Jean-Alexis Moncorgé started his career with 15 years at the theatre and debuted at the "Moulin Rouge" in Paris in 1929. Despite of his rude aspect he knew to be the gentleman of the French cinema in the time between the two World Wars. One of his most popular personalities was inspector Maigret. But he was also able to play all other kind of people: aristocrats, farmers, thieves and managers. He never stopped working and when death surprised him in 1976 he was still an institution for the French audience.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Volker Boehm

Gabin was born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, the son of Madeleine Petit and Ferdinand Moncorgé, a cafe entertainer whose stage name was Gabin. He grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 35 km north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly. Leaving school early, he worked as a laborer until the age of 19 when he entered show business with a bit part in a Folies Bergères production. He continued performing in a variety of minor roles before going into the military. After completing his military service, Gabin returned to the entertainment business, working under the stage name of Jean Gabin at whatever was offered in the Parisian music halls and operettas, imitating the singing style of Maurice Chevalier, which was the rage at the time. He was part of a troupe that toured South America, and upon returning to France found work at the Moulin Rouge. His performances started getting noticed, and better stage roles came along that led to parts in two silent films in 1928. Two years later, he easily made the transition to talkies in a 1930 Pathé Frères production titled Chacun sa Chance. Playing secondary roles, Gabin made more than a dozen films over the next four years. However, he only gained real recognition for his performance in Maria Chapdelaine (1934), a 1934 production directed by Julien Duvivier. Cast as a romantic hero in a 1936 war drama titled La bandera (1935), this second Duvivier-directed film established Gabin as a major star. The following year, he teamed up with Duvivier again, this time in the highly successful Pépé le Moko (1937) ; its popularity brought Gabin international recognition. That same year, he starred in the Jean Renoir film The Grand Illusion (1937), an anti-war film that ran at a New York City theatre for an unprecedented six months. This was followed by another one of Renoir's major works: La Bête Humaine (1938), a film noir tragedy based on the novel by Émile Zola and starring Gabin and Simone Simon, as well as Port of Shadows (1938), one of director Marcel Carné's classics of poetic realism. He was divorced from his second wife in 1939. Flooded with offers from Hollywood, for a time Gabin turned them all down until the outbreak of World War II. After the German occupation of France in 1940, he joined Jean Renoir and Julien Duvivier in the United States. During his time in Hollywood, Gabin began a torrid romance with actress Marlene Dietrich which lasted until 1948. However, his films in America - Moontide (1942) and Strange Confession (1944), the later reuniting him with Duvivier - were not successful. Undaunted, Jean Gabin joined General Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces and earned the Médaille militaire and a Croix de guerre for his wartime valor fighting with the Allies in North Africa. Following D-Day, Gabin was part of the military contingent that entered a liberated Paris. In 1946, Gabin was hired by Marcel Carné to star in the film, Gates of the Night (1946), but his conduct got him fired again. He then found a French producer and director willing to cast him and Marlene Dietrich together, but their film The Room Upstairs (1946) was not a success and their personal relationship soon ended. Following another box office failure in 1947, Gabin returned to the stage, but there too, the production was another financial disaster. Nevertheless, he was cast in the lead role of the 1949 René Clément film The Walls of Malapaga (1949) that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Despite this recognition, the film did not do well at the French box office, and the next five years brought little more than repeated box office failures. Gabin's career seemed headed for oblivion. However, he made a comeback in the 1954 film, Touchez pas au grisbi (1954). Directed by Jacques Becker, his performance earned him critical acclaim, and the film was a very profitable international success. Later, he worked once again with Jean Renoir in French Cancan (1955), with María Félix and Françoise Arnoul. Gabin played Georges Simenon's detective Jules Maigret for three films in 1958, 1959 and 1963. Over the next twenty years, Gabin made close to 50 more films, most of them very successful commercially and critically, including many for Gafer Films, his production partnership with fellow actor Fernandel. His co-stars included leading figures of post-war cinema such as Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Louis de Funès. Gabin died of leukaemia at the American Hospital of Paris, in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. His body was cremated and with full military honours, his ashes were scattered at sea from a military ship.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: wikipedia