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Cinema isn’t a beauty contest, but if it were, Alain Delon surely would have won the title of the 1960s’ most handsome actor.

That’s a subjective call, of course, and as such, Delon is the kind of figure about whom writers tend to fall back on the word “arguably” — as in, “arguably the most handsome” — which is kind of a cop-out, as it leaves the argument to somebody else. When it comes to Delon, plenty have made the case. I loved Anthony Lane’s longform analysis of Delon’s allure in The New Yorker earlier this year. And none other than Jane Fonda, who co-starred with Delon in 1964’s “Joy House,” described him as “the most beautiful human being.”

The French star, who died Sunday, made more than 100 movies in a career that spanned 50 years, but for that one transformative decade in film history — beginning with the Patricia Highsmith...

Alain Delon, an iconic actor of 1960s and 1970s French cinema, has died at age 88. Delon’s children said he died early in the morning of Sunday, August 18, at his château in Loiret, France, surrounded by family and his Belgian Shepherd Loubo, according to Deadline. The actor was known for his roles in films like 1963’s The Leopard and 1967’s Le Samouraï, the former of which earned him attention stateside with his Golden Globes nomination in the Most Promising Newcomer – Male category. In an X post on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Delon “played legendary roles and made the world dream” and that the “melancholic, popular, secretive” actor was not just a star but “a French monument.” After a stint fighting in the First Indochina War in the 1950s, Delon broke into show business through his relationships with the actors Brigitte Auber and Michèle Cordoue, who connected him...

French acting star Alain Delon, whose many iconic roles included Le Samouraï, Plein Soleil and The Leopard, has died in France at the age of 88.

The actor’s children said in a statement that their father had passed away in the early hours of Sunday, surrounded by his family and beloved Belgian Shepherd Loubo, in his long-time chateau home in the village of Douchy, in the Le Loiret region some 100 miles south of Paris.

Delon’s death marks the passing of one of the last surviving icons of the French cinema scene of the 1960s and 70s, when the country was on an economic roll as it reconstructed in the wake of World War II.

Related: French Pres. Emmanuel Macron Leads Tributes To Alain Delon: “More Than A Star, A Monument”

The star, who was at the peak of this career from the 1960s to the 1980s, fell into acting by chance.

Although Alfred Hitchcock once famously said that "actors should be treated like cattle," the director may have actually been searching for on-set sheep. In other words, an animal that would be just as easy to herd around, but nevertheless wouldn't get too worried or agitated. Though Hitchcock was quite demanding, he also make it a point to avoid conflict on set — and one of his strategies to maintain the peace especially resonated with Cary Grant, who starred in several of Hitchcock's films.

While speaking to Interview, Grant recalled that Hitchcock would always attempt to diffuse tensions on set by reminding crew members that at the end of the day, the work they were doing wasn't all that high-stakes:

"A film's a film. As Hitch would say when someone would get all upset on the set, 'Come on, fellas, relax—it's only a movie.'"

As surprising as it might seem for a high-profile,...

Rhonda Fleming died last Wednesday in Santa Monica, California. The 97-year-old actress, who had left a successful 15-year career as a leading lady in studio films 60 years ago, was correctly noted in her obituaries as “the Queen of Technicolor” because of her flaming red hair, as well as her significant presence as a film noir actress, particularly in Jacques Tourneur’s masterpiece “Out of the Past” (1947).

Her films included a number of now-acclaimed auteurist titles like Budd Boetticher’s “The Killer Is Loose,” Allan Dwan’s “Slightly Scarlet” and “Tennessee’s Partner,” and Fritz Lang’s “While the City Sleeps,” to go along with more mainstream titles like “The Spiral Staircase” and “The Gunfight at O.K. Corral.”

Unlike actresses like Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, and others who made multiple films with Alfred Hitchcock, Fleming is less identified with the master. But he provided her with her breakout role in 1945’s “Spellbound.

Alain Delon on the red carpet in Cannes Photo: Richard Mowe French icon Alain Delon who is the controversial recipient of an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival credits the women in his life for persuading him to take up a career in cinema.

He suggests it all happened “by accident”. He first came to Cannes in 1956 with an actress friend Brigitte Auber for the Alfred Hitchcock comedy-thriller To Catch A Thief, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, in which she had a role. He had been in Indo-China in the Army for three years and had no plan for his future on his return to France.

“I went up the red carpet with her and everyone else and people wanted to know what I done, and who I was. In those days I guess I wasn’t too ugly,” said Delon with a self-deprecatory smile.

In the last shot of Alfred Hitchcock’s final (and underrated) “Family Plot,” impostor-psychic-turned-kidnapper Barbara Harris looks straight at the camera and winks. It was only time in Hitchcock’s career that he broke down the fourth wall, and the gesture felt like his goodbye to his fans.

Harris died August 21 at 83 of lung cancer. Her notable roles included “A Thousand Clowns,” “Nashville,” “The Seduction of Joe Tynan,” and a supporting actor Oscar nomination for “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” But for Hitchcock fans, her death reminds us that 42 years have passed since the master’s last film, and fewer of his actors are still alive.

It’s nearly impossible to track every actor who appeared in his work. (Anyone from Hitchcock’s early British films would have had to be a very small child.) However, there are still a number...

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

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The final outfit for analysis from To Catch a Thief (1954, directed by Alfred Hitchcock) encompasses and challenges the absolute femininity of Grace Kelly, here playing wilful blueblood Frances Stevens. After suffering an embarrassing verbal defeat by mademoiselle Danielle Foussard (Brigitte Auber), in simply donning a coral pink top and pleated skirt with driving gloves, Frances is back in control.

This particular ensemble, or rather the skirt, was a request by Grace to the film’s costume designer Edith Head. Keen at this point in the story to restore what she saw as a more ‘womanly’ inference to Frances, trousers, or even Capri pants, were not considered enough. Yet this is not a moment of vanity, or indeed self awareness for Grace, but an important clue as to how Frances overcomes...

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This is the most conspicuous outfit Grace Kelly as Frances Stevens wears in To Catch a Thief (1954), principally because there is little narrative justification for it being so elaborate.

Her 18th century lamé gown, for example, is deliberately ostentatious. It is costume designer Edith Head’s show stopping finale, intended to throw all attention onto Frances as part of her and John Robie’s (Cary Grant) elaborate ruse. This exotic beach wear, however, is jarringly visible for no other reason than because Frances enjoys attention; far from ingratiating her to Robie, or us, she is presented as self-admiring and rather childish.

Note how Frances pauses for a moment on entering the hotel lobby, that absurd wide brimmed hat balancing unsteadily on her head. The gaze from passers by, generally older...

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents: To Catch a Thief (1955) If there was one thing I had to work at avoiding with covering movies from before 1960, it was featuring a Hitchcock film every single week. What some might call an unhealthy obsession with the man's work, I call a totally normal need to watch one of his films every hour on the hour and make cross-country trips to check out the filming sites. However, my passion for all things Hitch aside, To Catch a Thief is probably one of his most popular films, and if not his best, it's definitely the most accessible. In the picture, Cary Grant plays John Robie - a famous cat burglar inventively nicknamed The Cat - who has to run from police when thefts baring his signature style start...