Culture: Alain Delon, huge French star and tobacco icon in Cambodia for 25 years

Alain Delon, who has just joined many other film legends in the sky, was not just an iconic actor with a stunning physique. Beyond the 7th art, the huge star also made a name for himself in business, diversifying his sources of income through investments in the film industry, but not only.

As early as 1968, Alain Delon founded his own production company, Adel Productions, which produced some twenty films until 1988. At the same time, the actor launched Adid Alain Delon International Distribution, a Swiss-based company responsible for distributing luxury goods in his own name. Perfumes, furniture (yes) cigarettes, cosmetics...there's even an Alain Delon beer.

As for cigarettes, the brand was launched in 1992 for the Asian market, mainly due to the actor's immense popularity in this part of the world. Unsurprisingly, the brand became very popular, particularly in Cambodia. It was also distributed in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

Alain Delon cigarettes were originally created by the French company Seita, for distribution on the Japanese market, before being produced by British American Tobacco. In 2000, Les Echos magazine reported on the huge success of this cigarette, then marketed by the Altadis group in Cambodia. Numerous images of these cigarette packs could be found on the Internet, including an advertising spot in which a female voice sang, to a jazz tune, “Alain Delon, le bon goût de France, Alain Delon, the taste of France”, all set against night-time shots of Paris, the Moulin Rouge, the Champs-Elysées and black-and-white photos of the actor. Huge posters were also a regular feature on billboards in the streets of Phnom Penh and other capital cities.

The existence of the brand, virtually unknown in France, was revealed in 2013 by the documentary “Tabac: nos gosses sous intox” about children's smoking in Cambodia, and then relayed by videographer Antoine Daniel during a “twitch stream” followed by over 800,000 subscribers in May 2022.

Journalist Paul Moreira travelled to Cambodia to film the documentary, and discovered that Alain Delon's image was being used everywhere by British American Tobacco. The documentary film-maker interviewed Alain Delon's lawyer, Dominique Warluzel, who confirmed that the actor had indeed been paid for the partnership, thus putting an end to the many rumors suggesting that the actor's image had been used without his knowledge in a region where respect for copyright is often abused. The lawyer also acknowledged that the actor was granting a trademark to the tobacco industry, and that he was fully aware of this fact. Ironically, Alain Delon, who smoked heavily in his roles, gave up smoking over 35 years ago.

According to British American Tobacco, this brand has not been sold since 2018 and is apparently no longer available in any market worldwide.