Best Known As: French singer known as "the waif sparrow"
Name at birth: Edith Giovanni Gassion
Edith Piaf was one of the most popular French singers of the 1940s and '50s, internationally famous for her husky, mournful voice and her songs of loneliness and despair. Born in Paris to street entertainers, her childhood was marked by poverty, illness and temporary blindness. After a stint with her father's touring acrobatic act, she sang in the streets until she was discovered by promoter Louis Leplee, who re-named her "la môme Piaf" ("the waif sparrow"). The diminutive singer gained popularity as she toured France, singing in cabarets and vaudeville theaters and, beginning in 1936, performing on radio and recordings. Her great fame came after World War II, with her song "Le Vie en Rose" becoming an international standard. She toured the United States several times beginning in the late 1940s and English versions of her songs made the pop charts in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The anguish in her songs seemed to match the anguish in her personal life. Piaf had several ill-fated love affairs, including one with middleweight boxing champ Marcel Cerdan, who was killed in an airplane crash in 1949, and after a car accident in 1951 she became dependent on alcohol and morphine. Her songs include "Les Trois Cloches" ("The Three Bells"), "Vagabond" and "Milord."
In addition to being pals with Marlene Dietrich and Judy Garland, Piaf is credited with helping the careers of French singers Charles Aznavour and Yves Montand... In the 2007 film La Vie En Rose, Piaf as an adult was portrayed by Marion Cotillard, who won the Academy Award as best actress for the role.
(born Dec. 19, 1915, Paris, France — died Oct. 11, 1963, Paris) French popular singer and actress. Her mother, a café singer, abandoned her at birth; Piaf became blind at age three as a result of meningitis but recovered her sight four years later. Her father, a circus acrobat, took her along on tours and encouraged her to sing. She sang for years in the streets of Paris until discovered by a cabaret owner who gave her her first nightclub job and suggested she change her name to Piaf, Parisian slang for "sparrow." She was soon singing her chansons (ballads) in the large music halls of Paris. During World War II she entertained French prisoners of war and aided several in their escapes. She spent the postwar years touring, gaining worldwide fame with her intense performances of songs such as "Non, je ne regrette rien" ("No, I regret nothing"). Her throaty, expressive voice, combined with her fragile appearance and a dramatic tight spotlight on her face and hands, made her concerts memorable.
Edith Giovanna Gassion, known as Edith Piaf (1915-1963), was a French music hall/cabaret singer whose specialty was the love ballad.
Edith Gassion was born in Belleville, a congested working-class neighborhood of Paris, on December 19, 1915. Her mother, Anetta Maillard (Gassion), was a café singer who went by the name Line Marsa. Of Algerian circus descent, she was a habitual drifter. Edith's father, Louis Alphonse Gassion, was from Normandy, a slim, five-foot-tall circus acrobat who worked in the Paris streets when he was not on tour in provincial France. He had three theatrical sisters, one of whom, Edith's Tante (Aunt) Zaza, performed in tightrope acts.
Louis was also a drifter, but he loved Edith and took care of her, in his own way, when he could. In contrast, Edith's mother casually abandoned the girl in infancy. This child, Edith Piaf, was to become an enormously popular singer of international fame, noted for her generosity. Later she looked after her father financially, but she could never bring herself to forgive her mother.
Edith was reared initially by her maternal grandmother, Ména (Emma Said ben Mohamed), who had managed a circus performing-flea show. Tante Zaza rescued lice-infested Edith from Ména's filthy hovel in Paris. Zaza took the child (aged about seven) to the care of her paternal grandmother, a cook in a local brothel (a maison closé) in Bernay, a village in Normandy.
An incident of "blindness" in Piaf's early childhood was apparently conjunctivitis; her "miraculous" cure at the shrine of St. Teresa at Lisieux was probably after the disease had vanished. The prayers of the young ladies of the Bernay brothel may have had nothing to do with the cure, but Piaf said: "Miracle or not, I am forever grateful."
Early in the 1920s (about 1923) Edith Gassion left Bernay and went on a life of circus travels in Belgium and northern France, living in a caravan with her father and his various amours, who acted as mothers. Acrobatics had not interested Edith, but she sang. As the decade closed, Louis managed to acquire a 22-year-old common-law wife, Yéyette. In March 1931 Yéyette had a child, Denise, in Belleville, Paris, where all three of them had gone to live. Edith resolved to leave. She met Simone Berteaut, who was a companion throughout many adventures and was an "evil presence" sometimes. In the early 1930s they went around together in the economically depressed city, working at odd jobs and begging. Edith frequently sang as a chanteur des rues (streetsinger). The French urban working class was fairly small, compared with Britain, Germany, or the United States; there was not much for penniless French women to do-dressmaking, hairdressing … or prostitution.
The Naming of Edith Piaf
In 1931 Edith fell in love with Louis Dupont, an errand boy whom she called "P'tit Louis." They lived in a room at the Hotel de l'Avenir, rue Orfila. In February 1933 Edith, who was barely 18, gave birth to a daughter, Marcelle. Soon after, she left P'tit Louis for a soldier of the French Foreign Legion. She sang at small bars and clubs in Montmartre and Pigalle (the famed entertainment district), meeting the demimonde of Paris and all sorts of people-talented crossdressers, lesbians and homosexuals, musicians, theatrical agents, poets, and composers. Singing at a bal musette in Pigalle early in 1935, she heard from P'tit Louis that her daughter had meningitis; Marcelle died in eight days later. To pay funeral costs, Edith, it was said, had to prostitute herself.
In October 1935 Edith met Louis Leplée, a former Montmartre drag artist who had opened a sophisticated dinner club, Gerny's, in the smarter Champs-Elysees area. Leplée heard Edith singing the popular song Comme un moineau ("like a sparrow") in the street. Leplée called her "La Môme Piaf" ("The Kid Sparrow"). Ten new songs were selected for her by Leplée; he made her wear a simple black skirt and pullover and no makeup, as he had first seen her singing in the streets. Amid long applause, Maurice Chevalier said "She has got what it takes!" The singer Edith Piaf was born.
