Jean Gabin

One of France's most celebrated actors, Jean Gabin was the tragic romantic hero of such pre-World War II dramas as "Marie Chapdelaine" (1934), "Pépé le Moko" (1937) and "Grand Illusion" (1937), and later, an aging, worldly presence in such post-war hits as "Touchez pas au grisbi" (Don't Touch the Loot") (1954) and "The Sicilian Clan" (1969). Early in his career, Gabin earned fame on the stage with an imitation of Maurice Chevalier, which in retrospect, seemed an almost foregone conclusion, as both men embodied opposing sides of the French male persona as seen through the filter of motion pictures: Chevalier the charming bon vivant, and Gabin the brooding, lustful and reckless anti-hero. Both performers continued to personify those archetypes in their later years, but Gabin brought profound emotional depth to his lions in winter. The sins of the past were never far from his characters, which were often forced to violently confront their histories as they returned to bedevil their present lives. A treasured figure in the history of French cinema, Jean Gabin set the bar for leading men in his native country and elsewhere for generations.