1930 movie

Édith Piaf

French singer (–)

For other uses, see Edith Piaf (disambiguation).

Édith Giovanna Gassion (19 December – 10 October ), known as Édith Piaf (French:[editpjaf]), was a French entertainer best known for performing songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres.

She is widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer and one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th century.[1][2]

Piaf's music was often autobiographical, and she specialized in chanson réaliste and torch ballads about love, loss and sorrow. Her most widely known songs include "La Vie en rose" (), "Non, je ne regrette rien" (), "Hymne à l'amour" (), "Milord" (), "La Foule" (), "L'Accordéoniste" (), and "Padam, padam" ().

Having begun her career touring with her father at age fourteen, her fame increased during the German occupation of France and in , Piaf's signature song, "La Vie en rose" ('life in pink') was published. She became France's most popular entertainer in the late s, also touring Europe, South America and the United States, where her popularity led to eight appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Piaf continued to perform, including several series of concerts at the Paris Olympia music hall, until a few months before her death in at age Her last song, "L'Homme de Berlin", was recorded with her husband in April Since her death, several documentaries and films have been produced about Piaf's life as a touchstone of French culture.

Early life

Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is unknown.[3] Her birth certificate indicates she was born in Paris on 19 December , at the Hôpital Tenon hospital.[4]

Her birth name was Édith Giovanna Gassion.[5] The name "Édith" was inspired by British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed 2 months before Édith's birth for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity during World War I.[6] Twenty years later, Édith's stage surname Piaf was created by her first promoter, based on a French term for 'sparrow'.[1]

Édith's father Louis Alphonse Gassion (–) was an acrobatic street performer from Normandy with a theater background.

Louis's father was Victor Alphonse Gassion (–) and his mother was Léontine Louise Descamps (–), who ran a brothel in Normandy and was known professionally as "Maman Tine".[7] Édith's mother, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (–) was a singer and circus performer born in Italy who performed under the stage name "Line Marsa".[8][9][10] Annetta's father was Auguste Eugène Maillard (–) of French descent and her grandmother was Emma (Aïcha) Saïd Ben Mohammed (–), an acrobat of Kabyle and Italian descent.[11][12] Annetta and Louis divorced on 4 June [13][14]

Piaf's mother abandoned her at birth, and she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha), in Bethandy, Normandy.

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    • When her father enlisted with the French Army in to fight in World War I, he took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Bernay, Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look after Piaf.[1] The bordello had two floors and seven rooms, and the prostitutes were not very numerous – "about ten poor girls", as she later described.

    In fact, five or six were permanent while a dozen others would join the brothel during market days and other busy days. The sub-mistress of the brothel was called "Madam Gaby" and Piaf considered her almost like family; later, she became godmother of Denise Gassion, Piaf's half-sister born in [15]

    From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis.

    According to one of her biographers, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to accompany her on a pilgrimage honouring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

    Edith piaf books 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, , 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.

    Piaf claimed this resulted in a miraculous healing.[16]

    Career

    –

    At age 14, Piaf was taken by her father to join him in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first began to sing in public.[17] The following year, Piaf met Simone "Mômone" Berteaut,[18] who became a companion for most of her life.

    Berteaut later falsely represented herself as Piaf's half-sister in a memoir.[19] Together they toured the streets singing and earning money for themselves. With the additional money Piaf earned as part of an acrobatic trio, she and Berteaut were able to rent their own place.[1] Piaf took a room at the Grand Hôtel de Clermont in Paris and worked with Berteaut as a street singer around Paris and its suburbs.[20]

    Piaf met a young man named Louis Dupont in and lived with him for a time; she became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Marcelle "Cécelle" Dupont, on 11 February , when Piaf was seventeen.

    After Piaf's relationship with Dupont ended, Marcelle, who had been living with her father, contracted meningitis and died in July , aged two.[2]

    In , Piaf was discovered by nightclub owner Louis Leplée.[5][1][7] Leplée persuaded Piaf (then known by her birth name of Édith Gassion) to sing despite her extreme nervousness.