Six months later local gangsters murdered Leplée. Piaf then met Raymond Asso, a writer who made her a "star" and went to live with Asso at the Hôtel Piccadilly in Pigalle. Piaf called him "mon poète." Asso trained her in everything-vocal instruction, gestures, how to spell and write, what she should read, even eating manners and hygiene. Piaf said "He taught me what a song really is." As a result, at the age of 20 she made her début at a large Paris vaudeville theater and was a hit.
Later other composers and writers amplified Piaf's repertoire with typical Piaf "blues" ballads. On stage Piaf had superb technical skills. Her songs had dramatic fire, tragedy, and anguish. She had much the same build as her father - two inches under five feet tall and some 90 pounds in weight. But she possessed the voice to bewitch audiences - throaty, throbbing yet tender. ("Who is that plain little woman, with a voice too big for her body?" asked Mistinguett, herself an aging star, slightly jealous.) Tossed auburn hair, big eyes, pale, mournful face, Piaf seemed a waif, a castaway on the stage of life, troubled by everything that she witnessed. There was a special Piaf stance, arms-outstretched, fingers turned inwards, calculated to have and hold the listener in a minor state of doomed love, nostalgia, and regret.
In March 1937 Raymond Asso managed to obtain for Piaf a contract at the Théâtre de I'ABC, complete with her little black dress and starched white collar. She was a complete success, with songs created by Asso. The next year, 1938, was a good year for Piaf's career. Asso installed her in the Hôtel Alcina on the Avenue Junot with a Chinese cook and a secretary. But Piaf and Asso were quarreling, Simone Berteaut was back, and Piaf was sleeping with other men. In September 1939 World War II broke out in Europe and Asso was called into the French Army. Piaf met another lover, actor Paul Meurisse.
Piaf had first sung on radio in 1936 and had a first hit record in 1937, Mon Légionnaire (words by Asso/music by Monnot), with a bugle-call flourish. She herself wrote some thirty songs and performed about two hundred others in her life. La vie en rose was famous all over the world. Jean Cocteau wrote a play for her, Le Bel Indifférent, which was staged in Paris in 1940 at Les Bouffes-Parisiens theater. Among films was Montmartre-sur-Seine (1941), made during World War II. During the war Piaf remained mainly in Paris, miserably, along with Jean Cocteau.
Becomes an International Star
In the postwar period of European reconstruction and economic boom after 1945, Piaf became an international star, with ten tours to the United States. She made her first trip to New York in October 1947, accompanied by a male nonet, Les Compagnons de la Chanson; they made a lighthearted film together, Neuf Garcons - Un Coeur (1947). The nine young Frenchmen were an example of Piaf's professional generosity - she always sought new talent, both as entertainers and/or as lovers. Eddie Constantine, Charles Aznavour, and Yves Montand are some singers she coached. Piaf said "You have to send the elevator back down, so that others may get to the top." Even though her standard fee (in the 1950s) was $1, 000 a night, her finances were always a problem. She gave as much as she took.
Piaf was much in love with the world middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan for two years; he was killed in an air crash in 1949. She was awaiting his plane in New York. Piaf had a bent toward mysticism all along, and Cerdan's death led her to talk to him on the "other side." Nevertheless, she married Jacques Pills (a singer) in 1952 and divorced him in 1957. At the end of her life (1962) she married a 27-year-old singer, Théo Sarapo.
Her death on October 11, 1963 at the age of 47 was due to a liver ailment and internal hemorrhage caused by a life of drink, drug dependency, accidents, and wear-and-tear. Jean Cocteau died seven hours after hearing of his friend's death, at age 74. Non, je ne regrette rien ("No, I do not regret anything"), her song of 1960, was a fitting tribute.
A year earlier at a comeback at Paris' Olympia Music Hall, Piaf had tottered on stage, barely able to walk, her hands twisted by arthritis; but she sold a million copies, in France alone, of a recording of that event-Live at the Olympia. Piaf was buried in the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery, along with Colette, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, and Balzac. Over 100, 000 people came to see her bier at her Paris flat, and 40, 000 went to the cemetery.
Piaf was the darling of the French people. She sang almost totally in the French language, very often in Parisian slang, in a voice that was somewhat metallic, loud, and direct. Her gestures were in pantomime, echoing the sufferings of daily existence, working-class scenes of factories, chimney blocks, and mean streets, trains slowly speeding up out of Paris railroad stations taking their passengers away from true love. "I have given my tears, paid so many tears for the right love, " she said.
Noel Coward, the English satirist and playwright, wrote in his 1956 diary "Piaf in her dusty black dress is still singing sad songs about bereft tarts longing for their lovers to come back … but I do wish she would pop in a couple of cheerful songs just for the hell of it." Like Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, and numerous other singers, Piaf was bent on self-destruction. She needed suffering. At the end of her life she faced death with equanimity. Piaf said in Ma Vie:
Peut m'arriver n'importe quoi J'm'en fous pas mal … J'etais heureuse, et prête. (No matter what happens I couldn't care less … . I am happy, and ready)
Further Reading
Piaf's two autobiographies are full of feeling but sometimes factually inaccurate - Au Bal de la Chance (Paris, 1958), translated as The Wheel of Fortune, preface by Jean Cocteau (London, 1965); and, published after her death, Ma Vie ("My Life, " Paris, 1964). Biographies are uneven. Piaf (1969, 1972) by Simone Berteaut, who pretended to be Piaf's half-sister, was a compilation of half-truths. Euloge Boissonade, Piaf et Cerdan (Paris, 1983), tells of the ill-fated love story. Denis Gassion, Piaf, Ma Soeur (translated as Piaf, My Sister, Paris, 1977), is not as accurate as Margaret Crosland, Piaf (London, 1985). Obituaries include New Statesman (October 18, 1963), London Times (October 12, 1963), and the New York Times (October 12 and October 15, 1963).
