Despite great biographical interest, much of Piaf's life remains shrouded in mystery. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72, but her birth certificate cites the Hôpital Tenon, on 19 December 1915. She was named Edith Cavell, a British nurse who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity during WWI.
Piaf came from a family of acrobats, actors and brothel keepers, and with French, Italian and Berber blood running through her veins she was well placed to become a great troubadouresss of the century. Abandoned by her mother at birth, she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha) and then with her paternal grandmother, who ran a brothel in Normandy. Thus prostitutes became her carers as well as her role-models. Edith believed that her weakness for men originated from that background. "I thought that when a boy called a girl, the girl would never refuse", she would say later. As a child, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis, but apparently recovered her sight after a pilgrimage (funded by prostitutes) honouring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.
In 1932, she met and fell in love with Louis Dupont who took upon himself to take her off the streets and repeatedly tried find a job for her. She resisted his suggestions, until she became pregnant and worked for a short while making wreaths in a factory. When her daughter Marcelle was born, 17-years old Edith, like her mother, found it difficult to cope with the demands of motherhood. She rapidly returned to street singing, until the summer of 1933, when she opened at Juan-les-Pins, Rue Pigalle. Piaf had a big quarrel with incensed Louis (whom she never married) and left. Marcelle died of meningitis at age two and rumor has it that Edith slept with a man to pay for her funeral. Later, she had numerous liaisons, with famous or infamous men. Her love for the boxer Marcel Cerdan was cut short by his tragic death in a plane crash but Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a Greek hairdresser-turned-singer and actor and 20 years her junior, survived her.
In 1935, Piaf was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club Le Gerny off the Champs-Élysées was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness, which, combined with her height of only 142 centimetres, inspired him to give her the nickname that would stay with her for the rest of her life and serve as her stage name, La Môme Piaf (Paris slang meaning "The Little Sparrow"). Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, which became her trademark apparel. Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign leading up to her opening night, attracting the presence of many celebrities, including actor Maurice Chevalier. Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced that same year, with one of them penned by Marguerite Monnot, a collaborator throughout Piaf's life and one of her favorite composers.
In 1936, Leplée was murdered by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf and she was questioned and accused being an accomplice. Her name was cleared but negative media attention threatened her career. Raymond Asso, with whom she would later become intimately involved, took upon himself to rehabilitate her image. He changed her stage name to "Édith Piaf", barred her undesirable acquaintances and commissioned Monnot to write songs that reflected her previous life on the streets.
In 1940, Edith co-starred in Jean Cocteau's successful one-act play Le Bel Indifférent. During the German occupation of Paris Piaf her career thrived and she formed friendships with prominent people, including Chevalier and poet Jacques Borgeat. She wrote the lyrics of many of her songs and collaborated with composers on the tunes. Spring of 1944 marked her collaboration and a love affair with Yves Montand in the Moulin Rouge.
Soon she was famous and in great demand as France's most popular entertainer. After the war, she became known internationally, touring Europe, the United States, and South America. She helped launch the career of Charles Aznavour in the early 1950s, taking him on tour with her in France and the United States and recording some of his songs. At first she met with little success with U.S. audiences, who regarded her as downcast but after a glowing review by a prominent New York critic, she made it to The Ed Sullivan Show and also Carnegie Hall. Piaf's signature song, "La vie en rose", originally written in 1945 it was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. It was, however, Bruno Coquatrix's famous Paris Olympia music hall is where she achieved lasting fame. The 1961 concerts, promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue from bankruptcy, debuted her song "Non, je ne regrette rien".
During the war, Piaf performed in various nightclubs and brothels such as Le Chabanais, Le Sphinx, One Two Two, La rue des Moulins, and Chez Marguerite, were reserved for German officers and collaborating Frenchmen. In 1942, Piaf was able to afford a luxury apartment and lived above the L’Étoile de Kléber, a famous nightclub and bordello close to the Paris Gestapo headquarters. She was invited to take part in a concert tour to Berlin, sponsored by the German officials. Piaf was later accused of treason but her secretary Andrée Bigard, a member of the Résistance spoke in her favour after the liberation and her name was cleared. In fact, she was hailed as a rescuer of French soldiers in their escape attempts from POW camps. Piaf quickly returned to the stage and in December 1944, she sang for the allied forces together with Montand in Marseille. Perhaps, once a prostitute, always a prostitute!
Piaf died of liver cancer liver at age 47 at her villa in Plascassier (Grasse), on the French Riviera, on 10 October 1963, the day before filmmaker and friend Jean Cocteau died. She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for several months. Her last words were "Every damn fool thing you do in this life, you pay for." She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris next to her daughter Marcelle, in the same grave are her father, Louis-Alphonse Gassion, & Théo (Lamboukas) Sarapo. Surrounded by men, as always.
Although Piaf was denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans. According to Charles Aznavour her funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that he saw Parisian traffic come to a complete stop.
If there ever was an incarnation of St. Magdalene, it was Piaf. Whatever the Little Sparrow’s moralit, her song lives on.