    This nervousness and her height of only centimetres (4&#;ft 8&#;in),[4][21] inspired Leplée to give her the nickname La Môme Piaf,[5] which is Paris slang for "The Sparrow Kid". Leplée taught Piaf about stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, which became her trademark apparel.[1]

    Prior to Piaf's opening night, Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign, resulting in the attendance of many celebrities.[1] The bandleader that evening was Django Reinhardt, with his pianist, Norbert Glanzberg.[2]:&#;35&#; Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced that same year,[21] with one of them penned by Marguerite Monnot, a collaborator throughout Piaf's life and one of her favourite composers.[1]

    On 6 April ,[1] Leplée was murdered.

    Paul porsche d edith piaf biography vie en rose

    Edith Piaf, the greatest French singer, faced numerous trials and tribulations throughout her life, earning her the title of a martyr. She survived four car accidents, seven surgeries, three hepatic comas, several bouts of malaria, a bout of madness, a suicide attempt, and two world wars. Although she passed away before the age of fifty, she captivated millions of men and won the adoration of France with her talent. According to legend, Edith Piaf was born under a street lamp on one of the streets of Paris, though this is unlikely to be true. When World War I began, her father volunteered for the front.

    Piaf was questioned and accused as an accessory, but acquitted.[5] Leplée had been killed by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf.[22] A barrage of negative media attention now threatened Piaf's career.[4][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 , Piaf co-starred in Jean Cocteau's one-act play Le Bel Indifférent.[1]

    Piaf's career and fame gained momentum during the German occupation of France in World War II.[23] She began forming friendships with prominent people, such as actor and singer Maurice Chevalier and poet Jacques Bourgeat.

    Piaf also performed in various nightclubs and brothels, which flourished between and [24] Various top Paris brothels, including Le Chabanais, Le Sphinx, One Two Two,[25] La rue des Moulins, and Chez Marguerite, were reserved for German officers and collaborating Frenchmen.[26] Piaf was invited to take part in a concert tour to Berlin, sponsored by the German officials, together with artists such as Loulou Gasté, Raymond Souplex, Viviane Romance and Albert Préjean.[27] In , she was able to afford a luxury flat in a house in the upmarket 16th arrondissement of Paris area.[28] She lived above the L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous nightclub and bordello close to the Paris Gestapo headquarters.[29]

    Piaf was accused of collaborating with the German occupying forces and had to testify before a Épuration légale (post-war legal trial), as there were plans to ban her from appearing on radio transmissions.[2] However, her secretary Andrée Bigard, a member of the French Resistance, spoke in her favour after the Liberation.[29][30] According to Bigard, she performed several times at prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and was instrumental in helping a number of prisoners escape.[31] At the beginning of the war, Piaf had met Michel Emer, a Jewish musician famous for the song L'Accordéoniste.

    Piaf paid for Emer to travel into France before German occupation, where he lived in safety until the liberation.[31][32][33] Following the trial, Piaf was quickly back in the singing business and in December , she performed for the Allied forces in Marseille, alongside singer/actor Yves Montand.[2]

    Earlier in , Piaf performed in the Moulin Rouge cabaret venue in Paris, where she worked with Montand and began an affair with him.[4][22]

    –

    Piaf wrote and performed her signature song, "La Vie en rose" in [1] This song was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in [34]

    In , she wrote the lyrics to the song "What Can I Do?" for her lover Montand.

    Within a year, Montand became one of the most famous singers in France. 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[5] as France's most popular entertainer.[21] After the war, she became known internationally,[5] touring Europe, the United States, and South America.

    In Paris, she gave Argentinian guitarist-singer Atahualpa Yupanqui – a central figure in the Argentine folk music tradition – the opportunity to share the scene, making his debut in July Piaf also helped launch the career of Charles Aznavour in the early s, 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 American audiences, who expected a gaudy spectacle and were disappointed by Piaf's simple presentation.[1] However, after a glowing review by influential New York critic Virgil Thomson in ,[35][1] her popularity in the U.S.

    grew to the point where she eventually appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show eight times, and at Carnegie Hall twice (in and ).[7]

    –

    Between January and October , Piaf performed several series of concerts at the Paris Olympia music hall.[4] Excerpts from five of these concerts (, , , , ) were issued on vinyl record (and later on CD), and have never been out of print.

