“Non, je ne regretted rien. No, I regret nothing.” —Edith Piaf
The high drama of Edith Piaf’s life brought her 47 years on this earth to a place where her singing of chanson and torch ballads gave love, loss, and sorrow, a deep resonance. What a beginning!
Edith Giovanna Gassion was born December 19, 1915 in Belleville, Paris, France. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72. Louis Gassion was her father and a street performer of acrobatics from Normandy. He was the son of Victor Gassion and Leontine Descams, known as Maman Tine a “madam” who ran a brothel in Normandy.
Her mother, Annetta Maillard, was a singer and circus performer who was born in Italy of French and Italian descent. Piaf’s mother abandoned her at birth and she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother. Then her father enlisted in the French Army in 1916 and he took Edith to live with his mother in Normandy.
There, prostitutes helped look after her. The bordello had two floors and seven rooms with about 10 poor girls. From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind. She recovered her sight after her grandmother’s prostitutes pooled money to accompany her on a pilgrimage honouring Saint Therese of Lisieux. Piaf said this was the result of a miraculous healing.
In 1929 she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France where she sang in public. In 1932 she met Louis Dupont and in 1933 the 17 year old Piaf give birth to their daughter, Marcelle. She, like her mother, had little maternal instinct. She returned to street singing until the Summer of 1933 when she began performing at Jua-les-Pins, Rue Pigalle. Her daughter died of meningitis at age two. It was rumored that Piaf slept with a man to pay for Marcelle’s funeral.
Piaf was discovered by nightclub owner Louis Leplee, who gave her her stage name of La Mome Piaf which was Paris street slang for “The Little Sparrow.” Piaf stood 4 foot, 8 inches tall. He taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress which became her trademark apparel.
April 6, 1936 Leplee was murdered. Paif was accused as an accessory, but acquitted.
She began forming friendships with prominent individuals, including famed Broadway performer from France Maurice Chevalier and poet Jacquest Borgeat. She wrote the lyrics of many of Piaf’s songs. Spring 1944 saw the first cooperation and a love affair with Yves Montand at the Moulin Rouge. Within a year she became one of the most famous singers in France. She toured around the world, even appearing on the Ed Sullivan TV Show numerous times.
Piaf wrote her signature song “La Vie en rose” in 1945 and it was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. Piaf wrote two books about her life, one of which was published posthumously.
The love of her life was a married boxer, Marcel Cerdan, who died in a plane crash in 1949. She married Jacques Pills in 1952 and her maid of honor was Marlene Dietrich. She divorced Pills in 1957. She wed Theo Sarapo in 1962 who was 20 years her junior. The couple sang together in some of her last engagements.
Piaf had been seriously injured in a car crash in 1951, along with Charles Aznavour and thereafter had serious difficulties from morphine and alcohol addictions. In 1962 she lost a great deal of weight and weighed only 66 pounds. She died of liver cancer at her villa in Plascassier on the French Riviera October 10, 1963. She is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris next to her daughter, Marcelle.