French actor Alain Delon: "Mary is the woman I love the most in the world"

A cinema legend with a reputation as a ladies’ man, French actor Alain Delon (b. 1935) frequently shares his attachment to the Virgin Mary. Can she be his only great love? With nearly 90 films to his credit, Alain Delon remains a mythical figure of French cinema. In May 2019, he received the Palme d'Or of the Cannes Film Festival for his prestigious career.

Today, living alone and with declining health, he says he has only one woman in his life: the Virgin Mary. A surprising revelation from this eternal charmer, who confides that he would have liked to play the role of Christ. He believes very much in the Son, but not so much in the Father... is God the Father too abstract for him? Mary, on the contrary, is very real to him, with her two feet on the ground. Could this be the secret of the attraction she exerts on the star? "I really believe in Mary. I talk to her a lot,” the actor told the Figaro Magazine (1) last May. She’s my sweetheart, my confidante, the woman I love the most in the world."

Delon had already said the same thing a few months earlier in the same magazine: "I love everything this woman has done... I find solace in her, she keeps me company when I’m lonely; she’s always there. She listens to me and comforts me.”

His profession of faith is powerfully echoed this year by the poignant French film about Lourdes by Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai, that depicts the incredible attraction the Virgin Mary continues to have today on so many people, whatever their religion or cultural background. 

(1) Weekly French magazine

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