This is a True Two Part Love Story
Part 1 (Edith Piaf)
Early life
Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is shrouded in mystery.[6] She was born Édith Giovanna Gassion[7] in Belleville, Paris, a high-immigration district. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72, but her birth certificate cites the Hôpital Tenon,[8] the hospital for the 20th arrondissement of which Belleville is part.
She was named Édith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity.[9] Piaf—a Francilien colloquialism for "sparrow"—originated as a nickname she would receive 20 years later.
Her mother, Annetta Giovanna Maillard (1895–1945), was a pied noir of French-Italian descent on her father's side and of Kabyle Berber origin on her mother's. She was a native of Livorno, a port city on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. She worked as a café singer under the name Line Marsa.[8] Louis-Alphonse Gassion (1881–1944), Édith's father, was a Norman street acrobat[10] with a past in the theatre. Édith's parents soon abandoned her, and she lived for a short time with her Kabyle maternal grandmother, Emma (Aïcha) Saïd ben Mohammed (1876–1930). Before enlisting with the French Army in 1916 to fight in World War I, her father took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Normandy. There, prostitutes helped look after Piaf.[5]
From the age of three to seven, Piaf was allegedly blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographies, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux, resulting in a miraculous healing.
In 1929, at 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first sang in public.[5]
She took a room at Grand Hôtel de Clermont (18 rue Veron, Paris 18ème) and separated from him, going her own way as a street singer in Pigalle, Ménilmontant, and the Paris suburbs (cf. the song "Elle fréquentait la Rue Pigalle").
She joined her friend Simone Berteaut ("Mômone")[8] in this endeavor, and the two became lifelong partners in mischief.[5] She was about 16 when she fell in love with Louis Dupont, a delivery boy.[5]
At 17, she had her only child, a girl named Marcelle, who died of meningitis at age two.[10] Like her mother, Piaf found it difficult to care for a child while living a life of the streets, so she often left Marcelle behind while she was away, and Dupont raised the child until the death at age two.[5]
Piaf's next boyfriend was a pimp named Albert who took a commission from the money she made singing in exchange for not forcing her into prostitution. One of her friends, a girl named Nadia, killed herself when faced with the thought of becoming a prostitute, and Albert nearly shot Piaf when she ended the relationship in reaction to Nadia's death.[5]
Singing career
In 1935 Piaf was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris[5] by the nightclub owner Louis Leplée,[7] whose club Le Gerny off the Champs-Élysées[10] 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 4'8" 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[7] (The Waif Sparrow, The Little Sparrow or Kid Sparrow in Parigot slang).[5] Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress which would later become her trademark apparel.[5] Leplée ran a large publicity campaign prior to her opening night, which resulted in celebrities including actor Maurice Chevalier attending the opening.[5] Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced that same year,[11] with one of them penned by Marguerite Monnot, a collaborator throughout Piaf's life.[5]
On 6 April 1936,[5] Leplée was murdered and Piaf was questioned in the matter and accused of being an accessory, but she was acquitted.[7] He had been killed by mobsters with previous ties to Piaf.[12] This resulted in much negative media attention directed towards Piaf,[8] which threatened her career.[5] To rehabilitate her image, she recruited Raymond Asso, with whom she would also become romantically involved. He changed her stage name to "Édith Piaf", barred her undesirable acquaintances from seeing her, and commissioned Monnot to write songs that reflected or alluded to Piaf's previous life on the streets.[5]
In 1940, Édith co-starred in Jean Cocteau's successful one-act play Le Bel Indifférent.[5] She began to become friends with prominent people, such as Chevalier and the poet Jacques Borgeat. She wrote the lyrics of many of her songs and collaborated with composers on the tunes. In 1944, Édith Piaf discovered Yves Montand in Paris, made him part of her act, and became his mentor[8] and lover.[12] Within a year, he became one of the most famous singers in France, and she broke off their relationship when he had become almost as popular as she was.[5]
During this time, she was in great demand and very successful in Paris[7] as France's most popular entertainer.[11] After the war, she became known internationally,[7] touring Europe, the United States, and South America. In Paris, she gave Atahualpa Yupanqui (Héctor Roberto Chavero)-the most important Argentine musician of folklore- the opportunity to share the scene, making debut in July of 1950. She helped to 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.[5] At first she met with little success with U.S. audiences, who regarded her as downcast.[5] After a glowing review by a prominent New York critic, though, she met with better success[5] and her popularity in the United States was such that she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show eight times and at Carnegie Hall twice (1956[10] and 1957).
Édith Piaf's signature song "La vie en rose"[5] was written in 1945 and was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.
The legendary Paris Olympia concert hall is where Piaf achieved lasting fame, giving several series of concerts at the hall, the most famous venue in Paris,[8] between January 1955 and October 1962. Excerpts from five of these concerts (1955, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962) were issued on record and CD and have never been out of print. The 1961 concerts were promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue from bankruptcy and where she debuted her song "Non, je ne regrette rien".[8] In April 1963, Piaf recorded her last song, "L'homme de Berlin".
