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Concept
Édith Piaf
Summary
Édith Piaf (born Édith Giovanna Gassion; 19 December 1915 – 10 October 1963) was a French singer best known for performing songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres. She is widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer and one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th century.
Piaf's music was often autobiographical, and she specialized in chanson réaliste and torch ballads about love, loss and sorrow. Her most widely known songs include "La Vie en rose" (1946), "Non, je ne regrette rien" (1960), "Hymne à l'amour" (1949), "Milord" (1959), "La Foule" (1957), "L'Accordéoniste" (1940), and "Padam, padam..." (1951).
Piaf began her career touring with her father at the age of fourteen. Her fame increased during the German occupation of France and in 1945, Piaf's signature song, La Vie en rose ("life in pink") was published. She became France's most popular entertainer in the late 1940s, also touring Europe, the United States, and South America. Her popularity in the United States led her to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show eight times.
She continued to perform, including several series of concerts at the Paris Olympia music hall, until a few months before her death in 1963 at age 47. Her last song, L'Homme de Berlin, was recorded with her husband in April 1963.
Since her death, several documentaries and films have been produced about Piaf's life, and her music is a touchstone of French culture.
Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is unknown. Her birth certificate states that she was born in Paris on December 19, 1915, at the Hôpital Tenon hospital.
Her birth name was Édith Giovanna Gassion. The name "Édith" was inspired by British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed 2 months before Édith's birth for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity during World War I. Twenty years later, Édith's stage surname Piaf was created by her first promoter, based on a French term for sparrow.
Édith's father Louis Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944) was an acrobatic street performer from Normandy with a theater background.
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