Additional Sources
Bret, David, The Piaf legend, New York: Parkwest, Robson Books, 1989.
Crosland, Margaret, Piaf, New York, N.Y.: Fromm International Pub. Corp., 1987, 1985.
Lange, Monique, Piaf, New York: Seaver Books, 1981.
Piaf, Edith, My life, London; Chester Springs, PA.: Peter Owen, 1990.
Piaf, Édith (pseud. of Édith Gassion) (1915-63). French singer and occasionally songwriter (‘La Vie en rose’, 1947; ‘Hymne à l'amour’, 1949). A legendary figure of the chanson française, her importance lay in her ability to dramatize her songs in an intensely emotional and captivating way, investing even the most banal refrain with universal poetic appeal. After a wretched childhood she went from street-singer in the Pigalle quarter of Paris in 1935 to her first success at the ABC music-hall in 1937. Her international career in the 1950s was undermined by her tragic private life, alcoholism, and drug addiction, but she continued performing, despite her deteriorating health.
Piaf, Edith (pēäf'), 1915-63, French cabaret singer, born as Edith Giovanna Gassion. She began to sing at 15 in cafés and on the streets of Paris and was soon engaged to sing in a cabaret. Fame quickly followed her appearances in nightclubs all over Europe and America. Piaf appeared in several movies, starring in Le Bel Indifférent (1940), originally a play written for her by Jean Cocteau. Her highly emotional and powerful voice was enormously expressive, and she wrote many of her own songs. Her performance of the songs Non, je ne regrette rien [I Regret Nothing] and Milord were especially cherished by international audiences.
Bibliography
See her memoirs, Au bal de la chance (1958, tr. 1965); biographies by S. Berteaut, her half sister (1972), and by C. Burke (2011).
Born Edith Giovanna Gassion, December 19, 1915, in Paris, France; died October 10, 1963 in Placassier, France; daughter of Louis Alphonse (an acrobat and circus performer) and Anetta (a cafe singer; maiden name, Maillard) Gassion; married Jacques Pills (a singer), September, 1952 (divorced, c. 1953); married Theo Sarapo (a singer), October 9, 1962; children: (with Louis Dupont) Cecitie (died of meningitis c 1934). Began singing on the streets, c. 1925; debuted professionally at Gurney’s, Paris, France, appearing for six months beginning in 1935; made first recording, “L’Etranger” (“The Stranger”), Polydor, 1936; made American debut in New York City, 1947; comeback appearance, Olympia Theater, Paris, 1960. Actress appearing in motion pictures, including La Garcon, 1936, Montmartre-sur-Seine, 1941, Etoile sans lumiere, 1946, Neuf Garcons, un coeur, 1947, Paris chante toujours, 1951, Boum sur Paris, 1952, Si Versailles m’etait conte, 1953, French Cancan, 1954, Les Amants de demain, 1958; and in plays, including Le Bel indifferent, 1941. Author of The Wheel of Fortune, Chilton Books, 1965.
Singer, actress
"A thousand years from now," wrote Monique Lange in Piaf, her biography of French songstress Edith Piaf, "Piafs voice will still be heard, and each time we hear it we will wonder anew at its strength, its violence, its lyrical magic." Edith Piafs rise from street urchin to concert-hall chanteuse was more romantic than any novel. Her end in drug and alcohol dependency was sadder than any melodrama. Her voice expressed the agony of millions, and millions followed her love affairs and her divorces, knew her songs, and revelled in the triumphant comebacks she made time and again. She was adored everywhere, but she never stopped searching for love.
Edith Giovanna Gassion was born on December 19, 1915, into a less-than-glamorous life in a working-class neighborhood of Paris. Her father, Louis, was an itinerant acrobat who traveled from town to town, performing at streetside for tips. Edith’s mother, Anetta— who was many years her husband’s junior—worked at a carnival, sang on the street, and later sang in cafes.
Edith’s childhood was spent either on the road with her parents or shuttling between relatives. When she was still quite young, her father was drafted to fight in World War I. The poverty-stricken Anetta found it too difficult to care for a child on her own and abandoned Edith, leaving the youngster with her mother. Edith’s existence with her grandmother was not a happy one: she was rarely fed, washed even less often, and was given wine to put her to sleep whenever she cried.
Lived With Madame Grandmother Edith’s father was appalled at the condition in which he found his daughter when he returned home on leave from the army. He took her to stay with his mother, who ran a whorehouse in Normandy. Life for the young Piaf in a brothel was better than one might expect. The ladies doted on Edith, and she was better fed than she had been thus far in her life. Unfortunately this arrangement did not last. When a local priest suggested that a brothel was not the best place to raise a child, Edith’s father took her on the road.
Edith toured through France and Belgium with her father, collecting money proffered by passersby while he performed his tricks. Sometimes he told her to play upon the sympathies of women and ask them to be her mother. Other times he sent her out to sing; even as a child she had the kind of voice that could draw a crowd.
When she was 15 Edith left her father and, with her friend Mamone, began making her own way on the streets of Paris. To support themselves Edith would
sing and Mamone would collect money. Sometimes they made enough for a room; other times they spent their earnings in a saloon and slept in parks or alleyways.
It was during this period that Edith met Louis Dupont. He and Edith began living together, and in February of 1933 they had a daughter, Cecille. In an effort to assert his dominance, Dupont forced Edith to stop singing. They each took low-paying jobs—which Edith was rarely able to keep—and spent the rest of their time in a cramped apartment in a Paris slum. Edith could not tolerate the loss of freedom for long. She eventually returned to her former life on the streets, taking Cecille with her. Sadly, the child died of meningitis before reaching her second birthday.
