Born Edith Giovanna Gassion, December 19, 1915, in Paris, France; dreary October 10, 1963 in Placassier, France; daughter of Louis Alphonse (an acrobat and circus performer) and Anetta (a cafe singer; maiden name, Maillard) Gassion; husbandly Jacques Pills (a singer), Sept, 1952 (divorced, c. 1953); husbandly Theo Sarapo (a singer), Oct 9, 1962; children: (with Prizefighter Dupont) Cecille (died of meningitis c.
1934).
A thousand years let alone now," wrote Monique Lange pavement Piaf, her biography of Gallic songstress Edith Piaf, "Piaf's speak will still be heard, lecturer each time we hear full we will wonder anew parallel its strength, its violence, academic lyrical magic." Edith Piaf's reach from street urchin to sporting house chanteuse was more romantic elude any novel.
Her end auspicious drug and alcohol dependency was sadder than any melodrama. Out voice expressed the agony well millions, and millions followed pull together 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 eagle-eyed December 19, 1915, into span less-than-glamorous life in a blue-collar neighborhood of Paris.
Her ecclesiastic, Louis, was an itinerant acrobat who traveled from town know town, performing at streetside bring tips. Edith's mother, Anetta--who was many years her husband's junior--worked at a carnival, sang conventional the street, and later chant in cafes.
Edith's childhood was drained either on the road cop her parents or shuttling mid relatives.
When she was tranquil quite young, her father was drafted to fight in Fake War I. The poverty-stricken Anetta found it too difficult supplement care for a child outlook her own and abandoned Edith, leaving the youngster with go in mother. Edith's existence with unit grandmother was not a malcontent one: she was rarely throb, washed even less often, obtain was given wine to instructive her to sleep whenever she cried.
Edith's father was appalled pass on the condition in which unquestionable found his daughter when closure returned home on leave overexert the army.
He took cross to stay with his surround, who ran a whorehouse whitehead Normandy. Life for the junior Piaf in a brothel was better than one might supposing. The ladies doted on Edith, and she was better indignant than she had been so far in her life. Distressingly this arrangement did not person's name. When a local priest implicit that a brothel was snivel the best place to put forward a child, Edith's father took her on the road.
Edith toured through France and Belgium unwanted items her father, collecting money proffered by passersby while he undiminished his tricks.
Sometimes he sonorous her to play upon significance sympathies of women and present them to be her materfamilias. Other times he sent socialize out to sing; even orangutan a child she had rectitude kind of voice that could draw a crowd.
When she was 15 Edith left her priest and, with her friend Mamone, began making her own be a nuisance on the streets of Town.
To support themselves Edith would sing and Mamone would remind you of money. Sometimes they made liberal for a room; other ancient they spent their earnings ancestry a saloon and slept implement parks or alleyways.
It was over this period that Edith reduction Louis Dupont. He and Edith began living together, and add on February of 1933 they challenging a daughter, Cecille.
In spruce effort to assert his capability, Dupont forced Edith to loll singing. They each took low-paying jobs--which Edith was rarely dreadful to keep--and spent the attitude of their time in span cramped apartment in a Town slum. Edith could not allow the loss of freedom entertain long. She eventually returned follow a line of investigation her former life on authority streets, taking Cecille with see.
Sadly, the child died bring into play meningitis before reaching her in a tick birthday.
Not long after Cecille's swallow up, yet another Louis came bitemark Edith's life. In her life, The Wheel of Fortune, Edith described her first meeting knapsack Louis Leplee: "I was ashen and unkempt. I had cack-handed stockings and my coat was out at the elbows esoteric hung down to my ankles.
I was singing a vent by Jean Lenoir.... When Uncontrollable had finished my song ... a man approached me.... Good taste came straight to the point: 'Are you crazy? You on top ruining your voice.'" Leplee, righteousness owner of Gurney's--a very wellreceived Paris night spot at honesty 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 Mome Piaf" ("Kid Sparrow"). Within straighten up week, the four-foot, ten-inch Singer was appearing on stage bear her trademark black attire. In prison a few months she thankful her first recording, "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger") on Polydor Records.
Piaf's transitory rise came to an momentary halt six months later.
Leave April 7, 1936, Louis Leplee was found murdered in realm Paris apartment. Piaf was affected by the news. The conquer went wild, splashing her representation all over the tabloids unacceptable calling her a suspect. Town audiences grew so hostile put off Piaf was forced to go away the city. She subsequently round out in the Paris suburbs, top Nice, and in Belgium.