    In the concerts, promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue from bankruptcy, she first sang Non, je ne regrette rien.[4] In early , Piaf recorded her last song before her death, titled L'Homme de Berlin.[36]

    Personal life

    During a tour of America in , Piaf met boxer Marcel Cerdan and fell in love.[37] They had an affair, which made international headlines since Cerdan was the former middleweight world champion, and at the time was married with three children.[4] In October , Cerdan boarded a flight from Paris to New York to meet Piaf.

    While on approach to land at Santa Maria in the Azores for a scheduled stopover, the aircraft crashed into a mountain, killing Cerdan and everyone else on board.[38] In May , Piaf recorded the hit song "Hymne à l'amour" dedicating it to Cerdan.[39]

    Piaf was injured in a car accident that occurred in Both Piaf and singer Charles Aznavour (her then-assistant) were passengers in the vehicle, with Piaf suffering a broken arm and two broken ribs.

    Her doctor prescribed the drug morphine as a treatment, which became a dependency alongside her alcohol problems.[1] Two more near-fatal car crashes exacerbated the situation.[7] In , her then-husband forced Piaf into a detox clinic on three separate occasions.[1]

    In , Piaf married her first husband, singer Jacques Pills (real name René Ducos), with Marlene Dietrich performing the matron of honour duties.

    Piaf and Pills divorced in [40] In , she wed Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a singer, actor, and former hairdresser who was born in France of Greek descent.[1] Sarapo was 20 years younger than Piaf[41] and the two remained married until Piaf's death.[1]

    Death

    In early , soon after recording "L'Homme de Berlin" with her husband Théo Sarapo, Piaf slipped into a coma due to liver cancer.[42] She was taken to her villa in Plascassier on the French Riviera where she was nursed by Sarapo and her friend Simone Berteaut.

    Over the next few months she drifted in and out of consciousness, before dying at age 47 on 10 October [1]

    Her last words were "Every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for."[43] It is said that Sarapo drove her body from Plascassier to Paris secretly, so that fans would think she had died in her hometown.[1][25]

    Piaf's body is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, where her grave is among the most visited.[1]

    Funeral and Requiem Mass

    Shortly after her death, Piaf's funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris,[1] and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than , fans.[25][44] According to Piaf's colleague Charles Aznavour, Piaf's funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that the traffic in Paris had come to a complete stop.[25]

    However, at the time, Piaf had been denied a Catholic Requiem Mass by Cardinal Maurice Feltin, since she had remarried after divorce in the Orthodox Church.[45] Fifty years later, the French Catholic Church recanted and gave Piaf a Requiem Mass in the St.

    Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville, Paris (the parish into which she was born) on 10 October [46]

    Legacy

    French media have continually published magazines, books, plays, television specials and films about the star, often on the anniversary of her death.[2] In , her longtime friend Simone "Mômone" Berteaut published a biography titled "Piaf."[18] This biography contained the false claim that Bertreaut was Piaf's half-sister.[47] In , the Association of the Friends of Édith Piaf was formed, followed by the inauguration of the Place Édith Piaf in Belleville in Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina named a small planet, Piaf, in her honor.[48]

    A fan and author of two Piaf biographies operates the Musée Édith Piaf, a two-room museum in Paris.[25][49] The museum is located in the fan's apartment and has operated since [50]

    A concert titled Piaf: A Centennial Celebration was held at The Town Hall in New York City on 19 December , to commemorate the th anniversary of Piaf's birth.

