Early Life
Imbert was born in Toulouse, the son of an aviation worker with a passion for opera. Imbert was sentenced to five years in prison in 1947 for an assault on his mother-in-law's lover in a Montpellier bar, but served less than two due to good conduct.
On his time in prison, he later declared:
The first true damned stupidity of my life, I had hit my mother-in-law's lover a little too hard. I got five years! The prison, this is the place where I met the biggest number of tossers. A pack of pathetic ones, of losers. But I was put in a cell with a true tough guy. I said: "This is it, my path"
The "tough guy" was Gustave Méla, nicknamed "Gu le Terrible", another criminal that would become notorious in the 1960s. Whilst in prison Imbert decided on the nickname Jacky Le Mat, meaning "Jacky the bottom" or "Jacky the Madman" in the slang of the time.
In 1948 Imbert enrolled in the French Army and spent four years in the 15e Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais in Oran, Algeria. He was discharged for having a "character incompatible with military regulations".
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