Edith Piaf

Piaf is a redirect to this article. For the sailing dinghy of the same name see Piaf (dinghy) , for the car brand see Le Piaf .

Édith Piaf (1962)

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Les plus grands succès   DE 8th December 15, 1963 (32 weeks) Heart and Soul   UK 58 09/26/1987 (5 weeks) No, I have no regrets   DE 74 10/25/1999 (5 weeks) Éternelle - Best Of   CH 70 10/26/2003 (1 week)   BE W 26th 10/25/2003 (5 weeks) La môme (soundtrack to La vie en rose )   CH 58 02/25/2007 (6 weeks)   BE W 13 02/17/2007 (14 weeks)   FR 4th 02/10/2007 (38 weeks) Une voix inoubliable   FR 177 02/17/2007 (3 weeks) La vie en rose   FR 55 02/24/2007 (2 weeks) L'intégrale à 20 CDs   FR 68 02/24/2007 (4 weeks) Platinum Collection   BE W 40 09/08/2007 (6 weeks) Hymn à la môme   FR 90 09/29/2012 (8 weeks)   BE W 43 06.10.2012 (18 weeks) Les 100 chansons éternelles d'Edith Piaf   FR 58 10/12/2013 (4 weeks)   BE W 195 10/12/2013 (2 weeks) Les n ° 1 de Edith Piaf   FR 92 October 19, 2013 (2 weeks) La legend Edith Piaf   FR 127 October 19, 2013 (1 week)   BE W 101 11/01/2014 (6 weeks) 100 ° anniversaire   FR 98 December 26, 2015 (2 weeks)   BE W 140 December 26, 2015 (2 weeks)

Singles

La vie en rose (English Version)   US 23 October 21, 1950 (3 weeks) My lord   DE 1 06/01/1960 (32 weeks)   UK 24 May 18, 1960 (15 weeks)   US 88 03/11/1961 (3 weeks)   BE W 5 03/01/1960 (28 weeks) Non, je ne regrette rien   BE W 6th 03/01/1961 (20 weeks) À quoi ça sert l'amour? (with Théo Sarapo )   BE W 12 December 01, 1962 (4 weeks) Les plus belles déclarations (sampler single with Marilyn Monroe , The Platters and Lucienne Delyle )   FR 74 01/28/2006 (5 weeks)

Édith Piaf (bourgeois Édith Giovanna Gassion ; born December 19, 1915 in Paris , † October 10, 1963 in Plascassier ) was a French singer whose interpretations of chansons and ballads made her world famous. Her singing style seemed to reflect the tragedies of her life. Her greatest successes include La vie en rose , Milord and Non, je ne regrette rien .

Life

childhood

Édith Piaf was left a few weeks after her birth (according to other representations at the age of two) in the eastern Parisian district of Belleville by her mother, Annetta Jacqueline Gassion, née Maillard, a coffee house singer of half Italian, half Berber descent, and grew up first with her maternal grandmother, where she almost starved to death. So that his daughter could regain her strength, her father Alphonse Gassion brought her to live with his mother in 1917, who ran a brothel in Bernay in Normandy . Edith felt more comfortable there. The father himself was an acrobat and worked as a contortionistin a traveling circus. In 1919, Édith fell ill with inflammation of the cornea and became blind. Two years later her grandmother went on a pilgrimage to St. Therese in Lisieux with her . Édith attributed her subsequent healing to this pilgrimage. That is why she venerated St. Therese, with whom she is widely related, all her life and visited her grave as an adult incognito every year. She was only seven when her father took her on tour for the first time. From the age of ten, Edith accompanied her father, who trained her as a street singer and often beat her up. Édith Piaf was strongly influenced by the violence of the milieu in which she grew up and by her father's alcoholism . She too had an alcohol problem from 1933 to 1959.

Start of career in Paris

When she was 15, she left her father and moved to Paris alone as a street singer. Shortly afterwards she was discovered by the cabaret owner Louis Leplée , who brought her to his cabaret as a chanteuse and gave the young woman, who was only 1.47 meters tall, the name by which she became known: la môme piaf ( the sparrow Brat ).

She became pregnant at 16 and on February 11, 1933, two months after her 17th birthday, their only daughter, Marcelle, was born. This grew up with her father, Édith's lover Louis Dupont. Little Marcelle died of meningitis at the age of two .

