Edith Piaf

Biography

Family

The legend from the imagination of a journalist, and maintained by Piaf, gives birth to the December 19 , 1915in Paris , at 72 rue de Belleville , in the 20 ^th district , according to the plaque on the house located at this address ¹ – some sources indicate that she would even born “on the steps” of the door of entrance to the building, in the pilgrim of a police officer who reportedly collected the baby from his mother’s womb ² . However, according to her birth certificate in the civil status of Paris ³ , Édith Giovanna Gassion was born at 4, rue de Chine , address of the Tenon Hospital ⁴, which is actually one of the health facilities closest to Belleville Street. Born in poverty, Edith Piaf is a child of the theater whose ancestors belonged to the entertainment world for two generations ⁵ .

Marriage of parents

The presence of parents Edith Piaf in direction is due to the incorporation of his father, August 11, 1914 in the 89 ^th Infantry Regiment. The latter is confined, at the time, in the Gémeau barracks, site now occupied by the National Police School. In his book Piaf, the truth ⁶ , the biographer Emmanuel Bonini confirms that the mobilization of the “second class” Gassion is the only attachment of the couple with Sens: “They were married there during a three-day leave, while they were domiciled in Paris, rue du Château des Pensioners in the XIII ^th arrondissement. ” He adds that ” the four witnesses of the marriage – a typographerVendome , a Parisian engraver, a farmer from Wissous and commercial employee of Savigny-sur-Orge – certainly were all mobilized in Sens, before joining the front ” ⁷ .

Family origins

Louis Alphonse Gassion is in the civil contortionist and antipodist circus artist (born in Falaise in Calvados on May 10, 1881 , died in Paris on March 3, 1944). He is the son of Victor Alphonse Gassion, a Normand of Falaise, riding squire, and Léontine Louise Descamps, known as “Maman Tine”, patroness of a brothel in Bernay in Normandy.

Edith’s mother, Annetta Maillard (born in Livorno in Italy on August 4 , 1895 and died at 49, the February 6 , 1945in Paris), Line Marsa by her artist name, is a street singer . Often misrepresented as of Algerian Kabyle ⁸ origin , she is actually partially of Moroccan Berber origin ⁹ , by her maternal grandfather, Saïd Ben Mohamed, born in Mogador ¹⁰ . She is the daughter of Auguste Eugène Maillard (1866-1912) and Emma Said Ben Mohamed , a circus artist, born in Soissons in 1876 ¹¹ , died in Paris in 1930, daughter of Said Ben Mohammed, a circus acrobat Moroccan, born in Mogador in 1827, died in 1890 in Montluçon ¹² , and Marguerite Bracco, of Italian origin, born in Murazzano in 1830 , died in Paris in 1898 ^13 , 14 . According to Arletty ¹⁵ , on The Moorish Dance ¹⁶ , one of the panels of the Decor of the barracks of the Goulue of Toulouse-Lautrec , Emma Said could be the Moorish dancer sitting on the right, behind La Goulue .

Louis Gassion and Annetta Maillard prénomment their daughter Edith tribute to Edith Cavell , an English nurse shot by the Germans two months earlier ¹⁷ .

After Edith, they have a second child, Herbert Lucien Gassion, born on August 31 , 1918in Marseille and died on January 22 , 1997in Clichy . About her mother, Herbert said: “A great artist, but who did not know how to force her luck … She sang at Black Cat , Mikado, Monocle …”, then drifts off “drifting, the word is nice … ” ⁴ , and Arletty said: ” it was the mother who had the voice of the girl, it was the girl who had the voice of the mother ¹⁸ . ”

Childhood

His mother, Line Marsa, too poor to raise him, entrusts very little to his maternal grandmother, Emma Said bin Mohammed who lives Rébeval street in the XIX ^th arrondissement. Her grandmother would not have cared for her, leaving the little girl in the dirt, ignoring water and hygiene. His bottles, according to legend, would have made red wine. She remains 18 months in this poor house before her father on leave from the front, or perhaps his aunt Zephora ¹⁹ , entrusts her to her paternal grandmother, patroness of a brothel in Bernay in Normandy. Edith is pampered by the prostitutes of the house, eating for the first time to her hunger, wearing pretty dresses and drinking milk from Normandy. Very young (age of 3 to 8 years is mentioned as his biographies ²⁰ ), it suffers from a keratitis of both eyes probably due to lack of care and hygiene ²¹ .

