Jean Gabin: The Actor Who Was France

by Joseph Harriss

Overview

When one thinks of the quintessential Frenchman, one likely pictures Jean Gabin (1904-1976). The son of music hall performers, the Paris-born actor grew up in the entertainment business. His onscreen debut in the 1930's marked the beginning of many memorable roles in films such as La Grande Illusion (1937) and Émile Zola's La Bête Humaine (1938). His performances would earn him international recognition and establish his reputation as one of the greatest stars of film noir.

Pausing his performances on screen, Gabin joined the Allied struggle of WWII. Serving under General Charles De Gaulle in the Free French Forces as a tank commander, Gabin was awarded several medals for his service. Upon his return to acting after the war, he became the embodiment of the uniquely French spirit—a persona that would define his future roles.

In Jean Gabin: The Actor Who Was France, Joseph Harriss tells the story of this French icon. This well-researched biography documents Gabin's life from his start as a reluctant singer and dancer in Parisian music halls to his rise to film superstardom. Harriss recounts the actor's multi-faceted persona, including his famously fiery temper, his tumultuous love affairs—including a six-year relationship with the German star Marlene Dietrich—and his military valor. With this enthralling work, film enthusiasts can gain an appreciation of France's quintessential movie star and his lasting impact on world cinema during its Golden Age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813198750
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	02/28/2023
Series:	Screen Classics
Pages:	326
Sales rank:	913,808
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Joseph Harriss is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame who studied International Relations and French at the Sorbonne and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. Afterwards, Harriss joined the Paris bureau of Time magazine where he covered French political affairs. He has written many articles for a variety of publications such as The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, Smithsonian Magazine, and The American Spectator. Harriss lives in Paris.

Table of Contents

1. The Moncorgés
2. Good for Nothing
3. Becoming Gabin
4. Moulin Rouge
5. First Films
6. Rising Star
7. Breakthrough
8. Politics and Poetics
9. Prewar Classics: Part One
10. Prewar Classics: Part Two
11. Storm Clouds of War
12. Escape to America
13. Hollywood Alien
14. Marlene
15. Free French
16. Oldest Tank Commander
17. Gray Years
18. Dream Realized
19. New Persona
20. Monument
21. Filmography

Editorial Reviews

Beautiful... a thorough, well-researched biography of perhaps the most iconic of French actors... hard for cinephiles to resist.

|Los Angeles Times

As Joseph Harriss shows in his superb new biography, Gabin is 'the actor who was France.' Harriss' book is thorough, insightful, and beautifully written. Its insights extend beyond Gabin and his films to French life and society during much of the 20th century.

Power Line

This is the first full-length account of Gabin's colorful life in English and is likely to be the book of choice for film scholars and Anglophone French cinema fans for some time to come. A Paris-based writer with strong reporting credentials and three previous books on France, Harriss brings narrative skill and sweeping historical context to the Gabin saga... He avoids the star-struck tone of so many such biographies and lets the story tell itself. And the story is riveting.

Facts & Arts

A new book by Joseph Harriss on the life and times of Jean Gabin is the first biography in English of the iconic French film actor whose career and life mirrored both 20th century France and the early evolution of modern film... a penetrating, serious but not solemn portrait of a complex personality... a book to be savored not only by Gabin fans but also students of cinema history and lovers of France itself.

Paris Voice

12/19/2022

Journalist Harriss (The Tallest Tower) delivers a competent introduction to French actor Jean Gabin (1904–1976). Harriss begins with the actor’s birth to two moderately successful singers. As a teenager, Gabin used his father’s connections to land spots performing onstage at the Folies Bergère music hall in Paris, where he achieved regard as a singer and comedian, launching him into the film world in the 1930s. His popularity peaked, Harriss contends, with such movies as Pépé le Moko, La Grande Illusion, and La Bête Humaine, which established Gabin as the face of réalisme poétique, a stylized genre that served as a forerunner to film noir. During WWII, he refused to act in films made in collaboration with the Vichy government, so he left for America. There, Gabin had little success in English-language movies, in which “he always sounded stilted and felt uncomfortable.” Harriss chronicles Gabin’s return to France and his fitful attempts to restart his career after the war, finally finding his footing after developing a “new middle-aged persona” and completing an additional 48 films before dying in 1976. Harriss’s approach is workmanlike, relaying the beats of Gabin’s life effectively if somewhat perfunctorily. This solid if unexciting account of the actor’s life will appeal to devotees of French cinema. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

This beautifully written, fast-moving book is immaculately researched. One of the best film bios I have ever read, it will be a useful work of scholarship for many years to come.

Charles Zigman

At last an English-language biography of my favorite French actor, or as Joseph Harriss calls him: 'The John Garfield of French cinema.'

The Paris Insider - Terrance Gelenter

A thorough, well-researched biography”—Los Angeles Times; “fascinating and thoroughly researched.... This is the first full-length account of Gabin’s colorful life in English and is likely to be the book of choice for film scholars and Anglophone French cinema fans for some time to come.... Harriss brings narrative skill and sweeping historical context to the Gabin saga.... Harris weaves the threads of Gabin’s life into a coherent chronological story covering 72 years, from his birth in 1904 to his death in 1976. He avoids the star-struck tone of so many such biographies and lets the story tell itself. And the story is riveting.”—Facts & Arts; “This beautifully written, fast-moving book is immaculately researched. One of the best film bios I have ever read, it will be a useful work of scholarship for many years to come.”—Charles Zigman, Los Angeles based screenwriter and teacher of film studies

From the Publisher