Gabriel Gabrio
Encyclopedia
Gabriel Gabrio was a French
stage and film actor whose career began in cinema in the silent film
era of the 1920s and spanned more than two decades. Gabrio is possibly best recalled for his roles as Jean Valjean
in the 1925 Henri Fescourt
-directed adaptation of Victor Hugo
's Les Misérables
, Cesare Borgia
in the 1935 Abel Gance
-directed biopic Lucrèce Borgia and as Carlos in the 1937 Julien Duvivier
-directed gangster film Pépé le Moko
, opposite Jean Gabin
.
, France
as the youngest of sixteen children. Gabrio's father worked for the Pommeray Champagne cellars. At a young age he developed a keen interest in puppet theater. As a teen, Gabrio grew to an impressive height of 6 feet 2 inches and after a stint as an apprentice glass window painter, set his sights on a career as a stage actor.
At the out break of World War I
, the blue-eyed Gabrio enlisted in the French Army
and served four years during the hostilities. After being demobilized, Gabrio relocated to Paris
where he performed in such theaters as the Gaîté Rochechouart, the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, the Comédie Montaigne and the Odéon in roles by George Bernard Shaw
and William Shakespeare
, among others.
-directed film La fête espagnole (English
release title: Spanish Fiesta). In 1924 he was cast by film director Henri Fescourt to appear as Jean Valjean, the literary protagonist in the film adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables
whose twenty year-long struggle with the law for stealing bread during a time of economic and social depression is chronicled. Gabrio's appearance in the film cataputled him to stardom.
In 1927, Gabrio began appearing in international films, such as 1927's Georg Jacoby
-directed German film Der Faschingskönig, and in 1929 Gabrio made his first and only English language talkie
The Inseparables, directed by Adelqui Migliar
and John Stafford
.
Gabrio's career flourished in France into the 1930s and is possibly best recalled for his roles such as Carlos, the gangster cohort of actor Jean Gabin
's character Pépé le Moko
in the 1937 film directed by Julien Duvivier. The film would become an international success and remade in America in 1938 as Algiers
, starring Charles Boyer
and Hedy Lamarr
, and again in 1948 as a musical entitled Casbah
, starring Tony Martin
and Yvonne de Carlo
.
As the 1940s began and Europe was thrust into the World War II, Gabriel Gabrio's film career remained intact in war-torn France. In 1942 he appeared in the Marcel Carné
-directed and Jacques Prévert
and Pierre Laroche-penned Les Visiteurs du Soir as the executioner, opposite Arletty
and Marie Déa. The film, which debuted on 5 December 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France, is an allegory of the eternal struggle between good and evil as fourteenth-century lovers defy the Devil. The film was released under the English title The Devil's Envoys to American audiences in 1947.
in the West of France. He died there in 1946 at age 59. The village has since named a street after him in his honor.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
stage and film actor whose career began in cinema in the silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
era of the 1920s and spanned more than two decades. Gabrio is possibly best recalled for his roles as Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables...
in the 1925 Henri Fescourt
Henri Fescourt
Henri Fescourt was a French film director. He directed some 40 films in his career.- Filmography:* 1912 : Un vol a été commis* 1912 : Le Petit restaurant de l'impasse Canin...
-directed adaptation of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's Les Misérables
Les Misérables (1925 film)
Les Misérables is a French silent film based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo.-Cast:* Gabriel Gabrio as Jean Valjean* Paul Jorge as Monseigneur Myriel* Sandra Milowanoff as Fantine & Cosette* Andrée Rolane as Cosette...
, Cesare Borgia
Cesare Borgia
Cesare Borgia , Duke of Valentinois, was an Italian condottiero, nobleman, politician, and cardinal. He was the son of Pope Alexander VI and his long-term mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was the brother of Lucrezia Borgia; Giovanni Borgia , Duke of Gandia; and Gioffre Borgia , Prince of Squillace...
in the 1935 Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
-directed biopic Lucrèce Borgia and as Carlos in the 1937 Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier was a French film director. He was prominent in French cinema in the years 1930-1960...
-directed gangster film Pépé le Moko
Pépé le Moko
Pépé le Moko is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin. It depicts an infamous gangster, Pépé le Moko who tries to escape the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers...
, opposite Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
.
Early years
Gabriel Gabrio was born Édouard Gabriel Lelièvre in ReimsReims
Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
as the youngest of sixteen children. Gabrio's father worked for the Pommeray Champagne cellars. At a young age he developed a keen interest in puppet theater. As a teen, Gabrio grew to an impressive height of 6 feet 2 inches and after a stint as an apprentice glass window painter, set his sights on a career as a stage actor.
