Alain Delon’s Surprising Pick for Cinema’s Greatest Actor

Alain Delon, a bloke not known for tossing out praise willy-nilly, once singled out a Hollywood legend who’s often slipped under the radar. Delon, the face of French cinema’s shake-up in the late 20th century, worked with just about every big name in the business. If a director was making waves, chances are Delon was in the mix. He helped shape the neo-noir style with films like Le Samouraï and Purple Noon, both of which left a massive mark on filmmakers everywhere.

It makes sense, then, that Delon’s acting hero was someone who’d made a similar splash in the early days of noir, back when the genre was just getting started in the States. Noir grew out of gritty paperbacks about tough detectives and reluctant heroes caught up in dodgy business. One of the first films to really nail this vibe was Body and Soul, a hard-hitting drama about a boxer surrounded by temptation and corruption. While it’s not as well-remembered as it should be, Body and Soul did land John Garfield an Oscar nod for his lead role.

John Garfield: A Method Pioneer

Garfield had already been up for an Academy Award nearly ten years earlier for Four Daughters, but he soon carved out his own approach to acting. He threw himself into his roles, using a method style that was pretty rare at the time. Back then, there wasn’t much talk about the craft itself, but Garfield’s way of working ended up influencing a whole new generation of stars, including James Dean and Marlon Brando.

Delon once told The Los Angeles Times that Garfield was

“20 years ahead of his time”

. He also mentioned Montgomery Clift and Robert Walker, but said,

“with Garfield, you could feel something coming from his guts”

. Delon reckoned Garfield’s style would have fit right in two decades later, not just because of his acting chops, but also because of the tough break he got in life.

Blacklisting and a Career Cut Short

At the peak of his career, Garfield was dragged before the House Un-American Activities Committee, along with heaps of other Hollywood names, to answer questions about supposed communist ties. Garfield denied any involvement and refused to dob in anyone else, which got him blacklisted. The timing couldn’t have been worse—his turn in The Postman Always Rings Twice had just been hailed as a masterstroke, and the film would later get a remake with Jack Nicholson in the lead.

The stress of the hearings and the collapse of his career took a heavy toll. Garfield died young, at just 39, from a heart attack most reckon was brought on by all the pressure. It’s a real shame that Hollywood’s tried to sweep Garfield and his trailblazing style under the rug, but thanks to folks like Delon, his legacy still gets a look-in.