PARIS, Aug 10 (Xinhuanet) - Film-maker Jacques Deray, dubbed the French Hitchcock for his atmospheric crime thrillers, died Sunday at the age of 74 after a long illness, his family said.

    Deray worked with a galaxy of French film stars including Jean-Paul
Belmondo, Charlotte Rampling and his favourite actor Alain Delon.

    He made over 20 police and action films from 1960 to 1995 including "Le Gigolo" (1960), "Rififi a Tokyo" (Rififi in Tokyo, 1961), "Symphonie pour un Massacre" (Symphony for a Massacre, 1963), "La Piscine" (Swimming Pool, 1968) and "Borsalino" (1969).

    He also made the occasional foray into English-language film-making,
working with international stars such as Ann Margret, Jane Birkin, George
Hamilton, Nastassja Kinski, Romy Schneider and Roy Scheider.

    "The Outside Man" (1973), featuring Jean-Louis Trintignant as a hit man who goes to Los Angeles to end the life of an important local mobster, is one such French production, shot entirely in English.

    "Jacques Deray was the director I knew best, and with whom I shared the most affinity, rapport and understanding," said Delon, who made 10 films with Deray, in an interview with French radio station Europe 1.

    Ten films "is a lot in the life of an actor, a director, a man", he added,his voice choked with emotion. "It was a long, long collaboration and one of the best in my career".

    The French icon said he had known the director since the late 1960s, when he starred in the sex thriller "La Piscine". "It was undoubtedly his most beautiful, his biggest film," Delon said.

    "I cannot talk about the shooting of 'La Piscine' without sobbing," the French actor added, explaining that he was the only one still alive in the
film's cast, which included Schneider and Maurice Ronet.

    Delon revealed that it was he who insisted that Schneider, his real-life lover at the time, star alongside him in this compelling psychological drama, which became a cult film and is one of Derays best-known works.

    The film revolves around a dangerous love triangle involving a writer and the daughter of her publisher and former lover. Virtually all of the action takes place either in or by an outdoor swimming pool in a villa in the south of France. 

    French President Jacques Chirac hailed Deray as a "demanding director with an innate sense of action and storytelling."

    Born Jacques Desrayaud in Lyon on February 19, 1929, Deray dreamt from an early age of being an actor. He studied drama in Paris with Rene Simon and landed several small roles on stage and screen.

    However, deciding that his future lay on the other side of the camera, he served his film apprenticeship under the likes of Jean Boyer, Henri Verneuil and Luis Bunuel.

    "I have always defended the thriller, because it is a show of the highest order," he once said.

    Deray, who was married to the French producer Agnes Vincent and had a
daughter, died after an unspecified illness.Enditem (AFP)