No Regrets

by Carolyn Burke

  I am more grateful than I can say to Mme Catherine Glavas and to Maître André Schmidt for permission to consult and quote from Piaf’s letters and unpublished writings, but also for the invaluable help I received from him and Mme Annie Rooke in negotiations with the publishers of songs quoted in the text, which was greatly enriched by the inclusion of these materials.

  Others whose help was invaluable include members of the Association des Amis d’Edith Piaf, especially Bernard Marchois, who provided introductions to many of Piaf’s friends and included me in memorial services for her at Père Lachaise, where I first felt that I might write a life of the star in accord with her spirit.

  Archival research for this book at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France could not have been conducted without the help of Laurence Le Bras of the Manuscripts Division, who allowed me to read Piaf’s correspondence with Jacques Bourgeat, and the supportive staff of the Département des Arts du Spectacle. I am also profoundly grateful to Geneviève Morlet and Claudine Boulouque of the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, as well as to the staff of the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand, whose Piaf dossiers deepened my sense of her as a French national icon, and to the interlibrary loan staff at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

  I am indebted to Giselle Tellier for arranging my tour of Bernay with local historians Philippe Le Turcq and Marie Caruel of the Bernay Office de Tourisme, where I was granted access to hitherto unavailable documents on Piaf’s childhood. My Belleville chapters were enriched by touring the area with Margo Berdeshevsky and with Patrick Dewarez, whose images perpetuate the tradition of Willy Ronis, an important visual source for my writing.

  It was a great pleasure to work with Jean-Paul Mazillier and Anthony Berrot, whose archive of documents, memorabilia, and photographs is the major private repository of Piafiana, much of it having been passed to them by Danielle Bonel. Without their help I could not have documented Piaf’s life as fully or illustrated it with some of the thousands of photographs in their extensive collection.

  I also want to express my thanks to Hugues Vassal, who documented the star’s final years and gave me access to his own collection of images, which enabled me to grasp the drama surrounding her illnesses and last days. I am also indebted to Solène Vassal, who is carrying on the work of the Vassal archive.

  Interviews conducted with the following witnesses in France, and the materials they gave me, added inestimably to my portrait of Piaf: Edmonde Charles-Roux, Françoise Asso, Micheline Dax, Georges Moustaki, Charles Dumont, Irène Hilda, Serge Glanzberg, Fred Mella, Annick Taillière, and the late Erik Marchal de Salm. Jeanne McDonagh vividly recalled Piaf’s performances at the Versailles; Darlene Baker told me about the star’s relationship with her brother, Douglas Davis; Gene Lees’s comparison of French and American song styles informed my understanding of Piaf’s reception in her adopted homeland.

  In addition, David Gullentops shared materials that illuminate Piaf’s friendship with Jean Cocteau; Julia Panama located unpublished correspondence between Piaf and Toto Girardin; Anne Bramard-Blagny gave me documents, including her film, on the friendship of Piaf and Marguerite Monnot; Frédéric Brun explained the chronology of Piaf’s adherence to the Rosicrucian Order and her relations with his father, Jean Dréjac; Andrew Solt and Mary Sherwood gave me film clips of Piaf’s performances on the Ed Sullivan show; Rob Hudson made available documents concerning Piaf’s recitals at Carnegie Hall; Ann Holsberry discovered old French tabloids for me at various marchés aux puces.

  I want to express my profound gratitude to those who encouraged me to write this book and guided me in the process: my wise and witty agent, Georges Borchardt; my research assistant, Kristina Valendinova; my inventive image wrangler, Lance Sprague; and many people both known and unknown to me at Knopf, especially my sagacious editor, Robert Gottlieb, and his scrupulous assistant, Sarah Rothbard. I am profoundly indebted to all of them.

  I give a deep bow of thanks to both my immediate and extended families—Valda Hertzberg, Garance Burke, and Terry Burke, who kept me going throughout the writing of this book, and the sanghas of the Santa Cruz and San Francisco Zen Centers. I am also grateful to the following, for comfort, hospitality, references, refuge, and for reading and critiquing my manuscript:

  Pico Iyer, Hiroko Takeuchi, Michael Wolfe, Cathy Suma-Wolfe, Marc Lambron, Anne Bast, Patricia de Fougerolle, Pauline de Boisfleury, Gérard Gagnepain, Michèle Jolé, Marilyn Goldberg, Louise Bernikow, Joan Schenkar, François Lévy, Michelle Lapautre, Bertrand Lacarelle, Russell Porter, Jacques Primack, Edwige Belorgey, Stephen Pollard, Mary Nelson, Alexandra Pringle, Didier Pascalis, Allison Anthony, Peter Myers, Edith Kunz, Dominique Gérard, Marco Tugayé, Linda Gardiner, Marilyn Hacker, Bette Taxera, Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, Rita Bottoms, Jay Olson, Georges Van Den Abbeele, Marty Michaels, James Robinson, Rita Robinson, Christa Fraser, Tom Honig, Drew Miller, Jerry Kay, Lucie Mazalaigue, Christine Zuffery, Gena Foucek, Pnina Green, Marlene Nanus, Candace Calsoyas, Susan Maresco, Denis Gallagher, Kathryn Stark, Reb Anderson, Katherine Thanas, Kokyo Henkel, Scott Bongiorno, and Carter Wilson.

