French film star Alain Delon has died aged 88

Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, died at age 88, French media reported.

With his handsome looks and tender manner, the prolific actor was able to combine toughness with an appealing, vulnerable quality that made him one of France’s memorable leading men.

Delon was also a producer. He also appeared in plays, and in later years, in television movies.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on X to “a French monument.”

“Alain Delon has played legendary roles and made the world dream,” he wrote. “Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star.”

Delon’s children announced the death on Sunday in a statement to the French national news agency Agence France-Presse, a common practice in France. Tributes to Delon immediately started pouring in on social platforms, and all leading French media switched to full-fledged coverage of his rich career.

Earlier this year, his son Anthony had said his father had been diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma, a type of cancer.