French screen legend Alain Delon, perhaps France’s best known movie actor, said he underwent surgery for an irregular heartbeat in Paris on Wednesday.
“I was operated on two hours ago. It was planned. Two weeks ago I had dizzy spells and nausea,” the 76-year-old told Le Parisien, according to an account on its website, adding that he had been under anesthetic for only 10 minutes.
“They tried to get my heart back in place,” the screen legend said.
“I had a scan. I was given the all clear on the neurological level, but they found an irregular heartbeat,” he said.
It’s the kind of thing that happens “to guys like me.”
Fellow French idol Brigitte Bardot said: “I’m very worried for Alain, who means a lot to me. I consider him like a brother.”
Born in 1935, Mr. Delon has starred in about 100 films over five decades and worked with directors Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Pierre Melville, Joseph Losey and Jean-Luc Godard, among others.
Often cast as a ruthless, steely-eyed bad boy — typified by the 1970 gangster flick “Borsalino” — Mr. Delon proved his versatility in other roles, such as a morally ambiguous wartime art dealer in “Monsieur Klein.”
His personal life has been closely intertwined with film, notably relationships with Romy Schneider, Mireille Darc and Nathalie Delon, all prominent actresses in their own right.
Noted for his good looks, he was invited to Hollywood by U.S. producer David Selznick, who offered him a contract on the condition he learned English.
But Mr. Delon took up a rival offer from the French director Yves Allegret, and although he became a big name internationally — notably in Japan, China and Russia — he was to build his career as a French star.
His first role was as a hit-man in Allegret’s “Quand la femme s’en mele” (“When the Wife Gets Involved,” 1957), but it was Rene Clement’s thriller “Plein Soleil” (“Purple Noon,” 1960) that fully revealed his talent.
Fame followed quickly thanks to two Visconti films: “Rocco and his Brothers” in 1960 and perhaps Mr. Delon’s best known film, “Il Gattopardo” (“The Leopard”) in 1963.
After “Notre Histoire” (“Our Story”) directed by Bertrand Blier in 1984, which saw Mr. Delon play the role of an alcohol-sodden garage owner obsessed by a woman he met on a train, he had fewer major cinematic hits.
Instead, he branched out into theater and television as an actor, director and producer.
He sponsors boxing matches, runs his own promotion company, notably marketing a fragrance for men, and had a substantial collection of art, mostly from the 1950s, that he sold at auction in 2007.
Politically, Mr. Delon is on the right and has expressed support for the far-right French leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. The latter even suggested, in 2007, that Mr. Delon could play him in a film version of his life.
RoboCop statue in Detroit in production phase
Plans are moving forward for a Detroit statue of the fictional crime-fighting cyborg RoboCop.
The Detroit News reported Wednesday that a RoboCop model is being scanned at a studio in Canada. When the scanning process is completed, artists will create foam pieces that will be shipped to Detroit’s Venus Bronze Works, where the parts of the statue will be cast.
Jerry Paffendorf, who is involved in the effort, says the statue “will have a physical, as well as conceptual, origin in Detroit.” Location and a completion date are uncertain.
The 1980s science fiction movie was set in a futuristic and crime-ridden Detroit.
The movement for a RoboCop statue started last year after a social networking campaign exploded in support of the project, quickly raising $50,000 to make it happen.
• Compiled from Web and wire service reports
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