Candid Photographs Of Alain Delon Encountering Some Pigeons In Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1962

Alain Delon (born November 8, 1935) is a French film actor whose striking good looks helped make him one of the principal male stars of the French cinema in the 1960s and ’70s.

h/t: vintag.es

During France’s war with Indochina, Delon was posted to Saigon and saw active service, an experience which he later stated was immensely beneficial to him in teaching him discipline and building his character.

In 1956, he returned to France and found work as a porter and waiter in Paris. It was during this period that he was befriended by some aspiring young actors (notably Jean-Claude Brialy), through whom he would get to meet the film director Yves Allegret. It was Allegret who gave Delon his first acting job, a walk-on part in the 1957 film Quand la femme s’en mele. This led Marc Allegret to cast him in the comedy-thriller Sois belle et tais-toi (1958), where he appeared alongside another promising young actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, whose popularity would rival Delon’s in the following two decades.

The actor’s breakthrough came in 1958 when director Pierre Gaspard-Huit gave him his first leading role, in the historical romance Christine, in which he starred opposite the well-known Austrian actress Romy Schneider. Whilst making this film, the 22 year old actor and Schneider fell in love and soon after became engaged. Naturally, the world’s press made a great deal of the fairytale romance but the engagement ended five years later when Delon fell for another young actress, Nathalie Canovas, whom he married in 1964. The couple had a son, Anthony but divorced in 1968 when the actor began his 15-year long affair with actress Mireille Darc. In 1969, Delon and Romy Schneider appeared together for a second time in Jacques Deray’s classic thriller La Piscine.

Here are some candid photographs of Alain Delon encountering some pigeons in Piazza San Marco, Venice in 1962. The photos were taken by Jack Garofalo.