Actress Nathalie Delon died Thursday in Paris at the age of 79.

"My mother died this morning at 11 am, in Paris, surrounded by her relatives. She died of rapid cancer," said Anthony Delon, son of Nathalie and Alain Delon.

She has appeared in around thirty films and directed two feature films. 

The actress Nathalie Delon, who had notably played in "Le Samouraï" by Jean-Pierre Melville with her husband at the time, Alain Delon, died Thursday in Paris, at the age of 79, told the AFP his son, Anthony Delon.

"My mother died this morning at 11 am, in Paris, surrounded by her relatives. She died of rapid cancer," Nathalie and Alain Delon's son told AFP.

"I am very sad. It always hurts me a lot when those I have loved leave," Alain Delon told AFP.

"Nathalie was my first wife and the only Mrs. Delon," he added.

Actress and director

In addition to "

The Samurai

", she shot around thirty films, in secondary roles, until the early 1980s, including "

The Army of Shadows

" (1969), also by Jean-Pierre Melville, "

Doctor Justice

" (1975), by Christian-Jaque, and

"Une femme fidèle

" (1976), by Roger Vadim.

Nathalie Delon will then go behind the camera by directing

 "They call it an accident"

(1982) and

"Sweet Lies"

(1986), with Treat Williams.

She will publish her memories in 2006.

Of Spanish origin, she was born Francine Canovas on August 1, 1941 in Oujda, Morocco, then under French protectorate.

She landed in Paris in 1962 after having left her first husband, Guy Barthélémy, a former member of the contingent, with whom she had a daughter.

A passion with Alain Delon, before a divorce in 1969

The young woman with green eyes is 21 years old and falls by chance, in a nightclub in the capital, on Alain Delon, in full rise and engaged to Romy Schneider.

A clandestine passion ensues before Delon leaves Romy to marry her in August 1964 in the strictest privacy.

The couple immediately boarded the ship France for a honeymoon and settled in Los Angeles, where she gave birth to their son Anthony a month later.

The ghost of Romy Schneider hovers over their love story: "Alain never spoke to me about her but I saw, from time to time, a shadow of sadness pass in her eyes", she released much later.

Very quickly, the atmosphere becomes stormy in their superb villa in the heights of Hollywood and Nathalie Delon resents the ephemeral conquests of her husband.

"I was very naive. He was unfaithful and I was not," she confided in 2001 on the set of Thierry Ardisson.

On the set of the "

Samurai"

, the atmosphere is appalling between them.

In May 1968, when Alain Delon, set up a Professional Union of Actors to try to compete with the CGT, the cup was full for her.

"I started to get tired of it, I didn't agree with his ideas."

The divorce was pronounced in February 1969. "When I left him, I left everything behind me, I left with my son and my housekeeper, that's all," she said in 2018 at Paris Match .

While Alain Delon is rebuilding his life with Mireille Darc.

"We stayed in constant contact. We saw each other often. I was part of her life, she was part of mine. We were still together at Christmas. We took pictures together, the last," said Alain Delon on Thursday to AFP.

Their son Anthony had posted on Instagram at the end of December 2020 a photo of his parents side by side.