Édith Piaf: a Cultural History
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ÉDITH PIAF: A CULTURAL HISTORY ÉDITH PIAF A Cultural History David Looseley LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS Édith Piaf: A Cultural History First published 2015 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2015 David Looseley The right of David Looseley to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78138-257-8 epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-425-1 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY. Contents CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Chronology 1 Introduction 15 part i: narrating piaf 1 Inventing la Môme 27 2 Piaf and her public 45 3 A singer at war 65 part ii: piaf and chanson 4 A new Piaf 83 5 High art, low culture: Piaf and la chanson française 97 6 Ideology, tragedy, celebrity: a new middlebrow 113 part iii: afterlives 7 Losing Piaf 135 8 Remembering Piaf 153 9 Performing Piaf 171 Conclusion 185 Notes 193 References 233 Index 243 v For my granddaughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) Looseley-Burnet, with love Acknowledgements Acknowledgements would like to express my gratitude to the following, who in I various ways have helped me with the research for this book: Jacques d’Amboise, Ewan Burnet, Erica Burnham of the University of London in Paris, Di Holmes, Jim House, John and Josette Hughes, the late Tony Judt, Rhiannon Looseley, Bernard Marchois of the Musée Édith Piaf, Sue Miller, Cécile Obligi of the Bibliothèque nationale’s Département des arts du spectacle, Cécile Prévost-Thomas, Keith Reader, Philip Tagg, Florence Tamagne and Vera Zolberg. I am especially indebted to the late David Whale. David was a teacher of French in the UK whom I never met. He was devoted to French chanson and over a period of some fifty years put together a remarkable collection of books, CDs, magazines and press cuttings on the subject. In donating this collection to me, his widow Ann and David himself have contributed immeasurably to this book. I should also thank Frederick Kennedy (1926–2014), poet, wit and book collector, for encouraging me to write from a very early age. And most of all my wife, Avril, not only for reading and discussing the manuscript but for her wisdom, enthusiasm, optimism and support beyond description. vii Chronology Chronology hat follows is not by any means a detailed charting of Piaf’s W life but a sketch to help readers situate and make better sense of the moments highlighted in the book. Some of the dates, particularly those relating to her early life, are approximate or uncertain. A much more detailed chronology appears in Marchois, 1993, passim, but even here the dating is sometimes unreliable. 1915 19 December: birth of Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, Paris. Her parents are Louis Alphonse Gassion (born 1881) and Annetta Giovanna Maillard, known professionally as Line Marsa (born 1895). Louis’s ancestry was mainly Norman. Line’s was French, Moroccan and Italian. Both came from families of street or circus performers. 1918 31 August: Édith’s brother or half-brother Herbert Gassion is born to Line in Marseille. 1921 The young Édith’s eyesight problem, whatever it was, is cured. 1922 Louis removes his daughter from his mother’s brothel in Bernay. 1922–29 Édith goes on the road with her father, either in the circus or when he works alone. 1929 4 June: Édith’s parents are divorced, though they have lived separate lives for some years. 1929 Édith leaves her father and begins singing in the street in Pigalle. 1931 Meets Momone (Simone Berteaut), who collects the money when 1 2 Édith Piaf: A Cultural History Édith sings in the street. The two will also perform sometimes in cinemas, cabarets and bals musettes. 8 March: birth of her half-sister, Denise Gassion, daughter of Louis Gassion. 1932 Meets and begins living with Louis Dupont, known as le P’tit Louis (little Louis). 1933 7 February: birth of Édith and Louis’s daughter Marcelle. December (to April 1934): sings in a trio including her father’s friend Camille Rebon. They perform a number of times in barracks. 1935 7 July: Marcelle dies in hospital of meningitis, aged two. She is buried in a pauper’s grave in Thiais (10 July). October: meets Louis Leplée. 24 or 25 October: begins performing at Le Gerny’s as la Môme Piaf. 26 October: first appears on Radio-Cité thanks to Jacques Canetti. 18 December: makes her first recordings, on Canetti’s Polydor. 