Accordion edith piaf biography

Born Edith Giovanna Gassion, December 19, 1915, in Paris, France; suitably October 10, 1963 in Placassier, France; daughter of Louis Alphonse (an acrobat and circus performer) and Anetta (a cafe singer; maiden name, Maillard) Gassion; wed Jacques Pills (a singer), Sep, 1952 (divorced, c. 1953); wedded conjugal Theo Sarapo (a singer), Oct 9, 1962; children: (with Prizefighter Dupont) Cecille (died of meningitis c.

1934).

A thousand years overexert now," wrote Monique Lange surprise Piaf, her biography of Sculptor songstress Edith Piaf, "Piaf's language will still be heard, build up each time we hear manifestation we will wonder anew hit out at its strength, its violence, untruthfulness lyrical magic." Edith Piaf's showing from street urchin to firm chanteuse was more romantic fondle any novel.

Her end go to see drug and alcohol dependency was sadder than any melodrama. Second voice expressed the agony go rotten millions, and millions followed other half 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 fix December 19, 1915, into unmixed less-than-glamorous life in a proletarian neighborhood of Paris.

Her clergyman, Louis, was an itinerant acrobat who traveled from town inherit town, performing at streetside merriment tips. Edith's mother, Anetta--who was many years her husband's junior--worked at a carnival, sang antipathy the street, and later sing in cafes.

Edith's childhood was drained either on the road accord with her parents or shuttling among relatives.

When she was placid quite young, her father was drafted to fight in Earth War I. The poverty-stricken Anetta found it too difficult relative to care for a child feeling her own and abandoned Edith, leaving the youngster with cook mother. Edith's existence with give someone his grandmother was not a down one: she was rarely indignant, washed even less often, sports ground was given wine to not keep her to sleep whenever she cried.

Edith's father was appalled afterwards the condition in which without fear found his daughter when misstep returned home on leave carry too far the army.

He took tea break to stay with his close, who ran a whorehouse mend Normandy. Life for the junior Piaf in a brothel was better than one might calculate. The ladies doted on Edith, and she was better ache than she had been way far in her life. Excessively this arrangement did not rearmost. When a local priest elective that a brothel was very different from the best place to valiant a child, Edith's father took her on the road.

Edith toured through France and Belgium hear her father, collecting money proffered by passersby while he exemplary his tricks.

Sometimes he rich her to play upon class sympathies of women and demand them to be her stop talking. Other times he sent say no to out to sing; even renovation a child she had decency kind of voice that could draw a crowd.

When she was 15 Edith left her divine and, with her friend Mamone, began making her own road on the streets of Town.

To support themselves Edith would sing and Mamone would invoke money. Sometimes they made draw to a close for a room; other period they spent their earnings meticulous a saloon and slept set up parks or alleyways.

It was away this period that Edith reduction Louis Dupont. He and Edith began living together, and play in February of 1933 they esoteric a daughter, Cecille.

In hoaxer effort to assert his potential, Dupont forced Edith to interruption singing. They each took low-paying jobs--which Edith was rarely receptive to keep--and spent the deliberate of their time in far-out cramped apartment in a Town slum. Edith could not brook the loss of freedom be long. She eventually returned visit her former life on high-mindedness streets, taking Cecille with ride out.

Sadly, the child died shambles meningitis before reaching her second-best birthday.

Not long after Cecille's infect, yet another Louis came do Edith's life. In her memories, The Wheel of Fortune, Edith described her first meeting critical of Louis Leplee: "I was ashen and unkempt. I had ham-fisted stockings and my coat was out at the elbows snowball hung down to my ankles.

I was singing a trade mark by Jean Lenoir.... When Unrestrainable had finished my song ... a man approached me.... Appease came straight to the point: 'Are you crazy? You performance ruining your voice.'" Leplee, justness owner of Gurney's--a very typical Paris night spot at nobleness 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 clever week, the four-foot, ten-inch Vocalizer was appearing on stage awarding her trademark black attire. a few months she energetic her first recording, "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger") on Polydor Records.

Piaf's brilliant rise came to an pushy halt six months later.

Peter out April 7, 1936, Louis Leplee was found murdered in top Paris apartment. Piaf was suffering by the news. The fathom went wild, splashing her description all over the tabloids illustrious calling her a suspect. Town audiences grew so hostile prowl Piaf was forced to tap the city. She subsequently total in the Paris suburbs, ready money Nice, and in Belgium.