In 1935, Édith Piaf recorded her first record. When her mentor Leplée was murdered a little later, she was publicly accused of complicity in the act, since the murderers came from the environment of her underworld acquaintances. Although she was acquitted, she then fled to the provinces and did not return to Paris until 1937. The media attention initially threatened their success. With the support of her new mentor Raymond Asso , she broke away from the original milieu. Asso also wrote the text for the chanson Mon légionnaire , made famous by Piaf.

breakthrough

Edith Piaf also sang blues-like music; here is a famous example on Polydor

In the following years she made her big breakthrough. Stage appearances all over Europe and countless records were the result. Her career also continued to advance during the Second World War and the German occupation. The chanson L'Accordéoniste written by Michel Emer describes the love of a prostitute against the backdrop of war. 1940 Piaf was godmother of prisoners of war - the main camp Stalag III D in Berlin light field . In 1942 Piaf lived on a luxurious floor of a house in the wealthy 16th arrondissement , (today rue Paul-Valéry) above L'Étoile de Kléber, a noble nightclub and brothel in the vicinity of the Gestapo headquarters in Paris. In 1943 she was on a German-supported concert tour in Berlin with other artists such as Loulou Gasté , Raymond Souplex , Viviane Romance and Albert Préjean and posed in front of the Brandenburg Gate , among others . In the spring of 1944 there was the first collaboration at the Moulin Rouge and a love affair with the aspiring singer and producer Yves Montand ; she introduced him to Joseph Kosma , Henri Crolla , Loulou Gasté, Jean Guigo , Henri Contet , among others, Bob Castella and Francis Lemarque . Her love for the six years her junior Greek actor Dimitris Horn remained unrequited.

At the time, Piaf was considered a collaborator , escaped sanctions at the end of the war and was not banned from appearing because her secretary Andrée Bigard confessed to being a member of the Resistance and testified for her. Pictures with Piaf at concerts on behalf of the Germans for French prisoners of war were therefore used to create fake work permits and to enable some to escape.

Partnerships, affairs and marriage

World boxing champion Marcel Cerdan

She got into a serious crisis when her long-time partner, world boxing champion Marcel Cerdan , died in a plane crash in October 1949 .

Édith Piaf's subsequent affair with popular cyclist Louis Gérardin also made headlines in France . "Toto" Gerardin left his wife because of Édith Piaf, who had the couple followed by a private detective. After the two-year affair ended, Gérardin wrote: "Two days and two nights with the Piaf are more exhausting than a stage of the Tour de France." 54 love letters that Piaf wrote to Gérardin in 1951 and 1952 were written in May 2009 for 67,000 euros auctioned at Christie's to an unknown bidder.

In 1952 Piaf married the French singer Jacques Pills (real name: René Ducos), from whom she divorced in 1956. The maid of honor was Marlene Dietrich . The two singers had been friends for decades. In the 1950s, Piaf had a brief love affair with the much younger chanson singer Georges Moustaki . It was also he who wrote the famous chanson Milord for Piaf in 1959, to the composition of Marguerite Monnot , which later (published in 1960) became her biggest hit. Non, je ne regrette rien was already very important during his lifetimeWritten by Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire and published in 1960, aptly summarizes Piaf's life. Like earlier songs, she dedicated it to the French Foreign Legion , which played a central role in the then ongoing Algerian war and whose paratroopers were supposed to take part in a coup against Charles de Gaulle in 1961, among other things .

Piaf had collapsed on the stage of the New York Waldorf Astoria on September 20, 1959 and had to cancel all appearances planned for 1960 due to cancer. She used appearances with Non, je ne regrette rien at the end of 1960 to save the Olympic Theater , which was facing financial ruin . In 1961 Piaf made a highly regarded comeback .

In October 1962, a few years after her affair with Moustaki, she married the singer Théo Sarapo, who was twenty years her junior , causing the last major scandal of her life.

Serious traffic accident with Moustaki and morphine addiction

In September 1959, her then lover Georges Moustaki lost control of the car on a joyride and sped into a truck. As a result, Piaf had to undergo multiple operations during a month-long hospital stay and was given morphine for the pain, which led to dependence until her death. She became a dry alcoholic and suffered from chronic rheumatoid arthritis. During a concert in Stockholm in the late 1950s, she collapsed on stage - she was diagnosed with incurable cancer. However, Piaf was not impressed and continued to perform. From then on, she was accompanied on her tours by a nurse who, if necessary, administered morphine to treat the pain.