  Finally, I want to thank the impassioned Piaf fans who buoyed my spirits with their encouragement and insights, often accompanied by a meal or a glass of wine. I wish that they had been with me at a recent musical evening in Ménilmontant where the crowd joined in while songwriter Allain Leprest, accordionist Jean Corti, and singer Francis Lalanne performed songs by Piaf and Brel along with their own compositions: they would have been moved, as I was, to see la chanson française alive and well in the same Paris neighborhoods where Edith’s remarkable life began.

  NOTES

  The bulk of Piaf’s personal papers and correspondence is held in private collections, with one important exception: the unpublished correspondence between the star and her mentor, Jacques Bourgeat, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Other Piaf materials in archives or private collections are denoted by the name of the archive or collection. All quotations from letters are referenced in the endnotes by date, and where needed, place; “no date” is indicated by “n.d.”; “no page number” by “n.p.” All translations from the French are my own except for works in the bibliography for which the only listing is the English translation.

  To minimize repetition, references to works cited more than once have been kept brief. When more than one work by an author has been cited, the short title as well as the author’s name is given; when only one work by an author has been cited, the author’s name is given. Published works are listed in full in the bibliography.

  Archives and private collections are abbreviated as follows:

  AMORC Rosicrucian Archives

  BMD Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand

  HVA Hugues Vassal Archives

  MBA Mazillier/Berrot Archives

  Frequently used names are abbreviated as follows:

  EP Edith Piaf

  JB Jacques Bourgeat

  JC Jean Cocteau

  MC Marcel Cerdan

  RA Raymond Asso

  PRELUDE

  1 “Edith Piaf knocked”: Joni Mitchell quoted in “Joni Mitchell Gets Angry, Hugs It Out,” New York, Sept. 26, 2007. Piaf and Billie Holiday were major influences on Mitchell’s career as a songwriter and performer.

  2 “complete vocal abandon”: Martha Wainwright quoted in Louise Cohen, “Martha Wainwright: ‘Edith Piaf became the ghost behind all that I sang,’ ” Times Online, Oct. 30, 2009.

  CHAPTER ONE • 1915–1925

  1 “the capital of”: Maurice Chevalier, The Man in the Straw Hat, p. 8.

  2 “My mother nearly”: EP quoted in Pierre Duclos and Georges Martin, Piaf, p. 63.

  3 “She didn’t know”: Contet quoted in ibid., p. 64.

  4 “On the 19th of December”: EP birth certificate, quoted in ibid., pp. 62–63.

  5 Just before the start: Emma Saîd Ben Mohamed, aka Aîcha, born on December 10, 1876, was the child of Saîd Ben Mohamed of Mogador, Morocco, and Marguerite Bracco of Paris.
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  6 “I’ve always thought”: EP, Au bal de la chance, p. 82.

  7 “miniature nation”: Clément Lépidis, Des Dimanches à Belleville, p. 24.

  8 “I got used to”: EP quoted in Emmanuelle Eyles, “Grâce aux prières des ‘filles’ de Bernay, Piaf a retrouvé la vue,” Historia 601, p. 8.

  9 “I always thought”: EP television interview with Henri Spade and Jacqueline Joubert, La Joie de vivre d’Edith Piaf, April 3, 1954, http://www.ina.fr/video/100013647/edith-piaf-1-accordeoniste.fr.html, INA archive.

  10 “Saint Thérèse performed”: “Edith, Thérèse et le photographe,” L’Eveil normand, March 18, 1999, p. 18.

  11 “The day I regained”: EP quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 69.

  12 “Edith’s eyes”: Madame Taillère, quoted in ibid., p. 70.

  13 “She was engaging”: Madame Taillère quoted in Eyles, p. 7.

  14 “She was a good student”: Madame Laperruque quoted in Jean-Dominique Brierre, Edith Piaf, p. 14.

  15 “the girl whose grandmother”: Lyliane Carpantier quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 73.

  16 “Sing, little one”: Marcel Delamare quoted in “Bernay va dédier une rue à Edith Piaf,” Paris-Normandie, Jan. 30/31, 1988.

