Édith Piaf
photographer unknown
Today, December 19, is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Édith Piaf in 1915. About a year and a half ago, I suddenly realized this event was coming. Because of the enormous impact the music of Piaf had made at an important point in my life when I was young, I began gathering information together for this article on her. There are links (below) to other articles I've written about her.
I
hope you find as much love and compassion from reading and briefly
reliving the intense life of this amazing woman, as I had putting it
together.
thank you
the Édith Piaf nutshell
(green links to more info)
Édith Piaf was born Édith Giovanna Gassion at the Hôpital Tenon in Belleville, Paris, December 19, 1915. She was a French cabaret singer, songwriter and actress who became widely regarded as France's national chanteuse, as well as being one of France's greatest international stars. She was an icon in the Pantheon of entertainment.
Piaf's father was Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944), a street performer of
acrobatics from Normandy. He was the son of Victor Alphonse Gassion
(1850–1928) and Léontine Louise Descamps (1860–1937), known as Maman
Tine, a "madam" who ran a brothel in Normandy.
Piaf's mother
was Annetta Giovanna Maillard (1895–1945) who was of French descent on
her father's side and of Italian origin on her mother's, and she was a
native of Livorno, Italy. She worked as a café singer under the name
Line Marsa. Her parents were Auguste Eugène Maillard (1866–1912) and
Emma (Aïcha) Saïd ben Mohammed (1876–1930), daughter of Said ben
Mohammed (1827–1890), a Moroccan acrobat born in Mogador, Morocco, and
Marguerite Bracco (1830–1898), born in Murazzano in Italy.
Her mother abandoned Piaf at birth and when her father enlisted with the French Army in 1916 to fight in World War I, he took her to a women who ran a brothel in Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look after Piaf.
In 1929, at age 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street
performances all over France, where she first sang in public. At the age
of 15, Piaf met Simone "Mômone" Berteaut, who may have been her
half-sister, who became a companion for most of her life, and together
they toured the streets for the first time singing and earning money for
themselves. With the additional money Piaf earned as part of an
acrobatic trio, Piaf and Mômone were able to rent their own place. She separated from her father and took a room at
Grand Hôtel de Clermont (18
rue Veron, Paris 18ème), working with Mômone as a street singer in
Pigalle,
Ménilmontant, and the Paris suburbs (cf. the song
Elle fréquentait la Rue Pigalle).
photographer unknown
In
1932, she met and fell in love with Louis Dupont. In February 1933,
when Piaf was 17 years old, her daughter, Marcelle, known as Cécelle,
was born in the Hôpital Tenon. She returned to street singing, until the
summer of 1933, when she opened at Juan-les-Pins, Rue Pigalle. Marcelle
died of
meningitis at age two. It is rumoured that Piaf slept with a man to pay for Marcelle's funeral.
In 1935, Piaf was discovered in the
Pigalle area of
Paris by nightclub owner
Louis Leplée, whose club
Le Gerny off the
Champs-Élysées.
He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness, which,
combined with her height of only 142 centimetres (4 ft 8 in), 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 (Paris slang
meaning "The Waif Sparrow" or "The Little Sparrow"). Leplée taught her
the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a
black dress, which became her trademark apparel. Later, she would always
appear in black.
Her opening night attracted many celebrities,
including actor
Maurice Chevalier. Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced that same year, with one of them penned by
Marguerite Monnot,
a collaborator throughout Piaf's life and one of her favourite
composers.
On 6 April 1936, Leplée was murdered which generated negative
media attention and 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" and commissioned Monnot to write songs that reflected or alluded to
Piaf's previous life on the streets.
In 1940, Piaf co-starred in the successful one-act play,
Le Bel Indifférent, by
Jean Cocteau. 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 the spring of 1944 she began the first collaboration (and love
affair) with
Yves Montand at the
Moulin Rouge.
Paris Cancan (1890)
In December of 1944, she performed on stage for the
Allied forces together with Montand in
Marseille,
France.
