Alain Delon, hailed as the most beautiful man in cinema, will be laid to rest today at 5pm. The actor is to be interred in the woods which fringe the grounds of his home, Chateau de la Brulerie, 90 miles outside Paris.
The weather forecast for that part of the Loire suggests a deluge and thunderstorms, which feels only appropriate.
For the life of this smouldering French icon – described as a ‘Gallic James Dean; half angel, half yob’ – was nothing but tempestuous, and his passing last week, at the age of 88, has caused an almighty storm of its own.
There is a shortlist of people who will be welcome at the ceremony at the crumbling mansion located in a 30-acre wooded estate in Douchy, north-east France.
There are just 40 of them, and include his three acknowledged children and a coterie of acknowledged lovers.
The unacknowledged – we shall see there are a few of them – will be left to shed their tears outside the tall iron gates.
Prime among the excluded is Hiromi Rollin, Delon’s long-term companion and – according to her – his final lover.
Delon’s reputation as a womaniser was legendary, earning him a reputation as the ‘ice cold angel’ for his ruthlessness in matters of the heart. Pictured with Romy Schneider on the set of La Piscine (1969)
French icon Alain Delon, hailed as the most beautiful man in cinema, will be laid to rest today. He is pictured on the set of Once a Thief in 1965
She says she was barred from her beloved’s side as his life ebbed away, treatment that she described to the Mail this week as ‘inhuman’.
‘I was not allowed to say goodbye. I’m devastated,’ she said, talking exclusively to this paper. ‘He wanted to see me. He even left me a message on March 24. He said he was too lonely and asked me to come to see him.’
Rollin, a glamorous Japanese assistant film director and make-up artist, more than 30 years Delon’s junior, insists she was the chatelaine of Château de la Brulerie and its extensive grounds for almost two decades.
She was pictured at Delon’s side at the funeral of fellow French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo in 2021, which was actually the last time the actor – leaning heavily on a stick yet still with a twinkle in those 1,000-kilowatt eyes – was seen in public.
They’d met in the late Eighties when Rollin, now 61, worked with Delon on The Return Of Casanova, a period film released in 1992.
By then, his reputation as a womaniser was legendary. His lovers included actresses Romy Schneider, Jane Fonda, Ann-Margret, Lana Wood, Marisa Berenson and Mireille Darc.
He was married only once, to the actress Nathalie Barthelemy, who bore him a son, Anthony, but the marriage broke up after he had fling with a former Miss Egypt.
He also had another two children, Anouchka, 33, and Alain-Fabien, 30, with Dutch model, Rosalie van Breemen. But there were other women – lots of them, earning him the reputation as the ‘ice cold angel’ for his ruthlessness in matters of the heart.
He was famously pictured charming Marianne Faithfull, his co-star in Girl On A Motorcycle, while her boyfriend at the time, Mick Jagger, sat glumly nearby.
Whatever the nature of his relationship with Rollin, by 1989 she’d moved into his estate and was a permanent fixture in his life.
Hiromi Rollin, Delon’s long-term companion and ‘final lover’ says she was barred from her beloved’s side as his life ebbed away
Her role, however, is the subject of much dispute.
In a TV documentary in 2021, Delon presented Ms Rollin as ‘my partner’, and praised the way she had been at his side during his recovery from a disabling stroke in 2019. There are pictures of the pair looking affectionate at functions including award ceremonies, and last year locals in the town said they’d seen Rollin and Delon enjoying themselves together.
‘In recent months he’d been confined to a golf buggy to get around, but before that the couple used to be together a lot,’ said one neighbour. ‘They acted like a normal loving couple.’
They were particularly fond of a restaurant called L’Auberge du Terroir, where Delon had a favourite table by the fireplace.
Delon’s children: Anthony, 59, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien, who are all actors, don’t see Ms Rollin in such a compassionate and affectionate light, however.
Delon’s children regard Ms Rollin as nothing more than a grasping gold digger. His daughter Anouchka is pictured viewing floral tributes outside the star’s home on Wednesday
They regard her as nothing more than a grasping gold digger; a home help with ideas above her station, who had her eye on securing a large slice of their ailing father’s £250 million-plus fortune after his death.
Such was their mistrust and disdain for her, they summarily ejected her from Delon’s home last summer, seizing a moment when she was away for the weekend to go into the chateau, change the locks and dump her belongings on the drive.
They say she’d been robbing and abusing the ageing and vulnerable Delon and mistreated his beloved dog, a Belgian malinois called Loubo that, they say, she insisted went into kennels.
Two criminal complaints were filed against Ms Rollin, alleging crimes ranging from harassment to physical and psychological abuse, as well as theft.
The children said she ‘systematically controlled’ their father’s telephone conversations and private messages and that she had become ever-more ‘aggressive, denigrating and insulting’ to the ageing icon.
They claimed that she had been demanding he marry her and had drained ‘tens of thousands’ of euros from his bank accounts.
If proved, all these indictable offences could have seen Rollin imprisoned – a fact that came into sharp focus when a house in nearby Suresnes, where Rollin had been staying since her unceremonious ejection from the chateau, was raided and searched by gendarmes weeks later.
Her humiliation was compounded as she was driven away to a secure police station for questioning.
However, the Mail has learned that all complaints were dropped by prosecutors in January.
Rollin produced a 39-page legal dossier of her own, denying all the charges levelled against her, and accused the children of abusing Delon themselves.
‘They did not get involved in the daily life of their ageing father,’ it states. ‘The children of Alain Delon have never accepted the existence of our romantic relationship.’
