Shortly after his return to Paris in January 1970, Beauford began to display early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. By the early 1970s, Beauford's sickness coupled with his financial instability made clear that he could no longer cope with daily life. In the autumn of 1973 his friend, Charley Boggs, wrote to James Baldwin, "Our blessed Beauford is rapidly losing mental control." His friends tried to care for him but, in 1975, he was hospitalized and then committed to St Anne's Hospital for the Insane. Beauford Delaney died in Paris while at St Anne's on March 26, 1979.