France is mourning the death of a "national treasure," as iconic French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo died on Monday at the age of 88.

Rising to international fame after his role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless in 1960, Belmondo became one of the biggest stars of France's New Wave cinema and was declared by Time magazine in 1964 the face of modern France.

And a very handsome face at that: with his boxer's broken nose and rough features, "the natural son of the Existentialist conception, standing for everything and nothing at 738 mph," as Time described him, was considered one of the biggest sex symbols of the 1960s.

Born in 1933 in the bourgeois Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Belmondo started a career as amateur boxer as a teenager, but was forced to abandon it after contracting tuberculosis.

After training at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, he acted in theater plays and small film roles, until he was spotted by Godard and became something of a muse to the French director.

Belmondo went on to star in other beloved films by Godard after such as Pierrot le Fou next to Anna Karina, and acted in more than 80 movies throughout his career.

From the 1970s, he took on more roles in commercial cinema, in which he often performed his own stunts, but was criticized by those who accused him of wasting his talents on box-office films.

He, on the other hand, enjoyed working on both art house movies and blockbusters, saying: "It is like life. One day you laugh, the next you cry." 

"When an actor is successful, people turn their back on him and say that he has taken the easy way out, that he doesn't want to make an effort or take any risks," Belmondo once said.

His acting career ended shortly after he suffered a stroke in 2001 while on holiday in Corsica. In 2016, the Venice film festival awarded him a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.

He was twice married and twice divorced, had a series of relationships with famous actresses and models, and also lived for seven years with Ursula Andress, who acted in the first James Bond film Dr No.

The actor's lawyer told AFP reporters that Belmondo died peacefully in his home, after "he had been very tired for some time."

_{Cover image: AFP}