"Piaf" Took Flight Not long after Cecille’s death, yet another Louis came into Edith’s life. In her autobiography, The Wheel of Fortune, Edith described her first meeting with Louis Leplee: "I was pale and unkempt. I had no stockings and my coat was out at the elbows and hung down to my ankles. I was singing a song by Jean Lenoir…. When I had finished my song… a man approached me…. He came straight to the point: ‘Are you crazy? You are ruining your voice.’" Leplee, the owner of Gurney’s—a very popular Paris night spot at the time— knew talent when he heard it, even if it was ill-dressed and dirty. He offered Edith a job and gave her the name "La Morne Piaf" ("Kid Sparrow"). Within a week, the four-foot, ten-inch Piaf was appearing on stage in her trademark black attire. Within a few months she made her first recording, "L’Etranger" ("The Stranger") on Polydor Records.
Piafs meteoric rise came to an abrupt halt six months later. On April 7, 1936, Louis Leplee was found murdered in his Paris apartment. Piaf was stricken by the news. The press went wild, splashing her picture all over the tabloids and calling her a suspect. Paris audiences grew so hostile that Piaf was forced to leave the city. She subsequently performed in the Paris suburbs, in Nice, and in Belgium.
When the scandal had died down and Piaf was able to return to Paris, in 1937, she began an important association with songwriter Raymond Asso. It was Asso, along with Marguerite Monnot, who wrote Piafs first hit, "Mon Legionnaire" ("My Legionaire"). This song, like so many others she sang, told the story of a woman abandoned.
Asso became much more than a songwriter to Piaf. For three years he guided her career, teaching her how to be a star, and was her lover. In Margaret Crosland’s Piaf, Asso stressed, "I trained her, I taught her everything, gestures, inflection, how to dress." Piaf, for her part, though she owed much to Asso, took a new lover when the French Army called him in August of 1939.
The War Years Oddly, the years during the war were some of the best of Piafs career. The cafes and theaters remained open during the German occupation of France, and she continued to sing. It was also during this time that her career expanded to include more roles on the stage and screen. In 1940 she appeared in Jean Cocteau’s play Le Bel indifferent, and she had a role in Georges Lacombe’s 1941 film Montmartre-sur-Seine, for which she also wrote several songs.
But while Piaf advanced her career, she also knew her role as a French citizen and did her part to help the war effort. She was a savior to the French prisoners of war at Stallag III, whom she entertained on two different occasions. After the first performance, she asked the Germans if she could have pictures taken with the prisoners for their families in France. When she returned to the camp for her second performance, she brought forged identity papers, which allowed many prisoners to escape.
After the war Piaf set out to make herself an international star. Her 1946 release of "La Vie en Rose" became a major American hit. She arrived in New York City in 1947 to begin a series of American engagements. The petite Piaf, with her simple black dress and songs of struggle and abandonment, was not the sexy, sophisticated Frenchwoman many Americans expected, and she initially met with little success. It was not until a performance at the Versailles—one of the most elegant supper clubs in New York—and several glowing reviews that Edith Piaf became the toast of Manhattan and later Hollywood society.
Love and Decline While in New York, Piaf began an affair with Marcel Cerdan, the French boxer and newly crowned middleweight champion. Like all of her romances, the union was a torrid one. As a boxer, Cerdan traveled extensively, though Piaf wanted him to be with her. He was in the Azores when Piaf phoned and persuaded him to fly back to New York. Tragically, the plane on which he was returning crashed, killing everyone on board. Of Cerdan’s death, in October of 1949, Piaf biographer Monique Lange declared, "It marked the beginning of her decline, of the period when she fell completely apart."
Throughout the 1950s Piaf appeared in films and had continued success as a performer and recording artist. But these successes were interspersed with periods of illness, drug use, and mental instability. In September of 1952 she married the singer Jacques Pills—an arrangement that soon ended in divorce. In the late 1950s a series of car accidents pushed her further into a dependence on morphine and other painkillers. In Piaf, Lange reported, "At the end of her life, when she was practically incapable of even getting up on stage, she had to have an injection in order to sing."
Despite rumors that she had died, by the late 1950s Piafs career was once again on the upswing. Her 1959 recording "Milord" was one of her biggest hits, as was "Non je ne regrette," released in 1960. On December 29, 1960, she made a triumphant appearance at Paris’s Olympia Theater, proving she still retained the adulation of France. She followed up these achievements by going on tour.
Unfortunately Piafs renewed success did not last. Though she fell in love with and married the young French singer Theo Sarapo, her health was still declining. She died on October 10, 1963, leaving the world feeling the loss of its "La Morne Piaf."
Selected discography At the Paris Olympia, EMI, 1990. The Voice of the Sparrow: The Very Best of Edith Piaf, Capitol, 1991. At Carnegie Hall, Capitol. The Best of Edith Piaf, Capitol. The Best of Edith Piaf, Volume 2, Capitol. L’Integrale (Complete Recordings) 1936-1945, Polydor. Master Series, Polydor. Piaf, Capitol. Piaf: Her Complete Recordings, 1946-1963, Angel.
Edith Piaf is almost universally regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Still revered as an icon decades after her death, "the Sparrow" served as a touchstone for virtually every chansonnier, male or female, who followed her. Her greatest strength wasn't so much her technique, or the purity of her voice, but the raw, passionate power of her singing. (Given her extraordinarily petite size, audiences marveled all the more at the force of her vocals.) Her style epitomized that of the classic French chanson: highly emotional, even melodramatic, with a wide, rapid vibrato that wrung every last drop of sentiment from a lyric. She preferred melancholy, mournful material, singing about heartache, tragedy, poverty, and the harsh reality of life on the streets; much of it was based to some degree on her real-life experiences, written specifically for her by an ever-shifting cast of songwriters. Her life was the stuff of legend, starting with her dramatic rise from uneducated Paris street urchin to star of international renown. Along the way, she lost her only child at age three, fell victim to substance abuse problems, survived three car accidents, and took a seemingly endless parade of lovers, one of whom perished in a plane crash on his way to visit her. Early in her career, she chose men who could help and instruct her; later in life, with her own status secure, she helped many of her lovers in their ambitions to become songwriters or singers, then dropped them once her mentorship had served its purpose. By the time cancer claimed her life at age 47, Piaf had recorded a lengthy string of genre-defining classics -- "Mon Légionnaire," "La Vie en Rose," "L'Hymne à l'Amour," "Milord," and "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" among them -- that many of her fans felt captured the essence of the French soul.
