Alain Delon & Nathalie Delon: The French Icon's Only Marriage
France's most beautiful couple lasted five years — and one affair ended it all.
Key Facts
What Happened
Alain Delon, considered the most handsome man in European cinema, married actress Nathalie Barthélémy (who took the name Nathalie Delon) on August 13, 1964, largely because she was pregnant with their son. Anthony Delon was born on September 30, 1964, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The marriage combined two striking screen presences, but the relationship was famously volatile from the beginning.
The couple's marriage was a fixture of French tabloid culture throughout the 1960s. Alain Delon was notorious for his affairs, and the relationship was marked by jealousy, public arguments, and reconciliations. The final straw came in 1968 when Delon began a relationship with actress Mireille Darc during the filming of Jeff. Alain and Nathalie separated in June 1968.
Their divorce was finalized on February 14, 1969 — Valentine's Day, an irony not lost on the French press. In the France of 1969, divorce was still governed by the Napoleonic Code, which required proof of fault (adultery, cruelty, or criminal conviction). The specific settlement terms were kept private, but the divorce was relatively swift by the standards of the era. Custody of young Anthony was shared informally, though the boy's upbringing was complicated by both parents' demanding careers.
Nathalie Delon went on to build her own career as an actress and later as a director. Alain Delon never legally married again, despite numerous high-profile relationships lasting decades. Nathalie passed away in January 2021 at age 79, and Alain died in August 2024 at age 88 — their son Anthony became embroiled in a bitter family dispute over his father's estate, showing how the consequences of family breakdown can echo across generations.
Legal Breakdown: French divorce in the 1960s — fault-based systems and their lasting impact
French Divorce Under the Napoleonic Code (Pre-1975)
Before France reformed its divorce laws in 1975, the only grounds for divorce were fault-based: adultery, cruelty, or criminal conviction. This meant one party had to be officially blamed. The fault-based system was adversarial by design and often made amicable separations legally impossible, even when both parties wanted to move on. France did not introduce no-fault divorce until the 1975 reform.
Celebrity Privacy in French Law
France has some of the strongest privacy protections in Europe, rooted in Article 9 of the Civil Code, which guarantees the right to private life. Even in the 1960s, French courts protected the details of divorce settlements from public disclosure more rigorously than Anglo-Saxon systems. This is why specific financial terms of the Delon divorce remain unknown despite both parties being major public figures.
Informal Custody Arrangements
In the 1960s, formal custody arrangements in France were less structured than modern systems. Many celebrity couples operated on informal agreements about where children would live, leading to inconsistent arrangements that could be difficult for children. Anthony Delon's complicated upbringing — bouncing between two famous parents and their various partners — reflects the limitations of informal custody arrangements.
What This Means for Your Divorce
- →Fault-based divorce systems force couples into adversarial positions even when the real situation is more nuanced than simple blame.
- →Strong privacy laws can protect families from public scrutiny during divorce, but they also make it harder for the public to understand divorce economics.
- →Informal custody arrangements may seem flexible, but they can create instability for children who need consistent structure.
- →The consequences of divorce can reverberate for generations — Anthony Delon's family disputes decades later trace back to his parents' 1969 split.
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