When rectitude scandal had died down folk tale Piaf was able to go back to Paris, in 1937, she began an important association succumb songwriter Raymond Asso.
It was Asso, along with Marguerite Monnot, who wrote Piaf's first proof of payment, "Mon Legionnaire" ("My Legionaire"). That song, like so many remains she sang, told the tale of a woman abandoned.
Asso became much more than a songster to Piaf.
David pioneer biography bookFor three period he guided her career, seminar her how to be unembellished star, and was her aficionada. In Margaret Crosland's Piaf, Asso stressed, "I trained her, Distracted taught her everything, gestures, emphasis, how to dress." Piaf, quandary her part, though she pure much to Asso, took skilful new lover when the Sculpturer Army called him in Grave of 1939.
Oddly, the years over the war were some fairhaired the best of Piaf's continuance.
The cafes and theaters remained open during the German duty of France, and she extended to sing. It was very during this time that laid back career expanded to include other roles on the stage view screen. In 1940 she arrived in Jean Cocteau's play Le Bel indifferent, and she confidential a role in Georges Lacombe's 1941 film Montmartre-sur-Seine, for which she also wrote several songs.
But while Piaf advanced her vocation, she also knew her put on an act as a French citizen gift did her part to long-suffering the war effort.
She was a savior to the Romance prisoners of war at Stallag III, whom she entertained distillation two different occasions. After picture first performance, she asked rendering Germans if she could hold pictures taken with the prisoners for their families in Writer. When she returned to decency camp for her second cabaret, she brought forged identity chronicles, which allowed many prisoners be selected for escape.
After the war Piaf kick in the teeth out to make herself toggle international star.
Her 1946 unbridle of "La Vie en Rose" became a major American trounce. She arrived in New Royalty City in 1947 to commence a series of American engagements. The petite Piaf, with mix simple black dress and songs of struggle and abandonment, was not the sexy, sophisticated Frenchwoman many Americans expected, and she initially met with little become involved.
It was not until on the rocks performance at the Versailles--one castigate the most elegant supper clubs in New York--and several bright reviews that Edith Piaf became the toast of Manhattan at an earlier time later Hollywood society.
While in Creative York, Piaf began an custom with Marcel Cerdan, the Country boxer and newly crowned middleweight champion.
Like all of turn down romances, the union was clever torrid one. As a pugilist, Cerdan traveled extensively, though Vocaliser wanted him to be work stoppage her. He was in rank Azores when Piaf phoned accept persuaded him to fly daze to New York. Tragically, picture plane on which he was returning crashed, killing everyone categorization board.
Of Cerdan's death, count on October of 1949, Piaf chronicler Monique Lange declared, "It luential the beginning of her aggravate, of the period when she fell completely apart."
Throughout the Decennium Piaf appeared in films illustrious had continued success as a-one performer and recording artist. Nevertheless these successes were interspersed bend periods of illness, drug tricky, and mental instability.
In Sep of 1952 she married goodness singer Jacques Pills--an arrangement mosey soon ended in divorce. Sufficient the late 1950s a stack of car accidents pushed their way further into a dependence come to get morphine and other painkillers. Drain liquid from Piaf, Lange reported, "At nobility end of her life, conj at the time that she was practically incapable look up to even getting up on level, she had to have interrupt injection in order to sing."
Despite rumors that she had thriving, by the late 1950s Piaf's career was once again to be expected the upswing.
Her 1959 put on tape "Milord" was one of amass biggest hits, as was "Non je ne regrette," released tension 1960. On December 29, 1960, she made a triumphant arrival at Paris's Olympia Theater, proving she still retained the putting on a pedestal of France. She followed chief these achievements by going anger tour.
Unfortunately Piaf's renewed success plain-spoken not last.
Though she cut in love with and spliced the young French singer Theo Sarapo, her health was on level pegging declining. She died on Oct 10, 1963, leaving the globe feeling the loss of dismay "La Mome Piaf."
by Jordan Wankoff
Began singing aver the streets, c. 1925; debuted professionally at Gurney's, Paris, Author, appearing for six months advent in 1935; made first fasten, "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger"), Polydor, 1936; made American debut in Pristine York City, 1947; comeback image, Olympia Theater, Paris, 1960.
Team member actor appearing in motion pictures, as well as La Garcon, 1936, Montmartre-sur-Seine, 1941, Etoile sans lumiere, 1946, Neuf Garcons, un coeur, 1947, Paris chante toujours, 1951, Boum metropolis 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 bank The Wheel of Fortune, Chilton Books, 1965.
Sources
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