del cinema italiano (in Italian). Gremese Editore. p. 86. ISBN 978-88-7605-935-3. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  24. ^ Curti, Roberto (28 September 2013). Italian Crime Filmography, 1968–1980. McFarland & Company. p. 252. ISBN 978-1-4766-1208-9.
  25. ^ "Mort de Nathalie Delon: hommages et réactions émues". Paris Match (in French). 21 January 2021. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  26. ^ Daehn, Ricardo (22 January 2021). "Aos 79 anos, morre a modelo, cineasta e atriz Nathalie Delon". Correio Braziliense (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2021.

External links[]

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