According to the semi-historical legend forged in interviews, articles in popular magazines, and subsequent biographies , ²² she is blind and her grandmother has learned that a girl with the same illness is being cured. after having prayed for her at the tomb of Saint Thérèse Martin in Lisieux , decide to go with her “daughters” to ask for the cure of the little girl, or according to other biographies, take her little girl there ²¹. We take the train, we pray on the tomb of Therese, we bring back the earth that is applied to him blindfold every night. After about eight days, Edith is healed. Following this, it will last a lifetime special devotion to the “Little Flower,” which she will keep the medal ²³ around the neck of his life ²⁴ . It turns out that Edith and Thérèse Martin are cousins to the 14 ^th grade ²⁵ . Following this episode of temporary blindness, Edith becomes a believer and will regularly in churches outside the offices during his tours ²⁶ . Edith started singing on the stage of the theater in Bernay inNormandy .She came back inMay 1954, under a big top, after a circus show, accompanied by her husband Jacque Pills ²⁷ . ^{[ref. insufficient]}

In 1922 , his father took it back with him, to live the life of an artist of traveling little circuses , then the life of an independent and miserable street artist. It is like her mother, singing popular tunes in the street with her father that Edith reveals her talent and voice of exception. They will stay several times in the small garrison town of Mourmelon-le-Grand where held the music hall “Alcazar”. According to legend, she accompanied by first singing La Marseillaise , the only song she knows ²⁸ .

In 1930 , she leaves her father and sings in duet in the street with Simone Berteaut , called Momone, who will become her friend, her alter ego and her “cursed angel” ²⁹ . In 1932 , she met her first great love, Louis Dupont, 18-year-old delivery boy. Both settle in Montmartre and have a daughter, Marcelle, born on February 11 , 1933. Edith was trying at that time to “normal” jobs, good all, apprentice creamer, but quickly regained the song with Momone ³⁰ , both in the streets and in the barracks and bars whores ²⁸ . Louis does not support that Edith sings in the street with his daughter under his arm or makes customers drink in boxes Pigalle , he takes Marcelle with him. Two years later, the child dies, probably of meningitis , the July 7 , 1935. It is on this occasion that is the only known when – or admitted – by Edith prostitution in order to pay the funeral of his daughter ³¹ .

Cabaret singer

In the fall of 1935 , it was discovered at the corner of MacMahon Avenue and Troyon Street by Louis Leplée , manager of the cabaret Le Gerny’s , on the Champs-Élysées . At that time, Piaf mainly hummed songs from Fréhel’srepertoire . Leplée became his mentor and his adoptive father and, by engaging him in his cabaret, chose him as an artist “the same Piaf” (a “piaf”, colloquially, is a sparrow , and ” the even Sparrow “already existed) because of his small size of 1.47 m inherited from his father and his slender figure ³². Leplee him to meet Jacques Bourgeat, philosopher and literary became his teacher, confidant or his confessor ³³ . She also meets the young artistic director of Radio Cité , Jacques Canetti .

In 1936 , Jacques Canetti asked him to record his first album, Les Mômes de la boche , at Polydor , which was a public success and an immediate critic. According to mythology, ²⁸ her first success has already taken place in Leplée’s cabaret, which had initially engaged her one week, but where she triumphed for seven months until the murder of Leplée in bed. Small strikes the middle of Pigalle , acquaintances or lovers Piaf she gives the names during his police custody for 48 hours, are mentioned as possible perpetrators but the case is dismissed for lack of evidence ³⁴. This event will be at the origin of a vindictive media against the singer who risks to return it from where it comes: the street and the small cabarets of misery ²⁸ . Overnight, she has no commitments but success is not long to go back ³⁵ . Radio Cité , directed by Marcel Bleustein and Jacques Canetti , opens his antenna. His extraordinary talent and voice are noticed by composer Raymond Asso and by Marguerite Monnot , composer and virtuoso pianist, his future and faithful great friend, who will accompany him throughout his career and compose the music of Mon legionary ,Hymn to love , Milord , The lovers of a day . She goes to Bobino and L’Européen at the end of spring.

