Gabin, Jean

Gabin, Jean (1904-1976), French actor, born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, to a show-business couple who encouraged him to follow them into the profession as a dancer and actor. His first film in 1930 was Chacun sa Chance.

Gabin played the leading man until Julien Duvivier cast him as a tragic hero in Maria Chapdelaine (1934; Escape from Yesterday), which made him a star. Duvivier gave him similar roles in La Bandéra (1935), La Belle Équipe (1936; They Were Five), and Pépé le Moko (1937). Jean Renoir used him in Les Bas Fonds (1936; The Lower Depths), La Grande Illusion (1937; Grand Illusion), and La Bête Humaine (1938; The Human Beast); and Jean Grémillon in Gueule d'Amour (1937) and Remorques (1940; Stormy Waters). Gabin was often cast opposite the equally stoical but waif-like French actress Michèle Morgan, and the lovers became allegorical of the unhappy France as it then was (Gabin's contract reportedly had him die in every film). This was never more so than in the romantic studies of doom of Marcel Carné—Quai des Brumes (1938; Port of Shadows) and Le Jour se Lève (1939; Daybreak). To the French, Gabin became an icon.

Two Hollywood films during World War II showed that Gabin did not transplant, however; and his post-war career began badly when he and his lover, Marlene Dietrich, walked out of Carné's Les Portes de la Nuit (1946; Gates of the Night). He did not re-establish himself with the public till he played an underworld figure in Jacques Becker's Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954; Grisbi). Although he continued to be in demand by such major figures as Max Ophuls, Renoir, and Claude Autant-Lara, he increasingly refused to take direction. He was hugely popular with the public, usually playing a lovable crook, a policeman, or a mischievous paterfamilias, until his inexpressiveness—once a virtue—seemed merely weariness.