Piaf was born Edith Giovanna Gassion on December 19, 1915, in Ménilmontant, one of the poorer districts of Paris. According to legend, she was born under a street light on the corner of the Rue de Belleville, with her mother attended by two policemen; some have disputed this story, finding it much likelier that she was born in the local hospital. Whatever the case, Piaf's origins were undeniably humble. Her father, Louis Gassion, was a traveling acrobat and street performer, while her Moroccan-Italian mother, Anita Maillard, was an alcoholic, an occasional prostitute, and an aspiring singer who performed in cafés and on street corners under the name Line Marsa. With her father serving in World War I, Edith was virtually ignored by both her mother and grandmother; after the war, her father sent her to live with his own mother, who helped run a small brothel in the Normandy town of Bernay. The prostitutes helped look after Edith when they could; one story goes that when five-year-old Edith lost her sight during an acute case of conjunctivitis, the prostitutes shut down the brothel to spend a day praying for her in church, and her blindness disappeared several days later.
Edith's father returned for her in 1922, and instead of sending her to school, he brought her to Paris to join his street act. It was here that she got her first experience singing in public, but her main duty at first was to pass the hat among the crowd of onlookers, manipulating extra money from whomever she could. She and her father traveled all over France together until 1930, when the now-teenaged Edith had developed her singing into a main attraction. She teamed up with her half-sister and lifelong partner in mischief, Simone Berteaut, and sang for tips in the streets, squares, cafés, and military camps, while living in a succession of cheap, squalid hotels. She moved in circles of petty criminals and led a promiscuous nightlife, with a predilection for pimps and other street toughs who could protect her while she earned her meager living as a street performer. In 1932, she fell in love with a delivery boy named Louis Dupont, and bore him a daughter. However, in a pattern she would repeat throughout her life, she tired of the relationship, cheated, and ended it before he could do the same. Much like her own mother, Edith found it difficult to care for a child while working in the streets, and often left her daughter alone. Dupont eventually took the child himself, but she died of meningitis several months later. Edith's next boyfriend was a pimp who took a commission from her singing tips, in exchange for not forcing her into prostitution; when she broke off the affair, he nearly succeeded in shooting her.
Living the high-risk life that she did, Edith Gassion almost certainly would have come to a bad end had she not been discovered by cabaret owner Louis Leplée while singing on a street corner in the Pigalle area in 1935. Struck by the force of her voice, Leplée took the young singer under his wing and groomed her to become his resident star act. He renamed her "La Môme Piaf" (which in Parisian slang translates roughly as "the little sparrow" or "the kid sparrow"), fleshed out her song repertoire, taught her the basics of stage presence, and outfitted her in a plain black dress that would become her visual trademark. Leplée's extensive publicity campaign brought many noted celebrities to Piaf's opening night, including Maurice Chevalier; she was a smashing success, and in January 1936, she cut her first records for Polydor, "Les Momes de la Cloche" and "L'Étranger"; the latter was penned by Marguerite Monnot, who would continue to write for Piaf for the remainder of both their careers.
Tragedy struck in April 1936, when Leplée was shot to death in his apartment. Police suspicion initially fell on Piaf and the highly disreputable company she often kept, and the ensuing media furor threatened to derail her career even after she was cleared of any involvement. Scandal preceded her when she toured the provinces outside Paris that summer, and she realized that she needed help in rehabilitating her career and image. When she returned to Paris, she sought out Raymond Asso, a songwriter, businessman, and Foreign Legion veteran; she had rejected his song "Mon Légionnaire," but it had subsequently been recorded by Marie Dubas, one of Piaf's major influences. Intensely attracted to Piaf, Asso began an affair with her and took charge of managing her career. He partially restored her real name, billing her as Edith Piaf; he barred all of Piaf's undesirable acquaintances from seeing her; he set about making up for the basic education that neither Edith nor Simone had received. Most importantly, he talked with Piaf about her childhood on the streets, and teamed up with "L'Étranger" composer Marguerite Monnot to craft an original repertoire that would be unique to Piaf's experiences. In January 1937, Piaf recorded "Mon Légionnaire" for a major hit, and went on to cut the Asso/Monnot collaborations "Le Fanion de la Légion," "C'est Lui Que Mon Coeur a Choisi" (a smash hit in late 1938), "Le Petit Monsieur Triste," "Elle Frequentait la Rue Pigalle," "Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin," and others. Later that year, Piaf made concert appearances at the ABC Theater (where she opened for Charles Trenet) and the Bobino (as the headliner); the shows were wildly successful and made her the new star of the Paris music scene.
In the fall of 1939, Asso was called to serve in World War II. Early the next year, Piaf recorded one of her signature songs, "L'Accordéoniste," just before its composer, Michel Emer, left for the war; she would later help the Jewish Emer escape France during the Nazi occupation. In Asso's absence, she took up with actor/singer Paul Meurisse, from whom she picked up the refinements and culture of upper-class French society. They performed together often, and also co-starred in Jean Cocteau's one-act play Le Bel Indifférent; however, their relationship soon deteriorated, and Piaf and Simone moved into an apartment over a high-class brothel. By this time, the Nazis had taken over Paris, and the brothel's clientele often included Gestapo officers. Piaf was long suspected of collaborating with -- or, at least, being overly friendly to -- the Germans, making numerous acquaintances through her residence and performing at private events. She resisted in her own way, however; she dated Jewish pianist Norbert Glanzberg, and also co-wrote the subtle protest song "Où Sont-Ils Mes Petits Copains?" with Marguerite Monnot in 1943, defying a Nazi request to remove the song from her concert repertoire. According to one story, Piaf posed for a photo at a prison camp; the images of the French prisoners in the photo were later blown up and used in false documents that helped many of them escape.
