Jean Gabin

Son of cabaret performers, Gabin began singing at the Folies Bergère and Moulin Rouge before transitioning to cinema in the 1930s. Collaborating with director Jean Renoir in La Grande Illusion (1937) and La Bête humaine (1938), his rugged working-class authenticity made him the screen symbol of France.

In 1943, refusing to film for Nazi-controlled Continental-Films, he joined the Free French Forces, commanding a tank in General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division, earning the Croix de Guerre. In the 1950s and 60s, 'Le Patron' reinvented himself as the authoritative patriarch of French cinema in Touchez pas au grisbi and Inspector Maigret.