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.[13] Piaf dated a Jewish pianist during this time and co-wrote a subtle protest song with Monnot.[5] According to one story, singing for high-ranking Germans at the One Two Two Club[14] 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.[14]
Personal life
The love of Piaf's life,[7] 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.[15] Piaf and Cerdan's affair made international headlines,[8] 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 [5] who was 20 years her junior. The couple sang together in some of her last engagements.[5]
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.[5] Two more near-fatal car crashes exacerbated the situation.[10] Jacques Pills took her into rehabilitation on three different occasions to no avail.[5]
Death and legacy
The grave of Édith Piaf, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
Bust of Édith Piaf in Kielce, PolandPiaf 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 Cocteau died.[16] She slipped in and out of consciousness for the last months of her life.[10] It is said that Sarapo drove her body back to Paris secretly so that fans would think she had died in her hometown.[5][14] She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris, where her grave is among the most visited.[5]
Although she was denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Paris because of her lifestyle,[14] her funeral procession drew tens of thousands[5] of mourners onto the streets of Paris and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans.[14][17] 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.[14]
The minor planet of 3772 Piaf, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after her.[18]
In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf[14][19] (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 definitive 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.
Part 2 ( Marcel Cerdan)
Marcel Cerdan (July 22, 1916 – October 27, 1949) was a French world boxing champion who was considered by many boxing experts and fans to be France's and Europe's greatest boxer, and by many more fans to be one of the best to come out of that continent
Marcel Cerdan was born in Sidi Bel-Abbes, Algeria. He would have a life that was marked by his sporting achievements, social lifestyle, and ultimately, his own, personal tragedy.
Cerdan began boxing professionally on November 4, 1934 in Meknes, Morocco, by beating Marcel Bucchianeri by a decision in six. He ran a streak of 47 wins in a row between that first bout and January 4 of 1939, when he lost for the first time, to Harry Cresner by a disqualification in five rounds at London. Among the fighters he beat during that streak were Al Baker, and Aisa Attaf, beaten twice by knockout. Cerdan campaigned heavily in Morocco and Algeria during that part of his career, and began to campaign also at his parent's home country of France. In 1938, in what could perhaps be considered a territorial oddity, he beat Omar Kouidri by a decision in 12 at Casablanca to claim the French welterweight title.
After his first loss, Cerdan put up a string of 5 wins that led him to challenge Saviello Turiello for Europe's welterweight title in Milan, Italy. He won the European title by a decision in 15 to continue his ascent towards the championship (back then, it was considered essential to own at least, a continental title belt to earn a world title shot, nowadays, even though having a continental belt does help get a world title try, having a continental belt isn't considered as important as before).
That winning streak eventually grew to reach 23 wins in a row, but then, he suffered a defeat to Victor Buttin by a disqualification in eight in Algiers.
For his next bout he put the title on the line against a boxer who is the namesake of a Hollywood star: (boxer) Jose Ferrer. He knocked out Ferrer in one round, and won four more bouts in a row before facing another guy with a namesake: James Toney, who shared that name with another boxer who would become world Middleweight champion five decades later. Cerdan knocked out this James Toney in two rounds to keep this new win streak alive. The new streak would reach 37 wins before being stopped. In between, he joined the American allies in World War II during 1944 and he won the inter-allied championship. He also went up in weight to the Middleweight division, and won the French title by beating Assane Douf by a knockout in three. He later claimed the European title by beating Leon Foquet by a knockout in one for the vacant title. He retained that title a couple of times before losing it to Cyrille Delannoit by a decision in 15 at Brussels, Belgium. Soon, he went back to Belgium and re-took the title by beating Delannoit, also by decision.
Finally, after the rematch with Delannoit, Cerdan was given a world title opportunity and he travelled to the United States, where he beat world Middleweight champion Tony Zale. Cerdan became a world champion by knocking Zale out in the 12th round at New Jersey on September 21 of 1948.
During his short period as a world champion, Cerdan became a popular figure of the Paris scene. Although married with three children, he had an affair with the famous singer Edith Piaf, a legend on her own.
For his first defense, Cerdan returned to the States, where he fought Jake LaMotta in Detroit. Cerdan was knocked down in round one and his shoulder was dislocated, having to surrender after the tenth round. It would sadly be the last fight of Cerdan's life: A contract was signed for a rematch and Cerdan went to training camp for it, but while flying to the United States to fight the rematch, Cerdan's Air France flight, flown on a SuperConstellation, went down in the Azores and everybody in it died including the famous violinist Ginette Neveu (1919-1949). Days later, LaMotta expressed words of condolences, praising Cerdan as a human being.
In 1983, Cerdan and Piaf had their own lives turned into a big screen biography. The movie, titled Edith and Marcel starred Marcel Cerdan Jr. in the role of his father.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cerdan's record was 106 wins and 4 losses, with 61 wins by knockout.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He is a member, along with LaMotta and Zale, of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Following his death on October 27, 1949, Marcel Cerdan was interred in the Cimetière du Sud, Perpignan, Languedoc-Roussillon, France.
