Delon hired Communist screenwriter Franco Solinas (whose other scripts include “Battle of Algiers” and “ State of Siege”) although Delon himself was a Gaullist. Nobody was falling over themselves to so much as allude to the fact that in 1942, under Vichy rule during the German Occupation, the shamefully complicit French police efficiently rounded up 13,000 French people and handed them over to the Nazis for deportation from which few returned.ĭelon hired American director Joseph Losey, a Communist who had gone into exile in England as a victim of McCarthy-era blacklisting. Case in point, the brilliant “Mr Klein” in 1976. (At first they wanted Angie Dickinson.) Jacques Deray’s deeply sexy and suspenseful 1969 thriller was a massive hit, is considered to be a classic (it was remade in 2015 by Luca Guadagnino as “ A Bigger Splash” starring Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes) and single-handedly re-launched Schneider's subsequently flourishing career.ĭelon produced important movies in a spirit of exemplary tolerance. When Romy Schneider's career was dead in the water as it were, Delon told the producers of "La Piscine” that if they didn't cast her, he wouldn't make the movie. You can't accuse Cannes of being age-ist.) And Elle Fanning, who turned 21 in April, is a member of the jury. Claude Lelouch, 81, who won the Golden Palm in 1966 for "A Man and a Woman" premiered his 49th film in Cannes on the 18th. (Cavalier, who is three years older than Delon, premiered his latest documentary in Cannes this week. The first film Delon produced, in 1964, was Alain Cavalier’s “L’Insoumis,” one of the rare French films to criticize the Algerian war. That was a spectacularly brave pronouncement for an incandescent international star to make at the time.ĭelon has always credited women for pushing him to act and is quick to state his gratitude toward what used to be called the fairer sex for launching his career. Here in Cannes he made his point over and over.Īs he left school early to join the army, fighting for three years in Indochina, Delon says he had no aptitude for writing and instead used his power (he was a nobody in 1957 and a planetary star two years later thanks to his charismatic turn as Ripley in “Purple Noon”) to help other actors and to produce movies about difficult subjects.
In 1969-when gay-bashing was considered a sport and homosexuals had no rights or protections to speak of-Delon reportedly stated that he had no inclination to sleep with another man, but if he did, it would be nobody's business but his own. Delon was fast friends with his mentor, Italian master Luchino Visconti, who never pretended to be straight as most gay men of his generation felt obliged to do (he was born in 1906). Even retrograde to cockamamie ones.īut let's look at Delon's actions rather than his words.
Public figures in a free society are allowed to have opinions.
Since we don’t have the signers’ full names, we can’t single them out for a much-needed education that puts Delon in context.ĭelon is being accused of being a homophobe because he has expressed the opinion that same sex couples shouldn't adopt children. Over 25,000 people have signed a petition chastising the world’s most important film event for giving an Honorary Golden Palm to Delon for his cinema career.