She said that the interest of Delon’s children was ‘solely pecuniary’ and they wanted to prevent Rollin getting any share of his estate. That counter complaint has also been thrown out.
For now, the focus on both sides is simply their grief at his passing. Rollin tells this paper that she was ‘devastated’ not to be allowed to visit his deathbed.
She said she was forcibly separated from the star in July 2023, and that his health ‘deteriorated sharply after [her] expulsion from Douchy’. She added: ‘We loved one another for 30 years.
‘I lived with him for 17 and was separated from Alain unfairly, brutally and violently.’
Rollin even indicated that Delon’s treatment for type B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, was halted after her expulsion. Referring to the day she last saw him on July 5, 2023, she added: ‘Alain was happy with me and in good shape. I am revolted and sorry for Alain that his treatment was stopped a year ago.’
Counsel for Delon’s children have not yet responded to Rollin’s specific claims following his death. The Delon camp have simply indicated that they won’t speak, citing medical confidentiality.
A legal source told the Mail: ‘At the moment, the family is focused on mourning.’
While Ms Rollin remains persona non grata on the estate, and was not allowed anywhere near Delon following her expulsion, it’s no surprise that she didn’t make the funeral invitation list.
Another spectre haunting the chateau gates – not literally – is a young woman called Blanche Boulogne, who may or may not be Delon’s granddaughter.
Her father was photographer Ari Boulogne, who died in May 2023, aged 60, and who was Delon’s alleged illegitimate son.
In 1967 he was famously pictured charming Marianne Faithfull, his co-star in Girl On A Motorcycle, while her boyfriend Mick Jagger sat glumly nearby
He always claimed to be the son of Delon and Nico – the late German model and Velvet Underground singer whose real name was Christa Päffgen – with whom Delon had a fling in the Sixties.
Despite being the spitting image of Delon, the actor never acknowleged Ari as his son, probably because he was engaged to Romy Schneider when Nico became pregnant. Woundingly, Delon was happy to acknowledge being Nico’s lover, but insisted he was not the father of Ari.
He continued to disown Ari even after Delon’s own parents, Édith and her second husband, Paul Boulogne, raised the boy themselves when Nico could no longer look after him.
Ari spoke of being raised above Édith’s delicatessen in Bourg-la-Reine, south of Paris, where he ‘slept in the bed where Alain Delon was conceived’ and, ‘instead of a crucifix, there was a photo of Alain watching me sleep’.
When Ari was 17, the Boulognes formally adopted him and he swapped his nationality from German to French. ‘Sometimes Edith called me Alain,’ Ari said.
Ari, who’d long battled addiction issues, died of a suspected drug overdose last year. He’d continually asked Alain for a paternity test, but he always refused.
Now, however, it can be revealed that Boulogne’s daughter Blanche has taken on the mantle of her father’s disputed paternity, and has already initiated legal action in Switzerland, where she lives, to have Alain Delon’s DNA tested.
In France, it is possible to initiate an action for recognition of paternity post-mortem, and in this case it could lead to Boulogne’s heirs claiming part of Delon’s estate.
Blanche, who is 17, is also getting her half brother Charles, who lives in France, to pursue the matter legally there. The expectation is that she will be a part of hostilities over the actor’s will for many months and years to come.
Delon had always been a wise investor who regularly liquidated property; an apartment he bought in Paris in the Sixties for less than a million sold for close to £40 million in 2012.
In June last year, he pocketed more than £8 million by selling art treasures, including paintings by Raoul Dufy and Eugène Delacroix that used to adorn the walls of his country home.
Sadly, as is often the case, the spoils of his fortune have generated a lot of ill-feeling between the Delon siblings.
Before Delon’s death, the family confirmed that, in line with French law (under which a parent cannot disinherit their children however estranged or conflicted the relationship), his estate would be divided into quarters with a required 25 per cent going to each child, with the fourth quarter going to whomever Delon chose.
When Alain chose Anouchka, meaning she will get twice as much as her brothers, not surprisingly, the undisguised favouritism caused a few problems between the siblings.
Delon once said of his daughter: ‘To no other woman have I so often said “I love you”.’
The three had already locked horns over other matters concerning their father’s care.
Anthony once accused Anouchka in a magazine interview of lying and manipulation, claiming she’d hidden the results of cognitive tests on their father.
Anouchka then went on a counter attack in the media, claiming that Delon could ‘no longer endure the aggression of his son, who is constantly telling him he is senile’.
Hopefully, all this will be laid to rest, along with their father, at the funeral. The three have insisted their feud was not about money.
In February, Anthony said: ‘There is no inheritance war.’
This week, rather than returning to public conflict, the Delon children have been posting messages of love. ‘RIP Papa,’ Anthony Delon wrote, next to a photo of his father. ‘The child never forgets, because he continues to live in us until our last breath.’
And Alain-Fabien posted photos of the Douchy home covered in flowers and messages. ‘From up there, I know he can see. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,’ he wrote.
Another surprise presence among the mourners was Loubo.
A devoted animal lover, Alain had asked for his favourite dog to be put down after he died, and buried with him.
Over the years, at least 35 of Delon’s dogs have been buried in a chapel cemetery that the actor created in the grounds.
However, following widespread protests from animal rights activists, Anouchka confirmed the dog would not be killed and would stay within the family.
But as they gather at his graveside, with the storm clouds threatening overhead, it’s clear the final act of this drama is still to be played out.