Emotion at the screening of The Leopard at the Sémaphore after the announcement of Alain Delon's death

Alain Delon, during a visit to the region at Christmas 1960. Here in Jean Lafont's photo albums. COURTESY ANTOINE LAFONT

Emotion and modesty at the screening of the film The Leopard on Sunday at the Sémaphore. HOCINE ROUAGDIA

Mario Costabel.

Dans la cabine de projection. HOCINE ROUAGDIA

Lancement du générique. HOCINE ROUAGDIA

Alain Delon et Burt Lancaster

Le cinéma d’art et d’essai a projeté hier le film de Visconti avec Alain Delon, Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale et Pierre Clémenti.

There is something mystical about going to the cinema sometimes. This Sunday, August 18, at the Sémaphore, the cinema was of course not a chapel or a confessional, but the screening of The Leet by Luchino Visconti with Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster was still something special as the news of the disappearance of the actor had shocked the French public. Even Jean-Sylvain, one of the managers and projectionist of the Sémaphore, did not hide a form of solemnity as he slipped into the projection booth and watched Delon's face appear on the big screen. Beautiful, wonderful and sad. A few moments earlier, in the cinema hall, a few spectators began to settle down. Some modest, others more verbose.
Everyone praised Alain Delon's incredible acting skills. “I've seen all his films,” noted a lady before the screening. Lili praised the great actor he was. Further away from the screening room, at Cailar, memories of Mario Costabel came flooding back (read below), as did those of Françoise Lacassagne, who remembers Alain Delon and Romy Schneider trapped by the floods in a small house at Cailar, the Machou. Still others thought of the photos of Alain Delon, Jean Lafont and Romy Schneider riding horses in the fields. Magnificently handsome, sadly handsome. After 3 hours and 40 minutes of screening, the spectators were struck by the beauty of the film and undoubtedly by the motto of the work: ” everything changes so that nothing changes”.

Delon and his ties in the Gard: memories of Mario Costabel, Françoise Lacassagne

De Delon, Mario Costabel, manager of the emblematic Churascaïa from 1965 to 1995, remembers photos at his friend Jean Lafont's house and anecdotes told by the famous manadier. «It was at the beginning of his career, around 1959-1960, before Jean Lafont buys the Mas des Hourtès, in Cailar. Alain Delon had come with Romy Schneider to spend a night at the Machou (a few hundred meters from the Hourtès) that Jean had lent them…» How Jean Lafontdid he meet the sacred monster who has just left us ? «I think it was on the Côte d'Azur, Jean then went to Paris to see him at the theater and Alain Delon returned to the Gard, in 1965 I think. He had lunch in particular at the restaurant La Camargue, in Aigues-Mortes. » Alain Delon's fame would then become what it had been and the two men would lose sight of each other…
Years later, in a more improbable manner, it was Abdallah Zekri who would cross paths with the Leopard: « While I was a regional chaplain at La Timone hospital in Marseille, I was contacted by Alain Delon's film crew to play the role of the imam in Fabio Montale's detective series, The Marseille Trilogy, , recalls the Nîmes native, who is also vice-president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. Who was able to rub shoulders with this legend of French cinema: « It was there that I met the actor with whom I was able to discuss religious and current affairs issues. He was very friendly and warm and at the end he thanked me “Mr. Imam for accepting the role”», confides, moved, Abdallah Zekri.