A tragic figure, and a tiny slip of a girl (hence her nickname Little Sparrow), Piaf rose from her incredibly poor background in the backstreets of Paris, mingling with pimps and mobsters, to become the most incredibly popular singer France has ever seen.
Her popularity was largely due to the way she interpreted ballads with her singularly heartbreaking voice, and among the songs for which she is famous are timeless classics like La Vie en Rose, Milord and Je ne Regrette Rien. Along the way to success, Edith was responsible for launching the careers of such French luminaries as Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour, and she grew to become an international star, performing to sell-out audiences across Europe and in the US. She was renowned for her appetite for pleasure - and indeed there were many men in Edith Piaf's life, husbands, lovers and friends.
On her tragic - and early - death in 1963, it is said that the traffic stopped in the city of Paris for only the first time since WW2. An icon, a star, never to be emulated, imitated, or matched...
La Vie en Rose, a biographical account of Edith Piaf's life, was released as a movie in 2007. Order a copy of the DVD on Amazon
Edith Piaf on Wikipedia
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