Edith Giovanna Gassion, the French singer we know as Edith Piaf had quite the life. Starting on a doorstep in Belleville where her mother Annette Giovanna and Louis Alphonse Gassion lived. She famously told the story that her mother gave birth right there for all the world to see. It makes for a great story but it is believed that she was born in the nearby Hopital Tenon. Annette, a circus performer, walked out shortly after she was born leaving baby Edith with her father.
While World War I raged through Europe, Louis enlisted in the army leaving the Edith without a parent. Her father left her with her maternal grandmother where she was treated terribly. It seems the motherly genes missed that side of the family.The poor child was rarely bathed and instead of water or milk was given bottles of wine. After some time, when it was discovered how badly she was treated her other grandmother took her in.
The paternal grandmother may not have been much better as a madame of a brothel in Besnay, Normandy. The ladies of the brothel looked after her and kept her fed, clean and healthy. At three years old, Edith went blind and was diagnosed with Keratitis and suffered for more than four years. The ladies had heard of people being cured by visiting Lisieux where Saint Therese had lived her final short years and saved money for their young friend. Saving up enough money for Edith and her father to make the pilgrimage, they traveled to Lisieux with high hopes. Once they arrived, her eyes were wrapped in bandages and rubbed with the dirt of Lisieux. Given a bucket of dirt they were sent home and told to wrap her eyes each night and continue to rub dirt into the bandages. After eight days, her sight was restored and she was heeled. She would wear a Saint Therese medal for the rest of her life.
In 1929, her father, the street performer, took her on the road with him touring all over France. Extremely shy, she began to sing on the streets with her father and draw large crowds. Months later Simon “Momone” Bertreaut joined the act. The two girls that may have been half sisters started making so much money they branched out on their own and sang around Montmartre.
At 17 years old Edith met and fell for Louis Dupont who quickly moved into the girls' Pigalle apartment. Before long Edith was pregnant and Louis did not like the idea of her signing on the streets and convinced her to take a job at a wreath factory. In February 1933, her daughter Marcelle (Cecelle) was born and much like her mother and grandmothers before her Edith wasn’t really the mother type. She took the baby from Louis when he told her he didn’t want her singing in the streets and with Simone they checked into a hotel. The two girls would leave the baby alone to sing in the streets all night. Once Louis heard he took the baby back and told her if she wanted to see her she needed to come home. She made her choice and it wasn’t baby Marcelle. Two years later Marcelle died of meningitis. Years later she would be buried with Edith in Pere Lachaise.
Louis Leplée, owner of Le Gerry’s nightclub just off the Champs Elysees spotted Edith on the streets of Pigalle and asked her to perform at the club. Terrified to take the stage he gave her lessons in stage presence, to dress in black and gave her the nickname Piaf since she was so tiny. Her one week booking turned into seven months and ended when Leplée was murdered on April 6, 1936. Edith was arrested and held for two days as they investigated the mobsters that pulled off the hit. Living in brothels and performing on the streets brought her into contact with many unsavory characters over time, and a few of them were thought to have killed Leplée. Cleared of all charges but it had impacted her short live fame she had achieved.
Getting serious she hired Raymon Osso, a songwriter that helped revamp her image. He banned her from seeing any of the unsavory characters of her past and had to focus on her music. It was at this time she began to write many of the lyrics for her songs. As WWII started, her career had reached new heights. Performing in the clubs and cabarets of Paris attended by German soldiers and collaborators she would also be labeled a collaborator herself. So popular with the officers she went to Berlin in August 1943 to perform in the clubs. When she returned to France she was put on trial and the people campaigned to pull her music from the radio.
As a woman raised on the streets essentially she was a smart cookie. She began to perform for the Germans in the prisoner camps and during her performance Resistance members were able to break a few lucky soles out.
After the war and back in everyone's good graces she kept writing and performing and also helped nurture other young singers like Charles Aznavour and Yves Montand. In the summer of 1948 she met French boxer Marcel Cerdan. Cerdan was married with three children, but that didn’t keep the two apart. For a little over a year Cerdan and Piaf were inseparable and the talk of France. In October 1949, on a flight to New York to meet Edith his plane crashed killing everyone on board. She was devastated and never really recovered.
In 1951 a horrible car accident with Charles Aznavour broke her arm and two ribs. Quickly followed by two more accidents that would begin her lifelong journey of addiction to morphine and alcohol. With another chance at love she married Jacques Pells the following year with close friend Marlene Dietrich serving as her maid of honor.
With the years of addiction taking their toll on her tiny body and slowing down, Bruno Coquatrix, close friend and owner of the Olympia, asked her to help him save the historic venue. She had performed there many times but this time she took the stage and debuted her newest song, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. It was recorded and released and saved the Olympia.
Her marriage to Pells didn’t last long and in 1962 she married again. This time to the much younger Greek singer and actor Theo Sarapo. She seemed to finally find the perfect match although he was more than 20 years younger. The marriage wasn’t too last long when on October 10, 1963 the little sparrow would take her last breath at the age of 47. At her villa in Grasse she died of liver failure and an aneurysm at such a young age.
With a lifelong tie to Paris, Theo acted quickly and decided against doctors wishes to take her body back to Paris. Driving all through the night she was returned to her home at 67 Boulevard Lannes. Such a beloved figure in French history she was denied a funeral mass by the Cardinal Maurice Feltin. Even the Pope weighed in and said “She lived a life in a state of public sin” and the church would not recognize her. Fifty years after her death on October 10, 2013 at the Saint Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville she was finally given permission by the Catholic church to have a mass in her name.
Her funeral procession wound its way through the streets of Paris starting at her apartment on the far end of the 16th to Pere Lachaise cemetery. More than 500,000 people lined the streets of the 10 kilometer route with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Aznevour leading the way.
For more Edith Piaf, check out the amazing movie La Vie en Rose staring the wonderful Marion Cotillard playing Edith Piaf. Half way through it you will know exactly why she won an Oscar for the role. I get the chills just thinking about this movie. It’s so good!
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