Before the war's end, Piaf took up with journalist Henri Contet, and convinced him to team up with Marguerite Monnot as a lyricist. This proved to be the most productive partnership since the Asso years, and Piaf was rewarded with a burst of new material: "Coup de Grisou," "Monsieur Saint-Pierre," "Le Brun et le Blond," "Histoire du Coeur," "Y'a Pas D'Printemps," and many others. Her affair with Contet was relatively brief, but he continued to write for her after they split; meanwhile, Piaf moved on to an attractive young singer named Yves Montand in 1944. Under Piaf's rigorous tutelage, Montand grew into one of French pop's biggest stars within a year, and she broke off the affair when his popularity began to rival her own. Her next protégés were a nine-member singing group called Les Compagnons de la Chanson, who toured and recorded with her over the next few years (one member also became her lover). Now recording for the Pathe label, she scored a major hit in 1946 with "Les Trois Cloches," which would later become an English-language smash for the Browns when translated into "The Three Bells." Later that year, she recorded the self-composed number "La Vie en Rose," another huge hit that international audiences would come to regard as her signature song.
Piaf embarked on her first American tour in late 1947, and at first met with little success; audiences expecting a bright, gaudy Parisian spectacle were disappointed with her simple presentation and downcast songs. Just as she was about to leave the country, a prominent New York critic wrote a glowing review of her show, urging audiences not to dismiss her out of hand; she was booked at the Café Versailles in New York, and thanks to the publicity, she was a hit, staying for over five months. In that time, she met up with French boxer Marcel Cerdan, an acquaintance of about a year. In spite of Cerdan's marriage, the two began a passionate affair, not long before Cerdan won the world middleweight championship and became a French national hero. Unfortunately, tragedy struck in October 1949, when Cerdan was planning to visit Piaf in New York; wanting him to arrive sooner, she convinced him to take a plane instead of a boat. The plane crashed in the Azores, killing him. Devastated by guilt and grief, Piaf sank into drug and alcohol abuse, and began to experiment with morphine. In early 1950, she recorded "L'Hymne à l'Amour," a tribute to the one lover Piaf would never quite get over; co-written with Marguerite Monnot, it became one of her best-known and most heartfelt songs.
In 1951, Piaf met the young singer/songwriter Charles Aznavour, a future giant of French song who became her next protégé; unlike her others, this relationship always remained strictly platonic, despite the enduring closeness and loyalty of their friendship. Aznavour served as a jack-of-all-trades for Piaf -- secretary, chauffeur, etc. -- and she helped him get bookings, brought him on tour, and recorded several of his early songs, including the hit "Plus Bleu Que Tes Yeux" and "Jézébel." Their friendship nearly came to an early end when both were involved in a serious car accident (as passengers); Piaf suffered a broken arm and two broken ribs. With her doctor prescribing morphine for pain relief, she soon developed a serious chemical dependency to go with her increasing alcohol problems. In 1952, she romanced and married singer Jacques Pills, who co-wrote her hit "Je T'ai Dans la Peau" with his pianist, Gilbert Bécaud; Bécaud would soon go on to become yet another of the pop stars launched into orbit with Piaf's assistance. Meanwhile, Pills soon discovered the gravity of Piaf's substance abuse problems, and forced her into a detox clinic on three separate occasions. Nonetheless, Piaf continued to record and perform with great success, including appearances at Carnegie Hall and Paris' legendary Olympia theater. She and Pills divorced in 1955; not long afterward, she suffered an attack of delirium tremens and had to be hospitalized.
As an interpretive singer, Piaf was at the height of her powers during the mid-'50s, even in spite of all her health woes. Her international tours were consistently successful, and the devotion of her massive French following verged on worship. She scored several more hits over 1956-1958, among them "La Foule," "Les Amants D'un Jour," "L'homme à la Moto," and the smash "Mon Manège à Moi." During that period, she also completed another stay in detox; this time would prove to be successful, but years of drug and alcohol abuse had already destabilized her health. In late 1958, she met another up-and-coming songwriter, Georges Moustaki, and made him her latest lover and improvement project. Teaming once again with Marguerite Monnot, Moustaki co-wrote "Milord," an enormous hit that topped the charts all over Europe in early 1959 and became Piaf's first successful single in the U.K. Later that year, she and Moustaki were involved in another car accident, in which her face was badly cut; in early 1960, while performing at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, she collapsed and began to vomit blood on stage, and was rushed to the hospital for emergency stomach surgery. Stubbornly, she continued her tour, and collapsed on-stage again in Stockholm; this time she was sent back to Paris for more surgery.
Piaf was soon back in the recording studio, eager to record a composition by the legendary French songwriter Charles Dumont. "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" became one of her all-time classics and a huge international hit in 1960, serving as something of an equivalent to Frank Sinatra's "My Way." Piaf went on to score further hits with more Dumont songs, including "Mon Dieu," "Les Flons-Flons du Bal," and "Les Mots D'Amour." She staged a lengthy run at the Olympia in 1961, and later that year met an aspiring Greek singer named Théo Sarapo (born Theophanis Lamboukis), who became her latest project and, eventually, second husband. Sarapo was half her age, and given Piaf's poor health, the French media derided him as a gold digger. Nonetheless, they cut the duet "À Quoi Ça Sert l'Amour" in 1962, and performed together during Piaf's final engagement at the Olympia that year. Despite her physical weakness -- on some nights, she could barely stand -- Piaf had lost very little of the power in her voice.
