Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic made Belmondo a major star and his craggy looks led to a stellar career in
France and around the worldJean-Paul Belmondo: the beaten-up icon who made crime sexyA life in picturesJean-Paul Belmondo, the French
Actor who shot to international fame in Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary new wave classic Breathless, has died aged 88. The actor’s lawyer confirmed the news to AFP.
![Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of Breathless, dies aged 88](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/845b96bfbae743b87a4e1665d33bcdfde2b4c8e7/131_70_2044_1227/master/2044.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=d63d2450c45a4db324f176ffe318be48)
Belmondo – nicknamed Bébel by French audiences – became one of the country’s biggest box-office stars in the 60s and 70s, his battered-looking face a contrast to the chiselled features of his rival and sometime-collaborator Alain Delon. Like Delon, Belmondo was a key figure of the outstanding generation of European film-making of the period, with the series of films he made with Godard – which included A Woman Is a Woman and Pierrot le Fou – making an indelible mark.