Talent promotion

In addition to her own career, she actively promoted the young French musicians at the time. She had a great influence on the careers of Charles Aznavour , Gilbert Bécaud , Eddie Constantine , Yves Montand , Georges Moustaki , Jacques Pills and Francis Lai , among others .

Death and aftermath

Grave of Édith Piaf on the Cimetière du Père Lachaise

In early August 1963, Sarapo and the impresario Louis Barrier took Piaf, who was already seriously ill, to a secluded house in Plascassier , near Grasse . There her health deteriorated further. At Piaf's side were her last secretary, Danielle Bonel, and a nurse; Sarapo was on tour. Bonel let him know of the imminent death of his wife; however, he no longer found her alive. Piaf died on October 10, 1963. Bonel mentioned in a television documentary that Piaf died around 12:45 pm; she couldn't remember the exact time.

Édith Piaf & Théo Sarapo

Sarapo, who had meanwhile arrived, decided, together with Bonel and Barrier, to keep quiet about Piaf's death and to transfer the body to Paris unnoticed. Bonel arranged for an ambulance to be used to leave for Paris around 8 p.m. About the illegal transport, Bonel said: “The nurse and Theo were in the ambulance. Had we been stopped, we would have said she had just died - on the way. She just had to die in Paris. There was no other option for her. She would certainly have wanted it that way. ”That same night, Piaf's doctor was awakened. He agreed to issue a fake death certificate. Piaf was officially pronounced dead on October 11, 1963 at 8 a.m. The doctor gave Paris as the place of death.

On October 11, 1963 - six months after a heart attack - her friend Jean Cocteau also died , who had written the highly successful one-act play Le Bel Indifférent especially for her in 1940 - which was her only theater engagement - and which for her allegedly more than only felt friendly. It was widely rumored that his heart failed when he received the news of Piaf's death, and in some cases the two were even referred to in the headlines as the "bridal couple of death". The seriously ill Cocteau died many hours after the news of his death.

40,000 people attended her funeral in the Père Lachaise cemetery (Division 97, number 71). Her grave, in which her husband Théo Sarapo, who died in a car accident in 1970, and her daughter lie, is still decorated with fresh flowers today . The small Édith Piaf Museum in Paris (Rue Crespin du Gast) exhibits personal souvenirs, a dress and the artist's porcelain collection.

The actress Maria Bill from Switzerland, who has been in Vienna since 1978, performed as Piaf at the Volkstheater in 1982 . She was awarded the Kainz Medal for her successful performance about the life of Édith Piaf, followed by a tour to Switzerland and Germany. Since then there have been concert evenings with Maria Bill sings Piaf in Vienna and other cities up to the present (2018) .

The British avant-garde trio The Tiger Lillies dedicated their stage program in 2016 to the artist and in the same year released a concept album under the title Madame Piaf .

Discography (selection)

Piaf recorded over 200 songs on record, including (in brackets the recording date):