  17 “People knew”: Jacques Guesnet quoted in “Bernay n’a pas oublié sa ‘Môme,’ ” Normandie, n.d.

  18 “When I wanted”: EP quoted in “Bernay donne une rue à Piaf,” L’Eveil normand, June 16, 1988.

  19 “But my faith”: EP, Ma vie, p. 63.

  20 “We wanted to”: Marcelle Lallier quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 71.

  21 “Papa was not”: EP, Au bal, p. 85.

  22 “Gifted athletically”: Ibid., p. 82.

  23 “I lived in”: Ibid., pp. 83–84.

  24 A snapshot: See Marcelle Routier, Piaf l’inoubliable, p. 12.

  25 “I was so afraid”: EP interview, Joie de vivre, quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 76.

  26 “We kept on traveling”: EP, Au bal, p. 84.

  27 “Father spread his ‘hanky’ ”: Ibid.

  28 “I had never”: Ibid.

  29 “rich child’s”: Ibid., pp. 85–86.

  30 “For people”: Ibid., p. 86.

  31 “I’m not in the business”: Louis Gassion quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 78, and EP, Au bal, p. 87.

  32 “A handsome man”: EP, Au bal, p. 87.

  33 “I still remember”: EP quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 79.

  34 “I had worked”: EP interviews, Joie de vivre, in ibid., p. 80.

  35 “Young woman wanted”: Quoted in ibid., p. 81.

  36 “the girlfriend”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER TWO • 1926–1932

  1 “A new mother”: EP, Ma vie, p. 14.

  2 “I had gone”: Ibid.

  3 “My father doesn’t”: Ibid., p. 88.

  4 “While our parents”: Herbert Gassion quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 83.

  5 Fréhel had long been famous: Born Marguerite Boulch in 1891, the singer first performed in a well-known Parisian café-concert at the age of sixteen. Colette wrote in her novel The Vagabond that Fréhel had “the sulky face of a young apache” and sang “like a street urchin” in the years before the war, when she was a celebrated performer. After a disastrous love affair with Maurice Chevalier, Fréhel went into exile in Constantinople and Eastern Europe for eleven years. Addicted to cocaine and badly overweight, she managed to make a spectacular comeback in Paris during the mid-1920s.

  6 “mistakes”: Herbert Gassion quoted in Duclos and Martin, pp. 85–86.

  7 “I bought her”: Pierre Hiégel in Bernard Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions publiques, p. 137.

  8 “Everyone kissed”: Clément Lépidis, Belleville au coeur, p. 59.

  9 “I was bowled over”: Simone Berteaut, Piaf: A Biography, p. 21.

  10 “that same voice”: Ibid., p. 24.

  11 “Saturdays we’d hit”: Ibid., p. 28.

  12 “alive”: Ibid., p. 29.

  13 “He looked”: EP, Ma vie, pp. 14–15.

  14 “cutlery or plates”: Ibid., p. 15.

  15 “She went so far”: Denise Gassion, Piaf, ma soeur, p. 27.

  16 “Edith wouldn’t”: Berteaut, p. 36.

  17 “She had a voice”: Odette Laure in Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 167.

  18 “I felt that something”: EP, Ma vie, p. 16.

  19 “As for the kiss”: EP, Au bal, pp. 72–73.

  20 “And when Edith”: Gassion, p. 28.

  21 “She interpreted”: Rina Ketty in Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 147.

  CHAPTER THREE • 1933–1935

  1 “the most intense”: Patrice Bollon, Pigalle, p. 18.

  2 “I didn’t have”: Berteaut, p. 38.

  3 “It’s not easy”: Ibid., p. 39.

  4 “There is nothing”: René Fallet, Pigalle (Paris: Dormat, 1949), quoted in Bollon, p. 7.

  5 “Edith never spoke of him”: Berteaut, p. 43.

  6 “I had to look out”: EP, Ma vie, p. 19.

  7 “had a soft spot”: Le Breton, La Môme Piaf, pp. 12–13.

  8 “Her shoes”: Ibid., pp. 14–15.

  9 “It was a mystery”: Maurice Maillet, Edith Piaf inconnue, pp. 33, 38.

  10 “Life-saving shock”: EP, Ma vie, p. 20.

  11 “the tough guy”: Ibid., p. 21.

  12 “I had a desperate, almost morbid, need”: Ibid., pp. 22–23.

  13 “When she tried to reason”: Maillet, pp. 40–41.

  14 “She took strength”: Ibid., pp. 43–44.

  15 “she prayed”: Marc Bonel and Danielle Bonel, Edith Piaf, p. 200.