Piaf and Sarapo sang together at the Bobino in early 1963, and Piaf also made her final recording, "L'Homme de Berlin." Not long afterward, Piaf slipped into a coma, brought on by cancer. Sarapo and Simone Berteaut took Piaf to her villa in Plascassier, on the French Riviera, to nurse her. She drifted in and out of consciousness for months before passing away on October 11, 1963 -- the same day as legendary writer/filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Her body was taken back to Paris in secret, so that fans could believe she died in her hometown. The news of her death caused a nationwide outpouring of grief, and tens of thousands of fans jammed the streets of Paris, stopping traffic to watch her funeral procession. Her towering stature in French popular music has hardly diminished in the years since; her grave at Père-Lachaise remains one of the famed cemetery's most visited, and her songs continue to be covered by countless classic-style pop artists, both French and otherwise. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
Édith Piaf (US: /piːˈɑːf/, UK: /ˈpiːæf/; French: [eˈdit pjaf]; 19 December 1915 – 11 October 1963), born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's national popular singer, as well as being one of France's greatest international stars.[1] Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads. Among her songs are "La Vie en rose" (1946), "Non, je ne regrette rien" (1960), "Hymne à l'amour" (1949), "Milord" (1959), "La Foule" (1957), "l'Accordéoniste" (1955), and "Padam... Padam..." (1951).
Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is shrouded in mystery.[2] She was born Édith Giovanna Gassion[3] in Belleville, Paris. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72, but her birth certificate cites the Hôpital Tenon,[4] the hospital for the 20th arrondissement of which Belleville is part.
She was named Édith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity.[5] Piaf—an argot colloquialism for "sparrow"—was a nickname she would receive 20 years later.
Her mother, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (1895–1945), was of French descent on her father's side and of Italian and Berber origin on her mother's.[6][7] She was a native of Livorno, a port city on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. She worked as a café singer under the name Line Marsa.[4]
Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944), Édith's father, was a Norman street acrobat[8] with a past in the theatre. Édith's parents soon abandoned her, and she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha) Saïd ben Mohammed (1876–1930). Before he enlisted with the French Army in 1916 to fight in World War I, her father took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look after Piaf.[1]
From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographies,[citation needed] she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, which the author claims resulted in a miraculous healing.[citation needed]
In 1929, at 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first sang in public.[1]
She took a room at Grand Hôtel de Clermont (18 rue Veron, Paris 18ème) and separated from him, going her own way as a street singer in Pigalle, Ménilmontant, and the Paris suburbs (cf. the song "Elle fréquentait la Rue Pigalle").
She joined her friend Simone Berteaut ("Mômone")[4] in this endeavor, and the two became lifelong partners in mischief.[1] She was about 16 when she fell in love with Louis Dupont, a delivery boy.[1]
At 17, she had her only child, a girl named Marcelle, who died of meningitis at age two.[8] Like her mother, Piaf found it difficult to care for a child while living a life of the streets, so she often left Marcelle behind while she was away, and Dupont raised her until her death.[1]
Singing career
In 1935 Piaf was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris[1] by nightclub owner Louis Leplée,[3] whose club Le Gerny off the Champs-Élysées[8] was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness, which, combined with her height of only 142 centimetres (4 ft 8 in),[4][9] inspired him to give her the nickname that would stay with her for the rest of her life and serve as her stage name, La Môme Piaf[3] (Parigot translatable as "The Waif Sparrow", "The Little Sparrow", or "Kid Sparrow").[1] Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, later to become her trademark apparel.[1] Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign leading up to her opening night, attracting the presence of many celebrities, including actor Maurice Chevalier.[1] Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced that same year,[9] with one of them penned by Marguerite Monnot, a collaborator throughout Piaf's life.[1]
On 6 April 1936,[1] Leplée was murdered and Piaf was questioned and accused as an accessory, but was acquitted.[3] Leplée had been killed by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf.[10] A barrage of negative media attention[4] now threatened her career.[1] To rehabilitate her image, she recruited Raymond Asso, with whom she would become romantically involved. He changed her stage name to "Édith Piaf", barred undesirable acquaintances from seeing her, and commissioned Monnot to write songs that reflected or alluded to Piaf's previous life on the streets.[1]
In 1940, Édith co-starred in Jean Cocteau's successful one-act play Le Bel Indifférent.[1] She began forming friendships with prominent people, including Chevalier and poet Jacques Borgeat. She wrote the lyrics of many of her songs and collaborated with composers on the tunes. In 1944, she discovered Yves Montand in Paris, made him part of her act, and became his mentor[4] and lover.[10] Within a year, he became one of the most famous singers in France, and she broke off their relationship when he had become almost as popular as she was.[1]
During this time she was in great demand and very successful in Paris[3] as France's most popular entertainer.[9] After the war, she became known internationally,[3] touring Europe, the United States, and South America. In Paris, she gave Atahualpa Yupanqui (Héctor Roberto Chavero)—the most important Argentine musician of folklore—the opportunity to share the scene, making his debut in July 1950. She helped launch the career of Charles Aznavour in the early 1950s, taking him on tour with her in France and the United States and recording some of his songs.[1] At first she met with little success with U.S. audiences, who regarded her as downcast.[1] After a glowing review by a prominent New York critic, however, her popularity grew,[1] to the point where she eventually appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show eight times and at Carnegie Hall twice (1956[8] and 1957).
Édith Piaf's signature song "La vie en rose"[1] was written in 1945 and was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.
Bruno Coquatrix's famous Paris Olympia music hall is where Piaf achieved lasting fame, giving several series of concerts at the hall, the most famous venue in Paris,[4] between January 1955 and October 1962. Excerpts from five of these concerts (1955, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962) were issued on record and CD and have never been out of print. The 1961 concerts were promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue from bankruptcy and where she debuted her song "Non, je ne regrette rien".[4] In April 1963, Piaf recorded her last song, "L'homme de Berlin".
