Edith Piaf

Edith Piaf (born December 19, 1915, Paris, France—died October 10, 1963, Plascassier, near Grasse) was a French singer and actress whose passionate interpretation of the chanson, or French ballad, made her internationally famous. Among her trademark songs were “Non, je ne regrette rien” (“No, I Don’t Regret Anything”) and “La Vie en rose” (literally “Life in Pink”). The latter song’s title is a French idiom that means through “rose-colored glasses,” or to see the world from an optimistic point of view. Together the two songs represent the indomitable spirit of a singer whose life was famously marked by heartbreak. Considered by many to be France’s greatest singer, Piaf remains revered by a global and devoted fan base decades after her death from cancer in 1963.

Childhood

Piaf’s preference for melancholy torch songs and her emotional singing style seemed to reflect the tragedies of her own difficult life. She was born Edith Giovanna Gassion into an impoverished section of Paris. Her mother, a café singer, abandoned her at birth, and she was taken in by her grandmother, who reared the girl in a brothel. Gassion reportedly became blind at age three as a complication of meningitis but recovered her sight four years later.

A few years after that she joined her father, a circus acrobat, and accompanied him while he performed. She sang in the streets of Paris, earning a meager living while often in the company of petty criminals. The 17-year-old Gassion gave birth to a daughter in 1932, but the child died two years later from meningitis.

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Becoming “The Little Sparrow”

In 1935 Gassion was discovered by Louis Leplée, a cabaret owner, who gave the young singer her first nightclub job. It was Leplée who began calling her “la môme piaf,” Parisian slang for “little sparrow,” in apparent reference to her diminutive size—under 5 feet (142 cm) tall and about 90 pounds (40 kg) in weight. She later adopted the name professionally, eventually blending it with her given name to perform as Edith Piaf. Her debut was acclaimed by the actor Maurice Chevalier, who was in the audience that night.

A career marked by success and tragedy

In 1935 Piaf made her theatrical debut, and within a few years she was singing in the large music halls of Paris. Initially her material was standard music hall fare, but eventually she had songwriters such as Marguerite Monnot and Michel Emer writing songs specifically for her.

Her first record was “Les Mômes de la cloche” (“The Kids of the Bell Tower,” a reference to orphans and runaways) and “L’Étranger” (“The Stranger”), recorded in 1936 for Polydor. That same year, however, Leplée was murdered in a case that has never been solved. Piaf left Paris to avoid the scandal, eventually returning to begin an arrangement, both professional and romantic, with songwriter and manager Raymond Asso, who penned (with Monnot) Piaf’s first great hit, “Mon légionnaire.” When World War II broke out, Asso was called to serve in the French army, and his collaboration with Piaf ended. The next few years she worked with many other musicians, singers, and actors, forming romantic attachments with some of them.

In the mid-1940s Piaf became a mentor to the young Yves Montand, and she worked with him in the film Étoile sans lumière (1946; “Star Without Light”). In 1947 she recorded her signature song “La Vie en rose” and made her first tour of the United States, soon winning over American audiences. A review in the New York Herald Tribune noted, “Her voice itself is less important than the manner in which she blends and modulates it with subtle and evocative pantomime. One part musician and three parts actress, Mlle. Piaf blandly disregards lingual barriers to communicate immediately, and sometimes poignantly, with an audience.”

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It was during this tour that she met Moroccan middleweight boxer Marcel Cerdan, with whom she began an intense affair. In 1949 Cerdan died in a plane crash on his way to meet her while she was working in New York. As the story goes, he had been planning to travel by boat, but at Piaf’s behest he booked a flight in order to arrive in America sooner.

Death and legacy

Piaf’s unhappy personal life and unadorned though dramatic style underlined her expressive voice, and she was able to move audiences with her passionate rendition of songs that were often about loss and love. In her later life, Piaf was involved in several serious car accidents, and she suffered from failing health, partly due to alcohol and drug abuse. Yet it was during this stage of her life that she recorded the showstopping song “Non, je ne regrette rien.” She died at the age of 47, reportedly from liver cancer. Her death was mourned across France, and thousands lined the route of her funeral procession.

In addition to singing, Piaf recorded her thoughts about her life in two books, Au bal de la chance (1958; “At the Ball of Fortune”; Eng. trans. The Wheel of Fortune) and the posthumously published Ma vie (1964; My Life).

She was the subject of several biographies as well as plays and movies. Notable among these is La Môme (2007; also released as La Vie en rose), which earned Marion Cotillard an Academy Award for best actress for her performance as the singular torch singer.