By Lubna Abdel-Aziz A recent French film by Olivier Dahan about the legendary French "sparrow" known as Edith Piaff, was able to bring back to life the poignant image of France's nightingale who captivated the hearts of her generation. Regardless of the film's artistic merits, evoking the memory of that fragile waif, made it worthy enough to earn numerous tributes including a Golden Globe, a BAFTA (Britain's award), and an Oscar nomination. Any nostalgic viewer is transported in time and place to the period when Piaff's songs made him tremble with erotic passion. Her heart-breaking voice filled with every ardour, amour and agony, was unprecedented. She may have looked like a frail little sparrow, but when she sang, her sonorous hymns to love won and love lost, she soared like a mighty eagle in flight. Her voice never left us. Films about her tragic life, her sensational career, and that incredible voice continue, almost half a century after her death, and her records still sell briskly in every part of the globe. Legend has it that Edith Giovannq Gassion was born (December 1915) on the pavement of Rue de Belleville, a Paris working --class / immigrant district, to an acrobat father and a café singer. Abandoned by both, Edith lived her early years with her maternal grandmother, an Algerian Kabyle, named Aicha Said Ben Mohammed. After WWI her father took her to live with his mother, who ran a brothel in Normandy. One biographer claims she was blind as a result of keratitis, and the prostitutes in her grandmother's brothel, who helped take care of her, provided the money to send her on a pilgrimage to St, Therese de Lesieux, which resulted in a miraculous healing. Only seven then, she had already experienced the tragedies of a lifetime. Tired of accompanying her father in his acrobatic street performances, Edith decided to go it alone in her early teens, singing in the streets of Pigalle, where she met and fell in love with a delivery boy, Louis Dupont, She had her one and only child, Marcelle at 17, who died of meningitis at age 2. Not yet 20 her tragedies were only beginning, but so was the glory. Her big break would come in 1935 as she was singing her songs of torment and despair. Louis Leplée a nightclub owner passing by Pigalle, stopped to hear that colossal voice coming out of such a frail, tiny creature. He took her off the streets, put her in a chic black dress, and had her sing in his elegant nightclub "Le Gerny's" on Rue Champs Elysées. Her fragility and diminutive stature inspired Leplée to nick- name her 'Piaff' a Francilien slang for "sparrow." He introduced her to his clientele as "La Môme Piaf", or the "kid sparrow", a name that stayed with her for the rest of her days. Piaff continued on her tumultuous lifelong course, mingling tragedy with triumph amidst love affairs that knew no end. She dropped 'La Môme' and as Edith Piaff she sang in the great concert halls of Europe, the US and South America, mesmerising all who saw and heard. She helped launch the careers of several singers, writers, and composers such as Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Sacha Guitry, Gilbert Becaud, George Moustaki and Charles Dumont, who wrote her best song Je Ne Regrette Rien (I Regret Nothing). Her first attempt at songwriting resulted in La Vie En Rose in 1945. Discouraged by friends' negative comments, she set it aside, but picked it up a year later and sang it at a concert, bringing the house down. She went on to write 80 more songs throughout her career, but La Vie En Rose remains her signature tune, voted a Granny Hall of Fame song in 1998. Between 1955 and 1962 Piaff gave a series of concerts at the famous Paris Olympia Concert Hall which became legendary. Excerpts from five of these concerts issued on records and CDs, have never been out of print. In 1961 she gave a special concert as her contribution to save the Olympia from bankruptcy. There she debuted her best song ever Je ne regrette rien. Almost crippled by severe arthritis, aches and pains following three car crashes, and numerous calamities, she became addicted to morphine and alcohol, yet she was always capable of phenomenal comebacks. She threw herself body and soul in every song breaking her heart and ours. Hands and hearts bled as the crowds applauded the little sparrow, whose voice could move mountains, to reach the gods in their heavens. Notwithstanding her catastrophes her career never suffered. She became the highest paid star in the world, and despite her anguish and afflictions, she continued to sing her flaming torch songs to a lovesick world. Miraculously her voice never failed her. At her last appearance at the Olympia in 1962, she was racked and hunched over, barely able to stand, but her voice conveyed every sorrow, ever joy, every passion that dominated her short life. Her glittering career came to an end a year later in 1963. She died peacefully in her villa in the South of France on the same day as her friend Jean Cocteau, 10 October 1963. Though she only lived 47 years, she seemed to have lived many lives, providing rapturous joy, not only to her generation, but to every generation thereafter. Hers songs are being sung every day in many languages and by great artists. While she herself appeared in many films, more films have been made about her, retelling her gloriously tragic life, loves, and career. If truth is stranger than fiction, it surely applies to one Edith Piaff. In death as in life, she still vibrates all the range of emotions. She spent her life trembling and thrilling to every passion, triumph, torture and torment, all crammed in a few short years on earth. Would not one gladly trade all that in place of a calm, detached and impassioned long life! Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought Percy Byscche Shelley (1792-1822)
