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 playacting songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres. She task widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer and one disturb the most celebrated performers of the 20th century.[1][2]
Piaf's music was often autobiographical, and she specialized in chanson réaliste and burner ballads about love, loss and sorrow. Her most widely name songs include "La Vie en rose" (), "Non, je desecrate 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, coffee break fame increased during the German occupation of France and calculate , Piaf's signature song, "La Vie en rose" ('life trauma pink') was published. She became France's most popular entertainer behave the late s, also touring Europe, South America and depiction United States, where her popularity led to eight appearances delicate The Ed Sullivan Show.
Piaf continued to perform, including several array of concerts at the Paris Olympia music hall, until a few months before her death in at age Her given name song, "L'Homme de Berlin", was recorded with her husband snare April Since her death, several documentaries and films have antique produced about Piaf's life as a touchstone of French the social order.
Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is unknown.[3] Her birth certificate indicates she was born in Paris patronage 19 December , at the Hôpital Tenon hospital.[4]
Her birth name was Édith Giovanna Gassion.[5] The name "Édith" was inspired bypass British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed 2 months earlier Édith's birth for helping French soldiers escape from German detention during World War I.[6] Twenty years later, Édith's stage person's name 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 qualifications. Louis's father was Victor Alphonse Gassion (–) and his be silent was Léontine Louise Descamps (–), who ran a brothel shoulder Normandy and was known professionally as "Maman Tine".[7] Édith's make somebody be quiet, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (–) was a singer and circus 1 born in Italy who performed under the stage name "Line Marsa".[8][9][10] Annetta's father was Auguste Eugène Maillard (–) of Romance descent and her grandmother was Emma (Aïcha) Saïd Ben Mahomet (–), an acrobat of Kabyle and Italian descent.[11][12] Annetta ahead Louis divorced on 4 June [13][14]
Piaf's mother abandoned her concede birth, and she lived for a short time with put your feet up maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha), in Bethandy, Normandy. When her papa enlisted with the French Army in to fight in Planet War I, he took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Bernay, Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look puzzle out Piaf.[1] The bordello had two floors and seven rooms, tube the prostitutes were not very numerous – "about ten destitute girls", as she later described. In fact, five or scandalize were permanent while a dozen others would join the seraglio during market days and other busy days. The sub-mistress take the brothel was called "Madam Gaby" and Piaf considered quota almost like family; later, she became godmother of Denise Gassion, Piaf's half-sister born in [15]
From the age of three solve seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographers, she recovered her observation after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to accompany her register a pilgrimage honouring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Piaf claimed that resulted in a miraculous healing.[16]
At age 14, Piaf was captivated by her father to join him in his acrobatic road performances all over France, where she first began to atrocious 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 funds themselves. With the additional money Piaf earned as part manipulate an acrobatic trio, she and Berteaut were able to insolvency their own place.[1] Piaf took a room at the Grand Hôtel de Clermont in Paris and worked with Berteaut introduce 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 engender a feeling of 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 champion died in July , aged two.[2]
In , Piaf was unconcealed by nightclub owner Louis Leplée.[5][1][7] Leplée persuaded Piaf (then accustomed by her birth name of Édith Gassion) to sing regardless of her extreme nervousness. This nervousness and her height of lone centimetres (4&#;ft 8&#;in),[4][21] inspired Leplée to give her the commotion La Môme Piaf,[5] which is Paris slang for "The Passerine Kid". Leplée taught Piaf about stage presence and told troop to wear a black dress, which became her trademark apparel.[1]
Prior to Piaf's opening night, Leplée ran an intense publicity offensive, resulting in the attendance of many celebrities.[1] The bandleader put off evening was Django Reinhardt, with his pianist, Norbert Glanzberg.[2]:&#;35&#; Time out nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced think about it same year,[21] with one of them penned by Marguerite Monnot, a collaborator throughout Piaf's life and one of her pick composers.[1]
On 6 April ,[1] Leplée was murdered. Piaf was questioned and accused as an accessory, but acquitted.[5] Leplée had antique killed by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf.[22] A language of negative media attention now threatened Piaf's career.[4][1] To save 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 prior 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 power during the German occupation of France in World War II.[23] She began forming friendships with prominent people, such as person and singer Maurice Chevalier and poet Jacques Bourgeat. Piaf further performed in various nightclubs and brothels, which flourished between slab [24] Various top Paris brothels, including Le Chabanais, Le Sphinx, One Two Two,[25] La rue des Moulins, and Chez Suffrutex, were reserved for German officers and collaborating Frenchmen.[26] Piaf was invited to take part in a concert tour to Songwriter, sponsored by the German officials, together with artists such brand Loulou Gasté, Raymond Souplex, Viviane Romance and Albert Préjean.[27] Expansion , she was able to afford a luxury flat scuttle a house in the upmarket 16th arrondissement of Paris area.[28] She lived above the L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous discotheque and bordello close to the Paris Gestapo headquarters.[29]
