name | Édith Piaf |
---|---|
background | solo_singer |
birth name | Édith Giovanna Gassion |
alias | La Môme Piaf(''The Little Sparrow'') |
born | December 19, 1915Belleville, Paris, France |
died | Plascassier, France |
instrument | Voice |
genre | CabaretTorch songsChanson |
occupation | Singer, songwriter, actress |
years active | 1935–1963 |
label | Pathé Records, Pathé-Marconi |
associated acts | }} |
Édith Piaf (, ; ; 1915–1963), born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. 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).
She was named Edith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity. 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. 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''.
Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944), Édith's father, was a Norman street acrobat 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.
From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographies, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring ''Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux'', which the author claims resulted in a miraculous healing.
In 1929, at 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first sang in public.
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") in this endeavor, and the two became lifelong partners in mischief. She was about 16 when she fell in love with Louis Dupont, a delivery boy.
At 17, she had her only child, a girl named Marcelle, who died of meningitis at age two. 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.
On 6 April 1936, Leplée was murdered and Piaf was questioned and accused as an accessory, but was acquitted. Leplée had been killed by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf. A barrage of negative media attention now threatened her career. 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.
In 1940, Édith co-starred in Jean Cocteau's successful one-act play ''Le Bel Indifférent''. 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 and lover. 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.
During this time she was in great demand and very successful in Paris as France's most popular entertainer. After the war, she became known internationally, 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. At first she met with little success with U.S. audiences, who regarded her as downcast. After a glowing review by a prominent New York critic, however, her popularity grew, to the point where she eventually appeared on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' eight times and at Carnegie Hall twice (1956 and 1957).
Édith Piaf's signature song "La vie en rose" 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, 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". In April 1963, Piaf recorded her last song, "L'homme de Berlin".
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. Two more near fatal car crashes exacerbated the situation. Jacques Pills, a singer, took her into rehabilitation on three different occasions to no avail.
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 who was 20 years her junior. The couple sang together in some of her last engagements.
Although she was denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris because of her lifestyle, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans. 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.
In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf (5 rue Crespin du Gast).
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 Edith 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.
;1933
;1934
;1935
;1936 (from the movie ''La Garçonne'')
;1937
;1938
;1939
;1940
;1941 (from the movie ''Montmartre-sur-Seine'')
;1942 (from the movie ''Montmartre-sur-Seine'')
;1943 (from the movie ''Montmartre-sur-Seine'')
;1944
;1945
;1946 (with Les Compagnons de la chanson) (with Les Compagnons de la Chanson) (with Les Compagnons de la Chanson) (with Les Compagnons de la Chanson)
;1947 (from the movie ''Neuf Garçons, Un Cœur'') (from the movie ''Neuf Garçons, Un Cœur'')
;1948
;1949 (from the movie ''L'Homme aux Mains d'Argile'')
;1950
;1951 (with Eddie Constantine) (with Eddie Constantine) (with M. Jiteau)
;1952 (from the movie ''Boum sur Paris'') (with Jacques Pills) (from the movie ''Boum sur Paris'')
;1953 (with Jacques Pills) (from the movie ''Boum sur Paris'')
;1954 (from the movie ''Si Versailles M'Était Conté'') (from the movie ''French Cancan'')
;1955
;1956
;1957
;1958
;1959
;1960
;1961
;1962 (with Théo Sarapo) (with Charles Dumont) (with Mikis Theodorakis/Jacques Plante) (with Théo Sarapo)
;1963 (her last recording)
There are in excess of 80 albums of Édith Piaf's songs available on online music stores.
Category:1915 births Category:1963 deaths Category:Musicians from Paris Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Category:Cabaret singers Category:Cancer deaths in France Category:Deaths from liver cancer Category:French buskers Category:French female singers Category:French-language singers Category:French people of Italian descent Category:French people of Algerian descent Category:French pop singers Category:French Resistance members Category:Torch singers
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