Some records and a little scene can not yet feed a beginner artist. At the end of the summer, she made contact with Raymond Asso , to which she had refused My legionnaire (created by the one to whom she owed so much ³⁶ , Marie Dubas in 1935 , title that Piaf takes again early 1937, with the Pennant of the legion ). After Leplée, Asso becomes his new mentor ³⁷ . He takes it in hand and makes it work to make a professional music hall singer , like its rivals Renée Lebas and Leo Marjane . In the fall of 1936 , she won theAlhambra . In the spring of 1937 she returned to Bobino. She continues to record other records … But, Édith wants more: the ABC , the most prestigious music hall Paris.

Featured music hall

In March 1937 , Édith Piaf began her music-hall career at the ABC in Paris , where she immediately became a huge star of the French song, loved by the public and her songs were broadcast on the radio . That’s when she met Danielle Bonel , it became his secretary and confidante throughout his career ³⁸ .

Star of the late 1930s , Piaf triumphed at Bobino , as well as at the theater in 1940 , in Le Bel Indifférent , a play specially written for her by Jean Cocteau and which she performed with her companion of the moment, the actor Paul Meurisse (mute role). Always with Paul as a partner, she plays in the film Montmartre-sur-Seine by Georges Lacombe ( 1941 ). It was during the filming of this feature film that she met Henri Contet , who, like Marguerite Monnot, became, one of his favorite lyricists .

During the German occupation , Édith, who permanently traded “La Môme Piaf” against “Édith Piaf”, continues to give concerts . She goes to Berlin in August 1943 with some French artists including Louis Gasté , Raymond Souplex , Viviane Romance , Albert Prejean , where she poses in front of the Brandenburg Gate on the occasion of a trip meant to promote French song ³⁹. In 1942, she lived in a brothel ” L’Étoile de Kléber “, located at 5, rue Villejust, today rue Paul-Valéry , she occupies all the third floor ^{40 close} to theheadquarters of the Gestapo , 92, rue Lauriston , lupanar reserved for customers of the most chic district of Paris, including Nazi officers and employees ⁴¹ . She often crosses the lover of her friend Annie Jean-Claude Henri Lafont , head of the French Gestapo, she adapts to the presence, as well as German officers ⁴² .

In the spring of 1944 , she performed at the Moulin Rouge, where the young music hall singer Yves Montand appeared in the first part of her show. It’s love at first sight and Edith Piaf, already famous and adored, began to learn the ropes and to the life of artist ²⁸ . She will propel her career by presenting important (and sometimes prominent) people in the entertainment world of the time: Joseph Kosma , Henri Crolla , Loulou Gasté , Jean Guigo , Henri Contet , Louiguy , Marguerite Monnot , Philippe- Gerard, Bob Castella , Francis Lemarque , Henri Betti …

It was also that year that Edith’s father died. She will lose her mother the following year.

At the Liberation , it is bleached by a committee of purification thanks to the testimony of its secretary Andrée Bigard, member of the Resistance which, without knowing it, implicates it in its actions ⁴³ and which declares that the singer on tour in Germany would have been photographed with French prisoners stalags and that these shots would have served, back in France, the manufacture of false papers to pass these prisoners as members of his orchestra and allow 118 of them to to return to France by escaping ⁴¹. This large number of prisoners without a resistance network and the fact that no evidence has never confirmed this story cast doubt on its veracity biographers ⁴⁴ At that time, Piaf gives some recitals at the cabaret , the Famous Five . This is where Marcel Cerdan hears it for the first time.

In 1945 , she wrote one of her first titles, La Vie en rose (which she will not record until 1946 ), her most famous song, now a classic. She also plays at the Comédie-Française .