1936 February: release of the film La Garçonne, in which Édith has a small singing part. 6 April: murder of Leplée. April–May: with Le Gerny’s closed, Piaf finds work at more downmarket cabarets, notably Chez Odett and L’Ange rouge. First meets Asso around this time. She records her first Asso song in early May: ‘Mon amant de la Coloniale’. May: the Popular Front government begins. Spring–summer: tours France with a troupe called La Jeune Chanson. 1937 January: starts a relationship with Asso, who also becomes her manager. Records his ‘Mon légionnaire’, previously recorded by Marie Dubas. 19–25 February: appears at Bobino. 26 March–15 April: her first appearance at the ABC music hall, closing the first half. She is only contracted to sing five numbers but enthusiastic audience demands more. 19 November: second engagement at ABC begins, for two weeks, this time under the name Édith Piaf. 1938 Sings at an anti-Franco rally in aid of the Spanish Republicans. January: 45-minute programme devoted to her on Radio-Cité. 15 April–4 May: third engagement at the ABC. Chronology 3 October and November: tops the bill for the first time in a music hall: first at L’Européen, then at Bobino. 1939 August: Asso is called up. Autumn: meets Paul Meurisse. They move in together sometime near the turn of the year and he becomes her first musical protégé. 1940 Begins writing her own songs. February: meets Jean Cocteau. April: premiere of Cocteau’s play Le Bel Indifférent, featuring Piaf and Meurisse. May–June: France defeated. Pétain signs an armistice and the German Occupation begins. Piaf leaves Paris, heading south. Summer: begins touring the free zone. September: returns to occupied Paris. On 28th, she does her first solo concert, at the prestigious Salle Pleyel and with an orchestra. December: meets Henri Contet. 1941 Performs throughout France, commanding high fees. November: release of Georges Lacombe’s film Montmartre-sur- Seine, in which she stars as Lily, a flower girl who becomes a singer. Highly personal attack on her in the collaborationist Je suis partout. 1942 Meets Marcel Blistène in Marseille. October–November: at the ABC, she finishes each show with ‘Où sont-ils tous mes copains’ against a tricolour backdrop, which the German censor forces her to remove. November: moves in to Madame Billy’s, 5 rue Villejust, 17th arrondissement. 1943 February: sits SACEM exam to become a professional lyricist but fails. February–April: her booking in a revue at Le Casino de Paris is interrupted for five weeks, either because of a dispute with its director or, in some versions, because she was banned for singing a song by a Jew (Émer’s ‘L’Accordéoniste’). June–July: at both the ABC and Bobino, she innovates by having her two combined orchestras hidden behind a stage curtain. Summer: in a press interview, she protests that she is not a realist singer. August: Line Marsa is sentenced to six months in prison. 14 August: travels by train to Berlin for a seven-week tour of French POWs and STO workers in Germany. 4 Édith Piaf: A Cultural History December: resits SACEM exam and passes. 1944 2 February: second concert at Pleyel. 14 February: second tour of Germany begins. 3 March: two days before her return from Germany, her father dies, aged 63. June: meets Yves Montand; they become lovers. 25 August: the Liberation of Paris begins. Shortly before, probably in July, she moved out of Madame Billy’s potentially compromising establishment on the rue Villejust. September: the Purge begins. October: she claims in the press to have helped 118 French POWs escape from camps in Germany. 1945 6 February: her mother Lina Marsa dies, aged 49. 9 February–8 March: booking at the Théâtre de l’Étoile, with Montand. September: back at L’Étoile, she is accompanied for the first time by Robert Chauvigny on the piano. He becomes her conductor and arranger for many years. October: breaks up with Montand. November: Marc Bonel joins her as her accordionist. She also meets Louis Barrier, who joins her team as manager and agent. 30 November: her case is examined by a Purge committee; she is exonerated and congratulated. 1946 Leaves Polydor and signs with Pathé Marconi (Columbia). Meets Marcel Cerdan fleetingly. April–May: working and performing with Les Compagnons de la chanson. 3 April: release of Blistène’s film Étoile sans lumière, Piaf’s second starring role. 12 April: Piaf has her daughter Marcelle exhumed and re-buried at Père Lachaise, along with her own father. May: she and the Compagnons appear at the Théâtre de Chaillot. She is accompanied by a 50-piece orchestra. 1947 Sings at a French Communist Party rally; meets the party’s leader, Maurice Thorez.