Gabin left school early, and worked as a laborer until the age of 19 when he entered show business with a bit part in a Folies Bergère production.

After completing his military service in the Fusiliers marins, he 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.

Two years later Gabin made the transition to sound films in a 1930 Pathé Frères production, Chacun sa chance.

He was then cast as a romantic hero in the 1936 war drama La Bandera; this second Duvivier-directed film established him as a major star.

That same year he starred in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion, an antiwar film that ran at a New York City theatre for an unprecedented six months.

This was followed by another of Renoir's major works, La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast), a film noir tragedy based on the novel by Émile Zola and starring Gabin and Simone Simon, as well as Le Quai Des Brumes (Port of Shadows), one of director Marcel Carné's classics of poetic realism.

He found a French producer and director willing to cast him and Dietrich together, but the film, Martin Roumagnac, was not a success and their personal relationship soon ended.

Gabin's career seemed headed for oblivion until the 1954 film Touchez pas au grisbi (Don't Touch the Loot), directed by Jacques Becker, earned him critical acclaim.