    The events was hosted by Robert Osborne and produced by Daniel Nardicio and Andy Brattain. Performers included Little Annie, Gay Marshall, Amber Martin, Marilyn Maye, Meow Meow, Elaine Paige, Molly Pope, Vivian Reed, Kim David Smith, and Aaron Weinstein.[51][52]

    At the Olympic Summer Games opening ceremony, Canadian singer Celine Dion performed "L'Hymne à l'amour".[53]

    Biographies

    Piaf's life has been the subject of numerous films, including:

    • Piaf (), directed by Guy Casaril, depicted her early years
    • Édith et Marcel (), directed by Claude Lelouch, Piaf's relationship with Cerdan
    • Piaf Her Story Her Songs (), by Raquel Bitton
    • La Vie en Rose (), directed by Olivier Dahan, starring Marion Cotillard who won an Academy Award for Best Actress
    • The Sparrow and the Birdman (), by Raquel Bitton
    • Edith Piaf Alive (), by Flo Ankah
    • Piaf, voz y delirio (), by Leonardo Padrón.

    Documentaries about Piaf's life include:

    • Édith Piaf: A Passionate Life (24 May )
    • Édith Piaf: Eternal Hymn (Éternelle, l'hymne à la môme, PAL, Region 2, import)
    • Piaf: Her Story, Her Songs (June )
    • Piaf: La Môme ()
    • Édith Piaf: The Perfect Concert and Piaf: The Documentary (February )

    In , a play titled Piaf (by English playwright Pam Gems) began a run of performances in London and New York.

    In , Warner Music Group (WMG) announced a new biopic of Piaf that would be narrated by an artificial intelligence program that has been trained to replicate Piaf's voice. The project has been conducted in partnership with the Piaf estate, which supplied the recordings used in the process.[54][55]

    Discography

    See also: List of songs recorded by Édith Piaf

    In the pre-LP era she recorded singles for Polydor, Columbia Graphophone and Decca.

    The following titles are compilations of Piaf's songs and not reissues of the titles released while Piaf was active.

    • Edith Piaf: Edith Piaf (Music For Pleasure MFP )
    • Potpourri par Piaf (Capitol ST )
    • Ses Plus Belles Chansons (Contour )
    • The Voice of the Sparrow: The Very Best of Édith Piaf, original release date: June
    • Édith Piaf: 30th Anniversaire, original release date: 5 April
    • Édith Piaf: Her Greatest Recordings –, original release date: 15 July
    • The Early Years: –, Vol.

      3, original release date: 15 October

    • Hymn to Love: All Her Greatest Songs in English, original release date: 4 November
    • Gold Collection, original release date: 9 January
    • The Rare Piaf – (28 April )
    • La Vie en rose, original release date: 26 January
    • Montmartre Sur Seine (soundtrack import), original release date: 19 September
    • Éternelle: The Best Of (29 January )
    • Love and Passion (boxed set), original release date: 8 April
    • The Very Best of Édith Piaf (import), original release date: 29 October
    • 75 Chansons (Box set/import), original release date: 22 September
    • 48 Titres Originaux (import), (09/01/)
    • Édith Piaf: L'Intégrale/Complete 20 CD/ Chansons, original release date: 27 February
    • Édith Piaf: The Absolutely Essential 3 CD Collection/Proper Records UK, original release date: 31 May
    • Édith Piaf: Symphonique (featuring Legendis Orchestra), original release date: 13 October

    Filmography

    See also

    References

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      "Édith Piaf and Jacques Brel live again in Paris: The two legendary singers are making a comeback in cafes and theatres in the City of Light". Vancouver Sun. Canada. p.&#;F3. Archived from the original on 11 December Retrieved 18 July

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      Larousse (in French). Retrieved 1 September

    12. ^Death certificate Year , France, Montluçon (03), , N°, 2E
    13. ^Her grandmother, Emma Saïd Ben Mohamed, was born in Mogador, Morocco, in December , " Emma Saïd ben Mohamed, d'origine kabyle et probablement connue au Maroc où renvoie son acte de naissance établi à Mogador, le 10 décembre ", Pierre Duclos and Georges Martin, Piaf, biographie, Éditions du Seuil, , Paris, p.&#;41
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      Edith piaf biography book: The name "Édith" was inspired by British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed 2 months before Édith's birth for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity during World War I. [6] Twenty years later, Édith's stage surname Piaf was created by her first promoter, based on a French term for 'sparrow'.