• La Java en Mineur (October 1935)
• L'Etranger (January 13, 1936)
• Mon Amant de la coloniale (May 7, 1936)
• Entre Saint-Ouen et Clignancourt (April 12, 1937)
• Correq 'et réguyer (April 12, 1937)
• Mon Cœur est au coin d'une rue (April 12, 1937)
• Paris-Méditerranée (June 24, 1937)
• Browning (June 24, 1937)
• Mon légionnaire (November 12, 1937)
• Partance (November 16, 1937)
• Le Grand Voyage du pauvre nègre (October 3, 1938)
• Je n'en connais pas la fin (May 31, 1939)
• Elle fréquentait la rue Pigalle (May 31, 1939)
• Jimmy, c'est lui (April 5, 1940)
• L'Accordéoniste (La Fille de joie est triste) (May 27, 1940)
• Embrasse-moi (April 5, 1940)
• J'ai dansé avec l'amour (May 27, 1941)
• C'est un monsieur très distingué (May 27, 1941)
• Simple comme bonjour (November 25, 1942)
• Un Coin tout bleu (November 25, 1942)
• C'était une histoire d'amour (December 15, 1942)
• J'ai qu'à l'regarder (December 31, 1942)
• Le Disque usé (February 18, 1943)
• Le Brun et le Blond (February 18, 1943)
• Un Monsieur me suit dans la rue (January 20, 1944)
• Coup de grisou (January 21, 1944)
• Le Chasseur de l'hôtel (January 27, 1944)
• Y a pas d'printemps (July 4, 1944)
• Monsieur Saint-Pierre (May 13, 1945)
• Il riait (May 14, 1945)
• Regarde-moi toujours comme ça (May 14, 1945)
• Celui qui ne savait pas pleurer (May 14, 1945)
• De l'autre côté de la rue (June 26, 1945)
• La vie en rose (January 4, 1947)
• Les Amants de Paris (June 11, 1948)
• Amour du mois de Mai / Cousu de fil blanc (August 6, 1948)
• Paris (February 3, 1949)
• Le Prisonnier de la Tour (February 9, 1949)
• Bal dans ma rue (February 10, 1949)
• L'Orgue des amoureux (July 21, 1949)
• Hymn à l'amour (May 2, 1950)
• Tous les amoureux chantent (June 19, 1950)
• C'est un gars / C'est d'la faute à tes yeux (July 7, 1950)
• Si, si, si (April 16, 1951)
• La Valse de l'amour (May 1951)
• Je hais les dimanches / Plus bleu que tes yeux / Padam ... padam (October 15, 1951)
• La Rue aux chansons (November 8, 1951)
• A l'enseigne de la fille sans cœur (November 23, 1951)
• Jézebel (November 1951)
• Je t'ai dans la peau / Au bal de la chance (June 28, 1952)
• Les Croix / Pour qu'elle soit jolie ma chanson (July 15, 1953)
• N'y va pas Manuel (December 11, 1953)
• Johnny tu n'es pas un ange (December 24, 1953)
• La Goualante du pauvre Jean (February 16, 1954)
• Heureuse (February 17, 1954)
• Ça ira (April 10, 1954)
• Sous le ciel de Paris (October 20, 1954)
• C'est à Hambourg (February 28, 1955)
• Les Amants d'un jour (January 3, 1956)
• Marie la française (July 4th 1956)
• La Foule (November 25, 1957)
• Mon manège à moi (March 21, 1958)
• Les Neiges de Finlande (September 1958)
• Milord (May 8, 1959)
• Mon Dieu (1960)
• Non, je ne regrette rien (November 10, 1960)
• L'Homme de Berlin (April 7, 1963)

Awards for music sales

Silver record  United Kingdom 1977: for the album Portrait Of Piaf Golden record  France 1978: for the album Le Disque D'or Vol. 2 1980: for the album Boite Hymne A L'amour (14 33 d.) 1980: for the album Hymne A L'amour 1983: for the album Ses Grands Succès 1994: for the video album 30ème Anniversaire 1995: for the album Edith Piaf 1998: for the album 35ème Anniversaire 1998: for the album Ses Plus Grands Succès 2006: for the album Opération Premium Toupargel  United Kingdom 2013: for the album The Legendary

2 × gold record  France 1983: for the album Master Série - Vol. 1 Platinum record  France 1988: for the album 1937/1955–1955/1963 1995: for the album 30ème Anniversaire 2007: for the album Eternelle (Best Of)

2 × platinum record  France 1989: for the album Disque D'or 3 × platinum record  France 2007: for the video album Lhymne A La Mome

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
France (SNEP)	-	11 × gold11	8 × platinum8th	2,545,000	infodisc.fr snepmusique.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	silver1	gold1	-	160,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	silver1	12 × gold12	8 × platinum8th

Autobiographies

• Au bal de la chance (with a foreword by Jean Cocteau ), 1958; Archipoche, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-35287-021-0 .
• Ma vie , 1963; German: My life . Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek 1966, ISBN 3-499-10859-3 .

Film biographies

• 1973: The Sparrow of Paris - Edith Piaf (France / USA) - Director: Guy Casaril , with Brigitte Ariel
• 1983: Edith and Marcel (France) - Director: Claude Lelouch , with Évelyne Bouix
• 1984: Piaf (TV, USA) - with Jane Lapotaire
• 1994: Une brève rencontre: Édith Piaf (TV, France / USA) - Director: Michel Wyn , with Sophie Arthur
• 2007: La vie en rose (France) - Director: Olivier Dahan , with Marion Cotillard

