Piaf, Edith (Born Edith Giovanna Gassion; 1915–1963)

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PIAF, EDITH (Born Edith Giovanna Gassion; 1915–1963)

French singer.

Edith Piaf, writer and performer, is one of the best-known representatives of the tradition of the French chanson. Although she occupies a place in the lineage forged by Maryse Damia, Fréhel, and Marie Dubas, Piaf was also one of the female singers who created a more international style of chanson by making greater use of the microphone, recording technology, and the personal notoriety bestowed upon her by the press.

In many ways Edith Piaf was a child of the streets. She was born in the rue de Belleville, in the heart of working-class Paris. Her mother was a singer and her father a circus acrobat, but she was raised by her Berber grandmother, who lived in the neighborhood of Barbès, and by her other grandmother, who ran a brothel in the Normandy village of Bernay, where by the age of thirteen Piaf would sing with her father as a way of earning their daily bread. At fifteen she began to sing with her "adopted" sister Simone Berteaut, before forming a trio with Camille and Suzanne Ribon that performed in the garrisons of Paris. She became a mother herself very young, but at twenty lost her young daughter, Marcelle, who died when she was two.

In the early 1930s Piaf left the streets to go onstage. Louis Leplée had her sing in his cabaret Le Gerny's on the Champs Elysées and came up with her stage name "la môme Piaf," or "little sparrow" (piaf is the Parisian slang term for sparrow). She recorded her first songs in December 1935 for Polydor Records ("Les mômes de la cloche," "La java de Cézigue," "L'étranger," "Mon apéro") and was interviewed on the radio. When Leplée was murdered the following year, Piaf was a suspect for a short while but was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing and went on to find new engagements through Jacques Canetti and Raymond Asso. She began to sing "Mon amant de la coloniale" and met the composer Marguerite Monnot, who would write melodies for her for the rest of her career. Jean Cocteau offered her a role in his play Le bel indifferent alongside Paul Meurisse, her lover at the time. Thanks to her public persona and the success of her records, she dominated the Alhambra stage of the European and the Bobino. Her private life completed the picture—the succession of lovers she appeared with throughout her life meant she frequently appeared in tabloid magazines. In 1937 she sang "Mon legionnaire" on ABC Radio, and recorded Michel Elmer's "L'accordéoniste" in 1940. During World War II she recorded for SACEM and met Yves Montand, whose career she launched by appearing onstage with him.

The postwar era ushered in a new stage in Edith's career, this time on the international celebrity circuit, a status she attained following a series of solo concerts in the United States in 1946 and while performing with the Compagnons de la Chanson in 1947. She fell passionately in love with the boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, whose tragic death in 1949 led her to write her "L'hymne à l'amour" the following year. In the early 1950s she entered a difficult period of alcohol and drug abuse. Also beginning to take shape at this time was her legend as a woman devoted to love and giving everything she had to her emotional songs and life—a legend projected by the press, her song lyrics, and her impressive stage presence. In 1952 she married Jacques Pills, whom she would divorce three years later. She appeared in several films designed essentially as vehicles for her songs, including Si Versailles m'était conté by Sacha Guitry in 1953 and French Cancan by Jean Renoir in 1954. With English-language pop and rock music beginning to displace the French chanson, Edith sang the French version of a rock and roll hit called "L'homme à la moto," Jean Drèjac's adaptation of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Black Denim Trousers." Her greatest hits at the end of the 1950s catapulted her fame to its zenith: "La foule," "Milord" (by Georges Moustaki and Marguerite Monnot), "Mon manège à moi" (by Jean Constantin and Norbert Glanzberg), "Mon Dieu," "Les mots d'amour," and "Non, je ne regrette rien." She multiplied her recitals at the Olympia in Paris and toured all over northern Europe. In her final recordings she made greater use of full orchestras, choruses, and echo chambers. In 1962 she married Théo Sarapo and performed with him as well. When she died in 1963 she was denied the rites of the Catholic Church, but for millions she remained unique, extraordinarily and lastingly popular.

See alsoCabaret; France; Theater.