  16 “For eight days”: EP, Ma vie, p. 120.

  17 “Ten francs”: Ibid., p. 122.

  18 “You’re right”: EP quoted in Jean Noli, Edith, pp. 77–78.

  19 “It was a very dark moment”: Berteaut, p. 44.

  20 “She must have been”: EP quoted in Jacqueline Cartier and Hugues Vassal, Edith et Thérèse, p. 163.

  CHAPTER FOUR • 1935–1936

  1 “People have the wrong”: Berteaut, pp. 45–46.

  2 “the pianist”: Ibid., p. 45.

  3 “Her songs expressed”: Ketty, in Marchois, Opinions, p. 147.

  4 “Fate took me”: EP, Au bal, p. 33.

  5 “We were so petrified”: Berteaut, p. 48.

  6 Gerny’s portly impresario was himself a habitué: Alternative versions of Piaf’s discovery, as unverifiable as the “official” one, have been proposed by some biographers. Brierre quotes a Montmartre regular’s claim that his mother, a performer at le Gerny’s, took Edith there to meet Leplée (p. 27); P’tit Louis told David Bret that one of Edith’s hoodlum lovers, who was “knocking off” Leplée because of his homosexuality, engineered their meeting in order to “screw Edith for more money” (pp. 14–15). I see no reason not to adopt Piaf’s account, which is confirmed by Berteaut and upheld by most of the singer’s biographers (including Margaret Crosland, Duclos and Martin, and Hugues Vassal): it has the merit of presenting Edith Gassion’s “rebirth” as La Môme Piaf from her own perspective.

  7 “the tender blue”: EP, Au bal, p. 34.

  8 “I put all my heart”: EP, ibid., p. 38.

  9 “I was baptized”: Ibid., p. 40. Un piaf also suggests piaffer, the action of a horse stamping its feet, and piaffer d’impatience, pawing the ground with impatience or enthusiasm.

  10 “I was dressed”: Ibid.

  11 “Her voice overwhelmed”: Ibid., p. 42.

  12 “That kid”: Ibid., p. 44.

  13 “You really had them”: Ibid.

  14 “When I think”: Ibid., pp. 47, 48.

  15 “ ’Chand d’habits” (slang for marchand d’habits, old-clothes salesman), drew on the cries of the rapidly disappearing street merchants.

  16 “I felt that I was on the path”: EP, Au bal, p. 56.

  17 “I felt a sense of compassion”: Jacques Canetti, On cherche jeune homme aimant la musique, p. 65.

  18 “a singer who lives”: “Au Gerny’s,”
Petit Parisien, Nov. 1935, reprinted in Bernard Marchois, Piaf: Emportée par la foule, p. 9. The reporter recognized in Piaf’s songs the nostalgic poetics found in Francis Carco’s novels of the lower depths, Jésus-la-Caille (1914) and its sequel, Les Malheurs de Fernande (1918). On this tradition in relation to Piaf, see Adrian Rifkin, Street Noises.

  19 “embarrassed at being”: Pierre de Regnier, “Toujours au Gerny’s,” n.d., reprinted in Marchois, Piaf: Emportée, p. 9.

  20 “She was relaxed”: Canetti, p. 69.

  21 “He was a simple”: Maillet, p. 110. In Ma vie, Piaf calls the sailor Pierrot.

  22 “incapable of forgiving”: EP, Ma vie, p. 25.

  23 “she had difficulty”: Maillet, p. 111.

  24 in letters the same size: EP, Au bal, p. 55.

  25 “How can I describe”: Ibid., p. 60.

  26 “The man in the street”: Marcel Montarron, “Les Quatre Tueurs,” Détective, April 16, 1936, pp. 2–3.

  27 “I had to say”: Éclair-Journal quoted in Brierre, pp. 35–36.

  28 “She died eight months”: Marcel Montarron, “La Môme Piaf,” Voilà, April 18, 1936, p. 6.

  29 “I might as well”: EP, Au bal, pp. 62–63.

  30 “If she’s good”: Ibid., p. 64.

  31 as Piaf’s “demon”: Berteaut quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 116.

  32 “She was attentive”: JB quoted in ibid., pp. 109–10.

  33 “She never even thought”: Ibid., p. 114.

  34 “I’m no longer with Jeannot”: EP to JB, Aug. 5, 1936.

  35 “an impossible dump”: Berteaut, p. 79.

  36 “She was a wild thing”: Asso quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 125.

  37 “devilish girl”: Asso quoted in ibid., p. 120.

  38 “My situation wasn’t great”: EP, Au bal, p. 65.

  39 “I’ve been doing a lot”: EP quoted in Asso, Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 15.

  40 “I was saved”: EP, Au bal, p. 66.