Yves Montand becomes in turn a star of the music hall. It begins in the cinema alongside Piaf in Star Without Light then gets her first big role in Gates of the Night of Marcel Carne . They go on tour until 1946 , the year they split up.

In 1946, the singer met Les Compagnons de la chanson , with whom she performed the famous piece Les Trois Cloches by Jean Villard (aka Gilles). She then left with her protégés to give concerts in Northern Europe during the year 1947 .

Glory professional and personal disasters

From 1946 to 1948, Piaf is the companion of Jean-Louis Jaubert , the director of the Compagnons. But in 1948 , while on triumphant tour in New York , she saw the great love story of her life with the French boxer , born in Sidi Bel Abbès in 1916, Marcel Cerdan , who became world champion boxing of weight means the September 21 , 1948. Early in the following year she made with him the acquisition of its first home, a townhouse at 5, rue Gambetta ⁴⁵ in Boulogne-Billancourt purchased nineteen million francs a ruined millionaire, Gilbert of receivables ⁴⁶ . There, installed with Simone Berteaut ⁴⁷ , she composes Hymn to Love , sung on stage for the first time in September.

The October 28 , 1949Cerdan dies in a plane crash, Air France’s Paris-New York flight crashes in the Azores as he joins her. Because there was no more room in this plane, a couple had yielded, with kindness, his places to the boxer. Damaged by moral suffering (as well as guilt) and acute polyarthritis , Edith Piaf takes, to calm her pain, high doses of morphine . She will sing her great success, Hymn to Love and also My God , in her memory. She installs in her mansion the three children of Marcel Cerdan and their mother, Marinette ⁴⁷ . His condition however remains so dilapidated that⁴⁸ .

In 1951 , the young singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour became his handyman and secretary , driver and confidant. He wrote to her some particularly notable songs like Plus bleu qui vos yeux , or even Jezebel , in this mansion at the end of the Bois de Boulogne where she keeps open table ⁴⁸ but that she resells, with her sad memories, to settle in Paris itself, 67, boulevard Lannes ⁴⁷. In return, Edith Piaf talent finder advises Aznavour, launches his career beginner, teaches him the ropes. When the young singer to it by the song I hate Sundays he had composed, Piaf it disagrees, arguing that there were enough workers forced that day to a day of labor ⁴⁹ . In September 1951, she starts with the cyclist Louis (Toto) Gérardin , who is married and also lives in the Parc des Princes , a thousand meters from home, a new relationship that runs short in February 1952 . Passionately enamored, she continues a feverish correspondence, until September 18 , 1952⁵⁰ (correspondence that will be auctioned in 2009 ).

Two days later, the September 20 , 1952⁵¹ , she married the French singer Jacques Pills in the Church of St. Vincent de Paul of New York ⁵² . His witness is the actress Marlene Dietrich , who chose the wedding dress ⁵³ . The event is covered by more than sixty magazines.

International career

In 1953 , becoming addicted to morphine administered by doctors after a car accident in July 1951, ²⁸ she began her first detox . At this time she became a huge music-hall star in the West and especially in the United States , where she made a triumph in 1956 at Carnegie Hall in New York , of which she became a regular. That same year she divorced.

In 1955 , after several treatments of detoxification, she gets away from her addiction to morphine but cares for her rheumatoid arthritis with high doses of cortisone and takes refuge in the alcohol which allowed her to drown her sorrow since the death of Marcel Cerdan ²⁸ .

From February 1958 to February 1959 , she has a love affair with Georges Moustaki , whom she launches in the song and with whom she has a serious car accident on September 6, 1958 on the national 10 at Coignières ⁵⁴ , which makes worsen his poor health and addiction to morphine . She recorded the song Milord (music by Marguerite Monnot ), of which he is the author, one of his greatest hits ⁵⁵ , and inspires Sarah , which is created by Serge Reggiani ⁵⁶ .