literature

• Simone Berteaut: I lived my lord. The incredible life of Edith Piaf. Ullstein, Frankfurt 1973, ISBN 3-548-12940-4 .
• Marc Bonel: Édith Piaf. Le temps d'une vie. Edition de Fallois, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-87706-189-2 (French).
• Philippe Crocq, Jean Mareska: La vie pas toujours rose d'Édith Piaf. Editions du Rocher, Paris / Monaco 2007, ISBN 978-2-268-06108-5 (French).
• Matthias Henke : Edith Piaf. “Addicted to longing!” List, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-612-26516-4 .
• Monique Lange: Edith Piaf. The story of Piaf, her life in texts and pictures. Insel, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-32216-0 .
• André Larue: Edith Piaf. L'amour toujours. Lafon, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-908652-97-8 (French).
• Jens Rosteck : Édith Piaf. Hymn to life. Propylaea, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-549-07419-0 . As a paperback by List, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-548-61207-2 . Meeting in Deutschlandradio Kultur (online) . Discussion of the book and interview with the author, Swiss radio (audio file)

Documentation

• «Édith Piaf - Without love one is nothing» by Marianne Lamour, in ARTE , France 2003. (52 minutes)
• The Last Days of a Legend - Édith Piaf France, (50 minutes)

Web links

Commons : Édith Piaf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Édith Piaf at Discogs (English)
• Literature by and about Édith Piaf in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Édith Piaf in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Audio documents by and about Édith Piaf in the catalog of the Swiss National Sound Archives
• Biography at Who's Who
• Édith Piaf in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• FemBiografie Édith Piaf with quotes, links and literature
• Édith Piaf - Photos
• Lovers site with lyrics, biography, pictures, videos

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts BEW Charts FR
2. ↑ Édith Piaf, Encyclopedia Britannica
3. ^ David Bret: Piaf: a passionate life. Robson Books, 1998, p. 2.
4. ^ Anne Sizaire: Édith Piaf: la voix de l'émotion. Desclée de Brouwer, 1996, p. 17.
5. ↑ Dieter Bartetzko: Jens Rosteck: Édith Piaf Bitter Dreams, sung on the roof edges of Paris . In: FAZ , Feuilleton, March 19, 2013.
6. ↑ ^{a b} "I knew that I would destroy myself!" By Harald Frohnwieser ; Edith Piaf: My life. Rowohlt Taschenbuchverlag.
7. ↑ "I knew that I was destroying myself!" By Harald Frohnwieser.
8. ^ Le mythe Piaf, Le Point 2007
9. ^ Edith Piaf: la Môme, la vraie. In: LL'Express. 88.2013.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Robert Belleret: Piaf, un mythe français. Fayard Publishing House, Paris 2013.
11. ↑ Sous l'œil de l'Occupant, la France vue par l'Allemagne, 1940-1944. Éditions Armand Colin, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-200-24853-6 .
12. ^ Edith Piaf's love letters to Dimitris Horn auctioned in Athens. Report on the auction of a letter
13. ↑ Myriam Chimènes, Josette Alviset: La vie musicale sous Vichy. Editions Complexe, 2001, p. 302.
14. ↑ Frank Prial: Still No Regrets: Paris Remembers Its Piaf . In: The New York Times . January 29, 2004.
15. ↑ Renate Franz: The forgotten world champion. Bielefeld 2007, p. 83.
16. ↑ Des lettres de Piaf vendues at 67,000 euros. In: Liberation. June 25, 2009.
17. ↑ ^{a b} Carolyn Burke: No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf, pp. 202 ff.
18. ^ Jaime Salazar: Legion of the Lost: The True Experience of An American in the French Foreign Legion . Penguin, 2006, ISBN 978-1-101-11846-7 ( google.com ).
19. ↑ Carolyn Burke, No Regrets: The Life of Édith Piaf , 2012, p. 197 f.
20. ↑ health.com
21. ↑ The last days of a legend - Édith Piaf (see above)
22. ↑ See the aforementioned television documentation
23. ↑ Piaf - Sans amour, on n'est rien du tout (German: Piaf - Without love one is nothing) , documentation by Marianne Lamour for Arte France / France 5, France 2003.
    Anke Myrrhe: On the 50th anniversary of death: The abysses the Édith Piaf . Der Tagesspiegel , October 10, 2013; Retrieved November 9, 2016.
24. ↑ Darmstädter Echo , Sonntagsecho, Saturday, October 24, 2015, p. 10.
25. ^ The grave of Édith Piaf on the website of Klaus Nerger, accessed on November 9, 2016.