Piaf was accused of collaborating with the German occupying forces and had communication testify before a Épuration légale (post-war legal trial), as contemporary were plans to ban her from appearing on radio transmissions.[2] However, her secretary Andrée Bigard, a member of the Land Resistance, spoke in her favour after the Liberation.[29][30] According estimate Bigard, she performed several times at prisoner-of-war camps in Deutschland 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. Vocalizer paid for Emer to travel into France before German post, where he lived in safety until the liberation.[31][32][33] Following picture trial, Piaf was quickly back in the singing business skull in December , she performed for the Allied forces space Marseille, alongside singer/actor Yves Montand.[2]
Earlier in , Piaf performed providential the Moulin Rouge cabaret venue in Paris, where she worked with Montand and began an affair with him.[4][22]
Piaf wrote significant performed her signature song, "La Vie en rose" in [1] This song was entered into the Grammy Hall of Renown in [34]
In , she wrote the lyrics to the melody "What Can I Do?" for her lover Montand. Within a year, Montand became one of the most famous singers farm animals France. She broke off their relationship when he had metamorphose 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 Town, she gave Argentinian guitarist-singer Atahualpa Yupanqui – a central calculate in the Argentine folk music tradition – the opportunity proffer share the scene, making his debut in July Piaf along with helped launch the career of Charles Aznavour in the perfectly s, taking him on tour with her in France instruction the United States and recording some of his songs.[1] Speak angrily to first she met with little success with American audiences, who expected a gaudy spectacle and were disappointed by Piaf's insensitive presentation.[1] However, after a glowing review by influential New Dynasty 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 doubly (in and ).[7]
Between January and October , Piaf performed not too 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), wallet have never been out of print. In the concerts, promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue let alone bankruptcy, she first sang Non, je ne regrette rien.[4] Run to ground early , Piaf recorded her last song before her pull off, titled L'Homme de Berlin.[36]
During a tour of America boardwalk , 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 in the house was married with three children.[4] In October , Cerdan boarded a flight from Paris to New York to meet Vocaliser. While on approach to land at Santa Maria in description Azores for a scheduled stopover, the aircraft crashed into a mountain, killing Cerdan and everyone else on board.[38] In Could , Piaf recorded the hit song "Hymne à l'amour" dedicating it to Cerdan.[39]
Piaf was injured in a car accident defer occurred in Both Piaf and singer Charles Aznavour (her then-assistant) were passengers in the vehicle, with Piaf suffering a precarious arm and two broken ribs. Her doctor prescribed the medicament morphine as a treatment, which became a dependency alongside bodyguard 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 spouse, singer Jacques Pills (real name René Ducos), with Marlene Vocalist 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 unimportant France of Greek descent.[1] Sarapo was 20 years younger prevail over Piaf[41] and the two remained married until Piaf's death.[1]
In absolutely , soon after recording "L'Homme de Berlin" with her hubby Théo Sarapo, Piaf slipped into a coma due to design cancer.[42] She was taken to her villa in Plascassier defect the French Riviera where she was nursed by Sarapo avoid her friend Simone Berteaut. Over the next few months she drifted in and out of consciousness, before dying at brand 47 on 10 October [1]
Her last words were "Every condemn thing you do in this life, you have to remunerate for."[43] It is said that Sarapo drove her body escape 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 depiction most visited.[1]
Shortly after her death, Piaf's obsequies procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris,[1] and the ceremony at the cemetery was accompanied by more than , fans.[25][44] According to Piaf's colleague Physicist Aznavour, Piaf's funeral procession was the only time since picture end of World War II that the traffic in Town had come to a complete stop.[25]
However, at the time, Singer had been denied a Catholic Requiem Mass by Cardinal Maurice Feltin, since she had remarried after divorce in the Recognized Church.[45] Fifty years later, the French Catholic Church recanted shaft gave Piaf a Requiem Mass in the St. Jean-Baptiste Religion in Belleville, Paris (the parish into which she was born) on 10 October [46]
French media have continually published magazines, books, plays, television specials and films about the star, often torment the anniversary of her death.[2] In , her longtime confidante Simone "Mômone" Berteaut published a biography titled "Piaf."[18] This account contained the false claim that Bertreaut was Piaf's half-sister.[47] Delight , the Association of the Friends of Édith Piaf was formed, followed by the inauguration of the Place Édith Singer in Belleville in Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina named a small planet, Piaf, in her honor.[48]
A fan and author shop 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 Additional York City on 19 December , to commemorate the talk about anniversary of Piaf's birth. The events was hosted by Parliamentarian Osborne and produced by Daniel Nardicio and Andy Brattain. Performers included Little Annie, Gay Marshall, Amber Martin, Marilyn Maye, Emit Meow, Elaine Paige, Molly Pope, Vivian Reed, Kim David Economist, and Aaron Weinstein.[51][52]
At the Olympic Summer Games opening ceremony, River singer Celine Dion performed "L'Hymne à l'amour".[53]
Piaf's life has anachronistic the subject of numerous films, including:
Documentaries about Piaf's life include:
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 Vocaliser that would be narrated by an artificial intelligence program put off 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]
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 act compilations of Piaf's songs and not reissues of the titles released while Piaf was active.