In 1959 , Édith collapsed on stage during a tour in New York . She underwent many surgical operations (ulcers, digestive haemorrhages) and returned to Paris in a sorry state and without Moustaki who left her ^57 , 58 . She was however rewarded for the song Milord during a TV show called TV Award.

In 1960 , Quebec singer-songwriter Claude Léveillée came to work with her in Paris. Edith will perform four of his songs: The Old Piano (new version of his song The Old Pianos ), Boulevard du Crime , Hurricane and La Voix(ballet) ⁵⁹ .

In 1961 , at the request of Bruno Coquatrix , Edith Piaf gave the Olympia in Paris , threatened with disappearance because of financial problems, a series of concerts among the most memorable and moving of his career. It is in her theater of predilection that she interprets No, I do not regret anything , a song that sticks to her skin and that Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire have just written for her. Edith saves the Olympia from bankruptcy, but struggles to stand up and move because of her disabling polyarthritis, and only manages to sing thanks to a large morphine infusion.

The October 9 , 1962Aged 46, exhausted and ill, she marries Théo Sarapo (his real name, Théophánis Lamboukas), a young singer, 26 years old. They sing in duo What is love for? written by Michel Emer , one of his faithful composers.

In early 1963 , she recorded her last song, The Man of Berlin , written by Francis Lai (one of the composers of the end of his career, half of the Nijmegen recital in 1962, for example, is composed of his songs) and Michèle Vendome .

Known for her talent as an interpreter, she is also a songwriter: she writes a total of 87 songs, the first one has one too many (1940) and the last one is The Song of Love (1963) ⁶⁰ .

Death

“It’s the boat that finishes sinking. This is my last day on this earth ⁶² . And he adds: “I have never known to be less economical of his soul. She did not spend, she showered, she threw gold through the windows ⁶³ . “

The organization of the funeral is supervised by the prefect of the Seine Louis Amade . The funeral of the boulevard Lannes to the Père-Lachaise is greeted by half a million people ⁶⁴ . Interment is in Père-Lachaise (Division 97). As the artist has lived in contradiction with the moral values ​​of Catholicism, divorced and led a “tumultuous” sexual life, the Catholic Church refuses to grant him religious funerals. The Osservatore Romano , Vatican newspaper , writes that she lived “in a state of public sin” and that she was an “idol of prefabricated happiness”. However, personally, the chaplain of theater and music, Father Thouvenin de Villaret, gives him one last blessing at the time of the burial. At least 40,000 people , including Marlene Dietrich, paid her last tribute to Cemetery ⁶⁵ . The hysterical crowd is such that the security service is overwhelmed: young They scrambled onto mausoleums, Bruno Merrick , pushed, fall into the pit ⁶⁶ .

Edith Piaf was embalmed before being buried. She is buried in a vault where her father, Louis-Alphonse Gassion, who died in 1944 , his second husband, Theo Sarapo , killed in a car accident in Panazol near Limoges in 1970 , and his daughter Marcelle, died in 1935 , at the age of 2 years.

Discography

Edith Piaf recorded at Polydor from 1935 to 1946, then at Columbia , Pathé-Marconi’s label, from 1946 to 1963. Some records were also pressed for Philips from 1956. In her compilations, Sonorama published Piaf titles from 1958 to 1961.

Albums

• 1935 : Les Momes of the bell , label Polydor , first 78 rpm recorded by Piaf. Artistic Director: Jacques Canetti .
• Edith Piaf: Simple as good morning / The vagabond – Polydor 524.780 (78 turns)
• Edith Piaf: Browning / You’re the strongest – Polydor 524.356 (78 laps)
• Edith Piaf: I danced with love / It’s a holiday – Polydor 524.706 (78 turns)
• Edith Piaf: Correqu ‘and reguyer / Between Saint-Ouen and Billancourt – Polydor 524.323 (78 turns)
• The companions of the song and Edith Piaf: That’s why / The eyes of my mother – Columbia DFX247 (1947)
• The companions of the song and Edith Piaf: In prisons of Nantes / Céline – Columbia DF3053 (78 tours)
• 1954 : From accordionist to Milord
• 1961 : Olympia 1961 .

Key songs