Jean-Paul Belmondo / France

Jean-Paul Belmondo in saga of love, death threats and lap-dancing clubs
French star's once quiet private life takes unexpected twist with new-found love for former Playboy model 43 years his junior

With his craggy face and cigarette dangling from his lips, he was once known as the French Bogart – one of France's best loved film stars adored for his 1960s art-house performances and a string of action roles depicting a murky world of rogues, gangsters and crooked cops.
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But now, aged 76, Jean-Paul Belmondo's once quiet private life has unexpectedly turned into a high drama that rivals his most far-fetched on-screen plots. The actor, who is recovering from a stroke, is embroiled in a complex real-life saga dubbed the Belmondo Affair.
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Its twisted plot involves his new-found love for a former Playboy model 43 years his junior, a financial investigation into Belgian lap-dancing clubs, and anonymous threats that the actor's six-year-old daughter's severed head will be mailed to him in a shoe-box. The French celebrity press can't get enough of the disturbing affair that is unfolding against a backdrop of flash holiday villas and fast cars.
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This weekend Belmondo, who is under police protection due to death-threats, gave his first French TV interview to defend himself and his new girlfriend, insisting: "I'm very happy".
In 2001, when Belmondo suffered a stroke that initially left him unable to speak, France assumed he would quietly drift out of the public eye.
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In 2003, he fathered his fourth child, Stella, with his second wife. But last year, the couple divorced. Out for dinner on the Côte d'Azur, the newly single Belmondo spotted Barbara Gandolfi, 33, a Belgian former Playboy model. Soon, the actor, once protective of his privacy, was posing for the cameras with Gandolfi at exclusive soirées and sporting events and inviting magazines to photograph them together.
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From the start, Gandolfi insisted in the press that she was no bimbo: she worked with her ex-boyfriend, Frederic Vanderwilt, running an empire of night-spots in Flanders, including lap-dancing venues, a swingers' club and various business interests ranging from an energy drinks company to exclusive car-hire in Dubai.
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In June, Belgian police investigating possible money-laundering raided a nightclub Gandolfi co-owns with Vanderwilt, in the Belgian port of Ostend. Police raided her villa, freezing bank accounts and seizing items including two of Belmondo's luxury watches.
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Gandolfi and Vanderwilt gave a press conference declaring their innocence. Belmondo was questioned as a witness after police found a written contract for a €200,000 loan from him to Gandolfi. His lawyers said a project had been drawn up but no money had been paid. The investigation continues, and no one has been charged so far.
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On French TV on Sunday a frail but suntanned Belmondo said he was giving his last ever interview in order to defend Gandolfi. He said their relationship of over a year had brought him great joy and he flatly denied any knowledge or part in suspect financial dealings, adding that Gandolfi was innocent. "No one manipulates me," he said.
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Gandolfi proceeded to show the cameras around her bling-bling Belgian mansion, with her dogs named after luxury fashion labels and posters of Belmondo plastering her bedroom. She described their relationship as "unconventional", "not the love of 16-year-olds, it's about values, like kindness, tenderness, trust and calmness".
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She still shares the Belgian villa with Vanderwilt, the father of her two young daughters, and Belmondo still shares his Paris home with his ex-wife — the two wings separated by a staircase.
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But Belmondo's happy front for the TV cameras was marred by his concerns at the latest twist in the saga: death-threats against his six-year-old daughter.
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Several members of the Belmondo clan are under police protection since anonymous letters were received, warning that if Belmondo didn't leave Barbara, "we'll send you your daughter's head in a shoe-box." Belmondo's ex-wife described the threats as a "living nightmare".
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Belmondo told French TV he stood by Gandolfi. "Just because she works at night doesn't mean she's a bad girl," he said.
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Asked about the inevitable comparisons with his film roles alongside gangster femme fatales, he shrugged and whispered: "They were never as beautiful as her."