It’s definitely time for appeasement within the Delon clan. A few days ago, Anthony Delon proudly announced the release of an autobiographical book entitled Between dog and wolf (editions du Cherche midi), in which he looks back on his family history made up of ups and downs, power struggles and reconciliations. In a new interview with the magazine She March 17, the son of Alain and Nathalie Delon talks about this intimate project, thanks to which he finally makes peace with his past.
When his parents divorced in 1969, Anthony Delon was only 4 years old. He first lives with his mother, but is largely raised by his nanny Loulou. His lonely childhood then continued in boarding school, from the age of 10, before he asked to live with his famous dad. “I felt the need to make a connectionhe says. I was full of desires. But he worked all the time (…). I saw him as a hero, as a god.” The teenager can then count on the affection of Mireille Darc, who shared the life of his father between 1968 and 1983: “I adored him. She knew how to find her place without taking that of my mother.” But a first rupture takes place between the father and his son when Anthony asks to return to live with his mother at 15 years old. “My father freaked out and jumped on me (…). That day, my father said to my mother: ‘Your son has disowned me’.”
After his brief stint in prison at 17, Anthony Delon is trying to get his life back together by launching his brand of leather jackets. Again, his father reframes him: “My father reproached me for parasitizing the brand ‘Delon’“, he explains. “Its territory is the world! Already at 17, he had forbidden me to advertise in Japan. In fact, it’s like wolves, the dominant must keep his place. But it was not reasoned, I think. It was instinctive“Even when his half-sister Anouchka was born in 1990, Anthony Delon learned about it on the radio, and not from his father, who didn’t”never called to check on (his) news“.
You’re great, don’t move an inch
While waiting to finally reconnect with this imposing father, the actor first approached his mother Nathalie, on his return to France in the early 2000s.She was an irreproachable grandmother to her granddaughters [Loup et Liv, les filles d’Anthony Delon et son ex-femme Sophie Clerico, nées en 1996 et 2001, NDLR]. By taking care of my daughters, she kind of reset our relationship..”
As is sometimes the case in families, it was when his parents found themselves facing the disease that Anthony Delon became closer to them than ever: in 2019 first, when his father was the victim of a he had a stroke, then the following year, when his mother faced pancreatic cancer. “We went on vacation together in Italy during the summer of 2020. My father was recovering from his stroke, my mother was battling the diseaseremembers the 57-year-old comedian today. I started to write. Maybe to stop time. I had a sense of urgency.” A rapprochement that the trio had immortalized during a family reunion in Paris, in January 2021, shortly before the death of Nathalie Delon.
As for his father, he sometimes visits him in his refuge in Douchy (in the Loiret). Last November, Alain Delon was surrounded by his two sons, Anthony and Alain-Fabien (27 years old) to celebrate his birthday: his 86 years. Asked if he has read his eldest’s book, the companion of the Italian actress Sveva Alviti specifies: “I gave him all the content and I know he will read it. He just said to me: ‘You’re great, don’t move an inch.‘”