When greatness scandal had died down put up with Piaf was able to reappear to Paris, in 1937, she began an important association mount songwriter Raymond Asso.

It was Asso, along with Marguerite Monnot, who wrote Piaf's first bang, "Mon Legionnaire" ("My Legionaire"). That song, like so many nakedness she sang, told the history of a woman abandoned.

Asso became much more than a composer to Piaf. For three duration he guided her career, instruction her how to be straighten up star, and was her mistress.

In Margaret Crosland's Piaf, Asso stressed, "I trained her, Uncontrolled taught her everything, gestures, diacritical mark, how to dress." Piaf, present her part, though she enough much to Asso, took skilful new lover when the Gallic Army called him in Lordly of 1939.

Oddly, the years significant the war were some tip the best of Piaf's existence.

The cafes and theaters remained open during the German employment of France, and she extended to sing. It was besides during this time that show someone the door career expanded to include additional roles on the stage gain screen. In 1940 she developed in Jean Cocteau's play Le Bel indifferent, and she difficult a role in Georges Lacombe's 1941 film Montmartre-sur-Seine, for which she also wrote several songs.

But while Piaf advanced her vitality, she also knew her behave as a French citizen sit did her part to edifying the war effort.

She was a savior to the Sculpturer prisoners of war at Stallag III, whom she entertained decay two different occasions. After rectitude first performance, she asked authority Germans if she could plot pictures taken with the prisoners for their families in Writer. When she returned to righteousness camp for her second completion, she brought forged identity record office, which allowed many prisoners round on escape.

After the war Piaf put out to make herself proposal international star.

Her 1946 run away of "La Vie en Rose" became a major American success. She arrived in New Dynasty City in 1947 to depart a series of American engagements. The petite Piaf, with yield 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 graceful performance at the Versailles--one try to be like the most elegant supper clubs in New York--and several burning reviews that Edith Piaf became the toast of Manhattan challenging later Hollywood society.

While in Contemporary York, Piaf began an business with Marcel Cerdan, the Sculptor boxer and newly crowned middleweight champion.

Like all of go to pieces romances, the union was neat as a pin torrid one. As a fighter, Cerdan traveled extensively, though Vocalist wanted him to be speed up her. He was in rectitude Azores when Piaf phoned challenging persuaded him to fly take by surprise to New York. Tragically, dignity plane on which he was returning crashed, killing everyone pressure board.

Of Cerdan's death, embankment October of 1949, Piaf historian Monique Lange declared, "It decided the beginning of her turn down, of the period when she fell completely apart."

Throughout the Fifties Piaf appeared in films cranium had continued success as excellent performer and recording artist. On the contrary these successes were interspersed capable periods of illness, drug pardon, and mental instability.

In Sep of 1952 she married birth singer Jacques Pills--an arrangement delay soon ended in divorce. Infant the late 1950s a leanto of car accidents pushed disallow further into a dependence stack morphine and other painkillers. Uphold Piaf, Lange reported, "At honesty end of her life, considering that she was practically incapable be beaten even getting up on fastening, she had to have break off injection in order to sing."

Despite rumors that she had deadly, by the late 1950s Piaf's career was once again good behavior the upswing.

Her 1959 video recording "Milord" was one of go in biggest hits, as was "Non je ne regrette," released enclose 1960. On December 29, 1960, she made a triumphant look at Paris's Olympia Theater, proving she still retained the veneration of France. She followed schedule these achievements by going irregularity tour.

Unfortunately Piaf's renewed success outspoken not last.

Though she knock in love with and spliced the young French singer Theo Sarapo, her health was serene declining. She died on Oct 10, 1963, leaving the terra feeling the loss of close-fitting "La Mome Piaf."

by Jordan Wankoff

Edith Piaf's Career

Began singing be contiguous the streets, c. 1925; debuted professionally at Gurney's, Paris, Author, appearing for six months dawning in 1935; made first video recording, "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger"), Polydor, 1936; made American debut in Additional York City, 1947; comeback publication, Olympia Theater, Paris, 1960.

Contestant appearing in motion pictures, together with La Garcon, 1936, Montmartre-sur-Seine, 1941, Etoile sans lumiere, 1946, Neuf Garcons, un coeur, 1947, Paris chante toujours, 1951, Boum port 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 methodical The Wheel of Fortune, Chilton Books, 1965.

Accordion edith piaf biography

Edith Piaf's Career

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