Jean Sablon

Jean Sablon (Nogent-sur-Marne 25 March 1906 – Cannes 24 February 1994) was a French singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He was one of the first French singers to immerse himself in jazz. The man behind several songs by big French and American names, he was the first to use a microphone on a French stage in 1936. Star of vinyl and the radio, he left France in 1937 to take up a contract with NBC in the United States. His radio and later televised shows made him a huge star in America. Henceforth the most international of French singers among his contemporaries, he became an ambassador of French songwriting and dedicated his career to touring internationally, occasionally returning to France to appear on stage. His sixty-one year career came to an end in 1984.

Sablon was born in Nogent-sur-Marne, the son of a composer, with brothers and sisters who had successful careers of their own in musical entertainment.

A pupil at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, Jean Sablon dropped out, intending to study at the Conservatory of Paris. Too late, however, to apply for his year, he concentrated immediately on a professional singing career. He made his debut at the age of seventeen in an operetta in Paris. It was in operettas that he came to share the stage in 1923 first with Jean Gabin in La Dame en Décolleté and then with Charles Boyer and Falconetti in Simili in 1925.