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Édith Giovanna Gassion (19 December 1915 – 10 October 1963), known as Édith Piaf (French pronunciation: [edit pjaf]), was a French entertainer best known for performing songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres.
- She Had Another Story
- She Shared Her Name with A Tragic Hero
- She Was Abandoned
- Like Father, Like Daughter
- She Lived with Prostitutes
- She Couldn’T Say “No”
- She Went Blind
- She Experienced A Miracle
- She Took to The Street
- She Met A Long-Lost Relative
From the very beginning, Edith Piaf knew how to make a dramatic entrance. Although her birth certificate said she was born at the Hospital Tenon in Paris, she had a different story to tell. On December 19, 1915, Edith claimed that her mother—Annetta Maillard—never made it to the hospital. With a no-show ambulance, Maillard delivered her on the fron...
Piaf’s parents named her with courage in mind. Her name—Edith—comes from a British WWI nurse named Edith Cavell who risked her life for the sake of French troopers. After rescuing them from the Germans, Cavell faced a death sentence. They executed her only two months before Piaf’s birth. While both women led wildly different lives, they had many th...
Some say there’s no love as unconditional as a mother’s love for her child. That is, unless your mother is Edith Piaf’s. Sadly, Piaf’s mother wanted nothing to do with her and abandoned her at birth. For some of her childhood, she lived with her maternal grandmother, but in the end, she belonged to her father. And with WWI raging on, he had a diffi...
Piaf’s father—Louis Alphonse Gassion—was an acrobat with a theatrical past. He was a street performer hailing from Normandy, and as time would tell, these dramatic affinities one day blossomed in his own daughter. But in 1916, he had WWI to consider, and when he enlisted, he had no choice but to leave Piaf in the care of his mother—a woman with qui...
In Bernay, Normandy, Piaf’s grandmother welcomed the girl into her scandalous life. She ran a bordello—or what some called “a house of ill repute.” When Piaf's father went off to fight, he left his baby girl there. Some say it takes a village to raise a child, but it only took a house full of her grandmother’s “employees” to raise Edith. These resi...
With her turbulent romantic history, it’s no wonder Edith Piaf insists that her life growing up in the bordello influenced her weakness for men. For one, the importance of consent was woefully skewed for Piaf. She once reminisced, saying, “I thought when a boy called a girl, the girl would never refuse.” But as a child, Piaf’s physical illnesses fu...
During a chapter of her childhood, Edith Piaf couldn’t see at all. She suffered from keratitis—an inflammatory condition that affects the cornea of the eye. Her blindness woke pity in the hearts of her grandmother and the other girls. Together, they decided to pool money in an effort to find a cure for Piaf’s unfortunate condition. But sadly, the m...
The proposed cure for young Piaf’s blindness was…unconventional, to say the least. The money for Piaf’s eyes went toward a very special pilgrimage—a spiritual journey in the name of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. When Piaf’s eyesight saw considerable improvement, everyone around her believed that this healing was a downright miracle. With her sight grat...
At the age of 14, Edith Piaf was ready to start making some money. After returning from battle, her father went back to his acrobatic profession. Finally old enough to earn her keep, Piaf and her father began trudging the streets together, setting up shop on corners and performing for the everyday masses. Her songbird voice rang true through the ci...
Only a year into performing, Piaf met a very important person—her sister. Or to be more accurate, her half-sister, Simone “Momone” Berteaut. So little is known about Momone that some say that there’s a possibility that she wasn’t Piaf’s sister at all. Either way, they became soul sisters in the end. Momone joined Piaf on the street, and together, t...
Oct 6, 2024 · In 1935 Edith Piaf was discovered by a cabaret owner who gave her her first nightclub job. He began calling her “la môme piaf,” Parisian slang for “little sparrow,” a name she later adopted professionally.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Edith Piaf, abandoned at birth by her café-singer mother, was taken in by her grandmother and reared in a brothel. Piaf was blinded by complication...
- In 1935 Edith Piaf was discovered by a cabaret owner who gave her her first nightclub job. He began calling her “la môme piaf,” Parisian slang for...
- Edith Piaf was a French singer whose expressive interpretations of the chanson, or French ballad, made her internationally famous. Among her tradem...
Edith Piaf is the first lady of French chanson. Born into poverty on December 19, 1915, Edith Giovanna Gassion was abandoned by her mother shortly after her birth and lived with her grandmother -- a madame who ran a brothel in Normandy.
May 22, 2024 · Edith Piaf had an affair with former middleweight world champion, Marcel Cerdan, who was already married. He later passed away in a plane crash, while travelling from Paris to New York to meet her in October, 1949.
Apr 2, 2014 · (1915-1963) Who Was Édith Piaf? Édith Piaf, also known as “The Little Sparrow,” rose to international stardom in the late 1930s as a symbol of French passion and tenacity. Of Piaf’s many...
Jan 13, 2024 · When it comes to French chanson, one name stands out above all others: Edith Piaf. Known as the “Little Sparrow,” Piaf’s powerful voice and emotional performances captivated audiences around the world. Her life was as dramatic as her music, and her legacy continues to inspire generations of artists.
