Edith Piaf - La Vie En Rose

Edith Piaf - La Vie En Rose

World War II

During World War II, she was a frequent performer at German Forces social gatherings in occupied France, and many considered her a traitor; following the war she stated that she had been working for the French Resistance. While there is no evidence of this, it does seem to be true that she was instrumental in helping a number of individuals (including at least one Jew) escape Nazi persecution. Throughout it all, she remained a national and international favorite. Piaf dated a Jewish pianist during this time and co-wrote a subtle protest song with Monnot. According to one story, singing for high-ranking Germans at the One Two Two Club earned Piaf the right to pose for photographs with French prisoners of war, to boost their morale. The Frenchmen were supposedly able to cut out their photos and use them as forged passport photos.

Personal life

The love of Piaf's life,[4] the married boxer Marcel Cerdan, died in a plane crash in October 1949, while flying from Paris to New York City to meet her. Cerdan's Air France flight, flown on a Lockheed Constellation, went down in the Azores, killing everyone on board, including noted violinist Ginette Neveu.[13] Piaf and Cerdan's affair made international headlines,[5] as Cerdan was the middleweight world champion and a legend in France in his own right.

Piaf married Jacques Pills, a singer, in 1952 (her matron of honour was Marlene Dietrich) and divorced him in 1956. In 1962, she wed Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a Greek hairdresser-turned-singer and actor who was 20 years her junior. The couple sang together in some of her last engagements.

In 1951, Piaf was seriously injured in a car crash along with Charles Aznavour, breaking her arm and two ribs, and thereafter had serious difficulties arising from morphine and alcohol addictions. Two more near-fatal car crashes exacerbated the situation. Jacques Pills took her into rehabilitation on three different occasions to no avail.

Death and legacy
The grave of Édith Piaf, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
Bust of Édith Piaf in Kielce, Poland

Piaf died of liver cancer at Plascassier, on the French Riviera, on 10 October 1963, but only publicly disclosed on the 11th, the same day that Jean Cocteau died. She slipped in and out of consciousness for the last months of her life. It is said that Sarapo drove her body back to Paris secretly so that fans would think she had died in her hometown. She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris, where her grave is among the most visited.

Although she was denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris because of her lifestyle, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands[2] of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans. Charles Aznavour recalled that Piaf's funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that he saw Parisian traffic come to a complete stop.

The minor planet of 3772 Piaf, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after her.

In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf[12][17] (5 rue Crespin du Gast).

La Vie En Rose, a film about her life directed by Olivier Dahan, debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2007. Titled La Môme in France, the film stars Marion Cotillard in the role that won her the Academy Award for Best Actress (Oscar), as Piaf. Dahan's film follows Piaf's life from early childhood to her death in 1963. David Bret's biography, Piaf, A Passionate Life, was re-released by JR Books to coincide with the film's release. Her love story with Cerdan was also depicted on the big screen by Claude Lelouch in the movie Édith et Marcel (1983) with Marcel Cerdan Jr. in the role of his father and Évelyne Bouix portraying Piaf.

In 1996, Ari Folman released a near-futuristic comedy Saint Clara (film). In this movie, Edith Piaf is repeatedly mentioned by many of the adults, who remember her seemingly from school, and prove that they are part of the leading culture, as opposed to the immigrants, but the children on both sides have no knowledge of her, and ask who she was. The movie ends with the local men discovering that the Russian immigrants were intimately familiar with Piaf.

Category:

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• Granako

[philotimos923]

I spotted this and did a double take! The woman in the picture is a double for my late mother, Marjorie Leousis Brownley, who left us all too soon, in 1973 at the tender age of 49. I have sent this to all who knew her. And, as I have adored Piaf all of my adult life (I am in French teacher in NJ) and used to play Piaf's songs for my mother, it is just too coincidental to be a coincidence! God rest the souls of all those depicted her, including Piaf.

[merbenzgill]

what is harry doing in this  nice music

[EpicFrazz]

Like if Tobuscus brought you here

[SuperZerodotcom]

@SuperZerodotcom Blablabla. I'm an electric banana band!

[SuperZerodotcom]

She also likes Harry BellaFonte!

[paulostroff99]

TY so much granako for the wonderful story included on the life of Edith and the other notables I was not at all aware of those facts,

[stanibol]

What a juxtoposition - Bellafonte & Piaf. In each their genre they're just lovely, but hey... the Piaff is something else, no? You know the love song you love by so and so, it makes you cry every time you hear it. That's right. But if you are inclined to bawl your eyes out, then you would know that each time we listen to the Piaf it is like having your insides churned out by one of those mediaeval torturing racks. The paralysis is what forces us to listen, and somehow overcome all fear.

[MusicalOxygen]

omg. Seriously?

[Vuurvogel2]

@trento728

No.

The beginning isn't French. It's - I don't know what it is, to be frank - from Harry Bellafonte. Hasn't got anything to do with La Vie en Rose. Think before calling people names,.