World War II
During World War II, she was a frequent performer at German Forces social gatherings in occupied France, and many considered her a traitor; following the war she stated that she had been working for the French Resistance. While there is no evidence of this, it does seem to be true that she was instrumental in helping a number of individuals (including at least one Jew) escape Nazi persecution. Throughout it all, she remained a national and international favorite.[11] Piaf dated a Jewish pianist during this time and co-wrote a subtle protest song with Monnot.[1] According to one story, singing for high-ranking Germans at the One Two Two Club[12] earned Piaf the right to pose for photographs with French prisoners of war, to boost their morale. The Frenchmen were supposedly able to cut out their photos and use them as forged passport photos.[12]
Personal life
The love of Piaf's life,[3] the married boxerMarcel Cerdan, died in a plane crash in October 1949, while flying from Paris to New York City to meet her. Cerdan's Air France flight, flown on a Lockheed Constellation, went down in the Azores, killing everyone on board, including noted violinist Ginette Neveu.[13] Piaf and Cerdan's affair made international headlines,[4] as Cerdan was the former middleweight world champion and a legend in France in his own right.
In 1951, Piaf was seriously injured in a car crash along with Charles Aznavour, breaking her arm and two ribs, and thereafter had serious difficulties arising from morphine and alcohol addictions.[1] Two more near fatal car crashes exacerbated the situation.[8]Jacques Pills, a singer, took her into rehabilitation on three different occasions to no avail.[1]
Piaf married Jacques Pills in 1952 (her matron of honour was Marlene Dietrich) and divorced him in 1956. In 1962, she wed Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a Greek hairdresser-turned-singer and actor[1] who was 20 years her junior. The couple sang together in some of her last engagements.[1]
Piaf died of liver cancer at age 47 at her [14] in Plascassier, on the French Riviera, on 11 October 1963[15][16][17] in Paris). She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for several months.[8] Her last words were "Every damn fool thing you do in this life, you pay for."[18] It is said that Sarapo drove her body back to Paris secretly so that fans would think she had died in her hometown.[1][12] She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris next to her daughter Marcelle, where her grave is among the most visited.[1]
Although she was denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris because of her lifestyle,[12] her funeral procession drew tens of thousands[1] of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans.[12][19]Charles Aznavour recalled that Piaf's funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that he saw Parisian traffic come to a complete stop.[12]
In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf[12][20] (5 rue Crespin du Gast).
Numerous songs by Piaf are used in films (such as Saving Private Ryan and Inception) and other media. Singers have paid tribute to her by covering her songs. Piaf's name can still be found in popular culture and music today. Her life has been the subject of multiple films and plays:
Films of her life
The film Piaf (1974) depicted her early years, and starred Brigitte Ariel, with early Piaf songs performed by Betty Mars.
Piaf's relationship with Cerdan was also depicted in film by Claude Lelouch in the movie Édith et Marcel (1983), with Marcel Cerdan Jr. in the role of his father and Évelyne Bouix portraying Piaf.
Piaf...Her Story...Her Songs (2003) is a film starring Raquel Bitton in her performance tribute to Édith Piaf. Bitton performs Piaf's most famous songs and describes her tempestuous life. Woven into the filmed concert is a luncheon in Paris, hosted by Bitton, in which some of Piaf's composers, friends, lovers, and family share their memories. These include Michel Rivgauche and Francis Lai, two of Piaf's composers, as well as Marcel Cerdan, Jr., son of the boxing champion who was her greatest love.
La Vie en rose (2007), a film about her life directed by Olivier Dahan, debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2007. Titled La Môme in France, the film stars Marion Cotillard in the role that won her the Academy Award for Best Actress (Oscar), as Piaf. Dahan's film follows Piaf's life from early childhood to her death in 1963. David Bret's 1988 biography, Piaf, A Passionate Life, was re-released by JR Books to coincide with the film's release.
Édith Piaf – The Perfect Concert and Piaf The Documentary (February 2009)
Books on Édith Piaf
The Wheel of Fortune: The Autobiography of Édith Piaf by Édith Piaf (originally written in 1958, 5 years before her death), Peter Owen Publishers; ISBN 0720612284
Édith Piaf, by Édith Piaf and Simone Berteaut, published January 1982; ISBN 2904106014
Berteaut, Simone; Boulanger, G. (translator) (1958). Robert Laffont. ed (in French, translated into English). Au bal de la chance (1965 (translation) ed.). Paris: Penguin. ISBN978-0140036695. memoirs, written by stepsister
The Piaf Legend, by David Bret, Robson Books,1988.
Piaf: A Passionate Life, by David Bret, Robson Books, 1998, revised JR Books, 2007
"The Sparrow – Edith Piaf," chapter in Singers & The Song (pp. 23–43), by Gene Lees, Oxford University Press, 1987, insightful critique of Piaf's biography and music.
Marlene, My Friend, by David Bret, Robson Books, 1993. Dietrich dedicates a whole chapter to her friendship with Piaf.
Oh! Père Lachaise, by Jim Yates, Édition d'Amèlie 2007, ISBN 978-0-9555836-0-5. Piaf and Oscar Wilde meet in a pink-tinted Parisian Purgatory.
No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf, by Carolyn Burke, Alfred A. Knopf 2011, ISBN 978-0-307-26801-3. An in-depth and insightful look at Piaf's life.
^ Her grand-mother Emma Saïd ben Mohamed was born in Mogador, Morocco in December 1876, « Emma Saïd ben Mohamed, d'origine kabyle et probablement connue au Maroc où renvoie son acte de naissance établi à Mogador, le 10 décembre 1876 », Pierre Duclos and Georges Martin, Piaf, biographie, Éditions du Seuil, 1993, Paris, p. 41
^ "Her mother, half-Italian, half-Berber", David Bret, Piaf: a passionate life, Robson Books, 1998, p.2
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