At the out break of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the blue-eyed Gabrio enlisted in the French Army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
and served four years during the hostilities. After being demobilized, Gabrio relocated to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he performed in such theaters as the Gaîté Rochechouart, the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, the Comédie Montaigne and the Odéon in roles by George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, among others.
Film career
Gabrio made his film debut in the 1920 Germaine DulacGermaine Dulac
Germaine Dulac was a French filmmaker, film theorist, journalist and critic. She was born in Amiens and moved to Paris in early childhood. A few years after her marriage she embarked on a journalistic career in a feminist magazine, and later became interested in film...
-directed film La fête espagnole (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
release title: Spanish Fiesta). In 1924 he was cast by film director Henri Fescourt to appear as Jean Valjean, the literary protagonist in the film adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables
Les Misérables (1925 film)
Les Misérables is a French silent film based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo.-Cast:* Gabriel Gabrio as Jean Valjean* Paul Jorge as Monseigneur Myriel* Sandra Milowanoff as Fantine & Cosette* Andrée Rolane as Cosette...
whose twenty year-long struggle with the law for stealing bread during a time of economic and social depression is chronicled. Gabrio's appearance in the film cataputled him to stardom.
In 1927, Gabrio began appearing in international films, such as 1927's Georg Jacoby
Georg Jacoby
Georg Jacoby was a German film director and screenwriter. He was married to Marika Rökk from 1940 until his death; the actress Gabriele Jacoby is their daughter.-Selected filmography:...
-directed German film Der Faschingskönig, and in 1929 Gabrio made his first and only English language talkie
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
The Inseparables, directed by Adelqui Migliar
Adelqui Migliar
Adelqui Migliar , also known als Adelqui Millar, was a Chilean film actor, director, writer and producer. He appeared in 31 silent films between 1916 and 1928. He also directed 24 films between 1922 and 1954....
and John Stafford
John Stafford
John Stafford may refer to:*John Stafford , English politician & archbishop*John Stafford , former Irish Fianna Fáil party politician...
.
Gabrio's career flourished in France into the 1930s and is possibly best recalled for his roles such as Carlos, the gangster cohort of actor Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
's character Pépé le Moko
Pépé le Moko
Pépé le Moko is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin. It depicts an infamous gangster, Pépé le Moko who tries to escape the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers...
in the 1937 film directed by Julien Duvivier. The film would become an international success and remade in America in 1938 as Algiers
Algiers (film)
Algiers is a 1938 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr. The Walter Wanger production was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name...
, starring Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
and Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
, and again in 1948 as a musical entitled Casbah
Casbah (film)
Casbah is a musical film directed by John Berry, starring Yvonne DeCarlo and Tony Martin, and released by Universal Studios.-Plot:...
, starring Tony Martin
Tony Martin (entertainer)
Tony Martin is an American actor and singer.-Career:Tony Martin was born on Christmas Day, 1913 as Alvin Morris in San Francisco, California to Jewish immigrant parents. He received a saxophone as a gift from his grandmother at the age of ten. In his grammar school glee club, he became an...
and Yvonne de Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...
.
As the 1940s began and Europe was thrust into the World War II, Gabriel Gabrio's film career remained intact in war-torn France. In 1942 he appeared in the Marcel Carné
Marcel Carné
-Biography:Born in Paris, France, the son of a cabinet maker whose wife died when their son was five, Carné began his career as a film critic, becoming editor of the weekly publication, Hebdo-Films, and working for Cinémagazine and Cinémonde between 1929 and 1933. In the same period he worked in...
-directed and Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
and Pierre Laroche-penned Les Visiteurs du Soir as the executioner, opposite Arletty
Arletty
Arletty was a French actress, singer, and fashion model.-Life and career:Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie , to a working-class family. Her early career was dominated by the music hall, and she later appeared in plays and cabaret. Arletty was a stage performer for ten years...
and Marie Déa. The film, which debuted on 5 December 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France, is an allegory of the eternal struggle between good and evil as fourteenth-century lovers defy the Devil. The film was released under the English title The Devil's Envoys to American audiences in 1947.
Death
In 1943 Gabrio's health declined and he retired into the village of Berchères-sur-VesgreBerchères-sur-Vesgre
Berchères-sur-Vesgre is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-Population:-External links:*...
in the West of France. He died there in 1946 at age 59. The village has since named a street after him in his honor.