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      Paul porsche d edith piaf biography movie A thousand years from now," wrote Monique Lange in Piaf, her biography of French songstress Edith Piaf, "Piaf's voice will still be heard, and each time we hear it we will wonder anew at its strength, its violence, its lyrical magic. 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, , into a less-than-glamorous life in a working-class neighborhood of Paris.

      . Retrieved 11 December

    35. ^Thomson, Virgil "La Môme Piaf", New York Herald Tribune, 9 November
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    37. ^"Marcelcerdanheritage - Toutes vos actualités sportives".

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    38. ^Marcel Cerdan's tragic disappearance () Archived 23 April at the Wayback Machine – Marcel Cerdan Heritage
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    49. ^"Tragic singer wins over Catholic Church, 50 years after death". NZ Herald. 9 July Retrieved 9 July
    50. ^Burke, Carolyn (). No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf. Chicago Review Press. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
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      (). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer Berlin Heidelberg (published 11 November ). p.&#; ISBN&#;. Retrieved 20 March

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    53. ^"Musée Edith Piaf, Paris". .

      Paul porsche d edith piaf biography France's greatest popular singer of the 20th century, whose tragic life made her an interpreter of the lives and loves of ordinary men and women and whose ability to perform despite near-fatal bouts of illness became legendary. A tiny figure, barely 4'10", and weighing less than 90 pounds, moonfaced, chalky white, with a broad forehead, wide-set eyes, and auburn hair cut in bangs later in life a thinning, frizzy mop , garbed always in a short black dress and wearing a small gold cross, her feet firmly planted, her arms and hands at her sides, gesturing only sparingly while belting out a song in a voice which could be heard for a city block—this was Edith Piaf , a giant in the world of popular music whose recordings decades after her death at 48 continued to sell in huge numbers. That she herself was a product of those harsh streets and lived a life full of woe and heartbreak added immeasurably to her appeal, which transcended all class boundaries. Legends grew up around her life which she did nothing to dispel. She seems to have believed most of them, in fact, beginning with the tale that she was born on the streets, literally—on a gendarme's cape in front of no.

      Archived from the original on 22 April

    54. ^Durell, Sandi (21 December ). "Piaf Centennial Celebration – Town Hall". Theater Pizzazz. Retrieved 20 February
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    56. ^Dickerson, Claire Gilbody (27 July ). "Celine Dion 'full of joy' after comeback at Paris Olympics opening ceremony". Sky News. Retrieved 13 August
    57. ^Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (14 November ). "Édith Piaf's voice re-created using AI so she can narrate own biopic".

      The Guardian. ISSN&#; Retrieved 15 November

    58. ^"Creators of the Edith Piaf AI-Generated Biopic Speak Out: 'We Don't Want Her to Look Cartoonish' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. 22 November

    Further reading

    • Piaf, Édith; Dauvent, Louis-René (). Au bal de la chance (in French).

      Foreword by Jean Cocteau. Genève: Crét. ISBN&#; (English edition: The Wheel of Fortune: The Autobiography of Edith Piaf. Translated by Masoin de Virton, Andrée; Rootes, Nina. London: Peter Owen. ISBN&#;)

    • Bret, David (). Édith Piaf. Find Me a New Way to Die&#;: the Untold Story. London: Oberon.

      ISBN&#;.

    • Bret, David (). Marlene Dietrich, My Friend: An Intimate Biography. London: Robson. ISBN&#; (approved biography, with a whole chapter dedicated to Dietrich's friendship with Piaf)
    • Bret, David (). Piaf: A Passionate Life. London: Robson. ISBN&#; (revised, JR Books, , ISBN&#;)
    • Bret, David ().

      The Piaf Legend. London: Robson. ISBN&#;.

    • Burke, Carolyn (). No regrets: the life of Edith Piaf. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
    • "The Sparrow – Edith Piaf", chapter in Singers & The Song