Piaf's
signature song,
La vie en rose, was written in 1945 and was voted a
Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. The song's title can be translated as
Life in Rosy Hues or
Life
Through Rose-Tinted Glasses; its literal meaning is "Life in Pink". The lyrics and melody of the song were written by Piaf herself,
but the melody was said officially to have been composed and registered
by
Louis Guglielmi
(known as Louiguy) only, since at the time, due to the stringent
registration requirements of
SACEM, Piaf did not have the necessary
qualifications to be able to copyright her work with
SACEM. The song made Piaf internationally famous, with its lyrics telling
about the joy of finding true love and appealing to those who had
survived the difficult wartime.
La Vie en rose was released on a 10" single in 1947 by
Columbia Records, a division of
EMI, with
Un refrain courait dans la rue on the
B-side.
It met with a warm reception and sold a million copies in the USA. It
was the biggest-selling single of 1948 in Italy, and the ninth
biggest-selling single in Brazil in 1949. Piaf performed the song in the
1948 French movie
Neuf garçons, un coeur.
In 1947, she wrote the lyrics to the song
Mais qu'est-ce que j'ai! (music :
Henri Betti)
for Montand. Within a year, he became one of the most famous singers in
France. She broke off their relationship when he had become almost as
popular as she was.
In 1948, Piaf met and had an affair with boxing champion,
Marcel Cerdan, who was married. The affair lasted from summer 1948 until his death in autumn 1949. They
were devoted to each other and Piaf wrote one of her most famous
songs,
Hymne à l'amour,
for Cerdan. Piaf and Cerdan's affair made international headlines, as
Cerdan was the former middleweight world champion and a legend in France
in his own right.
New York, World Championship
September 21, 1948
family archives
Cerdan began boxing professionally on November 4, 1934 in Meknes, Morocco,
beating Marcel Bucchianeri by a decision in six rounds. Cerdan then ran
a streak of 47 wins in a row between that first bout and January 4,
1939, when he lost for the first time, to Harry Craster by a
disqualification in five rounds in London.
photographer unknown
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. Singer
Jacques Pills took her into rehabilitation on several occasions with no success.
Piaf married Jacques Pills (real name René Ducos), her first husband, in 1952 (her matron of honour was
Marlene Dietrich). Piaf divorced him in 1957. 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.
Rotterdam performance, December 13, 1962
negative strips black / white,
number access 2.24.01.05, part number 914-6437
National Image Archive:
Photo Collection Standard Dutch Fotopersbureau
Piaf died of liver cancer on the 10th of October, 1963. She was 47. She was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The Roman Catholic
church denied a funeral mass because of her lifestyle. However, her
funeral procession was attended by more than 100,000 fans. It wasn’t
until 50 years after her death, in 2013, that the Catholic church
granted a proper funeral mass for her.
Having by Gallic law inherited Piaf's seven million francs worth of
debts, Sarapo was evicted from the apartment they shared on Boulevard
Lannes on Christmas Day 1963; he recorded La maison qui ne chante
plus (the house which no longer sings), which became a hit. Another hit of his was Le jour viendra, which in English is, Our Day Will Come. Sarapo, was buried next to Piaf seven years later when he
died in a car accident on August 28, 1970.
photographers unknown
On June 12th, 2012, the United States and France postal services jointly issued stamps honoring Édith Piaf and jazz musician
Miles Davis.
Designed by Greg Breeding, the stamps depict the artists in their most
iconic poses using a photo of Davis with his trumpet in 1970 by
David Gahr and a photo of Piaf from the
Michael Ochs Archives.
Viewfinder links:
Édith Piaf
Miles Davis
Marlene Dietrich
David Gahr
The United States postal music stamps ~ the "Forevers"
Net links:
films about Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf Discography
songs by Édith Piaf
YouTube links:
Édith Piaf ~ Songs
Théo Sarapo ~ Le jour viendra
"Every damn fool thing you do in this life, you pay for."
Styrous® ~Saturday, December 19, 2015