Filmography
- Le val d'enfer (1943)
- Les visiteurs du soirLes Visiteurs du soirThe Devil's Envoys is a 1942 film by French film director Marcel Carné, famous for his romantic tragedy, Children of Paradise...
(1942) (English release title: The Devil's Envoys) - Campement 13 (1940)
- Deuxième bureau contre kommandantur (1939)
- Le corsaire (1939)
- Giuseppe Verdi (1938) (Enlglish release title: The Life of Giuseppe Verdi)
- Gigolette (1937)
- Pépé le MokoPépé le MokoPépé le Moko is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin. It depicts an infamous gangster, Pépé le Moko who tries to escape the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers...
(1937) - Regain (1937) (English release title: Harvest)
- Puits en flammes (1936)
- Sous les yeux d'occident (1936) (aka Razumov)
- Le baron tzigane (1935) (English release title: Gypsy Baron)
- Le diable en bouteille (1935)
- Cavalerie légère (1935)
- Lucrèce BorgiaLucrèce BorgiaLucrèce Borgia is a 1953 French drama film starring Martine Carol and Pedro Armendáriz. The film was directed by Christian-Jaque, who co-wrote screenplay with Cécil Saint-Laurent and Jacques Sigurd, based on novel by Alfred Schirokauer...
(1935) (English release title: Lucrezia Borgia) - La rue sans nomLa Rue sans nomLa Rue sans nom is a novel by Marcel Aymé, published in june 1930. It was adapted into a film in 1934 by Pierre Chenal.-Plot:The story focus on a street in the Parisian banlieue where live italian and french workers...
(1934) (English release title: Street Without a Name) - Les deux orphelinesLes Deux orphelinesLes Deux orphelines is a 1965 Italian film directed by Riccardo Freda....
(1933) (aka Frochard et les deux orphelines, English release title: The Two Orphans) - Les requins du pétrole (1933)
- La bête errante (1932) (English release title: The Wandering Beast)
- Au nom de la loi (1932) (English release title: In the Name of the Law)
- Les croix de boisWooden CrossesWooden Crosses is a 1932 French war film by Raymond Bernard, based upon a novel by Roland Dorgelès.-Cast :*Pierre Blanchar as Adjudant Gilbert Demachy*Gabriel Gabrio as Sulphart*Charles Vanel as Caporal Breval...
(1932) (English release title: Wooden Crosses) - Affaire classée (1932) (aka Le coup de minuit, French reissue title)
- Coeurs joyeux (1932)
- La bodega (1930) (English release title: Wine Cellars)
- La lettre (1930)
- Le roi de Paris (1930) (English release title: The King of Paris)
- L'homme qui assassina (1930)
- Une belle garce (1930)
- Fécondité (1929) (English release title: Fecundity)
- The Inseparables (1929)
- Fünf bange Tage (1928)
- Der Faschingskönig (1928)
- Le DuelLe DuelLe Duel is a French film directed by Pierre Fresnay, released in 1939. It is the only film directed by Pierre Fresnay.- Résumé :A widow is loved by a doctor whose brother, a priest, unwittingly falls in love with the young woman, who is persuaded to enter the convent...
(1928) (English release title: The Duel) - Antoinette Sabrier (1927)
- Le capitaine Rascasse (1926)
- Le juif errantLe Juif Errant-Publication:Le Juif errant was a serially published novel, which attained great popularity in Paris, and beyond. According to historian John McGreevy, the novel was intensely and deliberately "anti-Catholic." Its publication, and that of its predecessor Les Mystères de Paris, greatly increased...
(1926) - Les MisérablesLes Misérables (1925 film)Les Misérables is a French silent film based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo.-Cast:* Gabriel Gabrio as Jean Valjean* Paul Jorge as Monseigneur Myriel* Sandra Milowanoff as Fantine & Cosette* Andrée Rolane as Cosette...
(1925) - Un fils d'Amérique (1925) (English release title: A Son from America)
- La fête espagnoleLa Fête espagnoleLa Fête espagnole is a 1920 French silent film directed by Germaine Dulac.-Cast:*Ève Francis*Gabriel Gabrio*Anna Gay*Gaston Modot*Jean Toulout ... Miguélan...
(1920) (English release title: Spanish Fiesta)
External links
- Gabriel Gabrio at Alice: Cinéma in FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
- Gabriel Gabrio at the New York Times Movies