Louis Gassion, Edith (age ten), and Louis’s then girlfriend (illustration credit i1.3)
Edith on Louis Leplée’s lap in his nightclub, le Gerny’s, at the start of her career, October 1935 (illustration credit i1.5)
Edith, now known as La Môme Piaf, preparing to go onstage at le Gerny’s, 1936 (illustration credit i1.14)
Edith being questioned by the police after the murder of Louis Leplée on April 6, 1936 (illustration credit i1.6)
Special issue of Détective on the Leplée affair, “The Four Killers,” shows an unconsolable Edith at his funeral (illustration credit i1.7)
Raymond Asso, Edith’s songwriter-lover, and his protégée perusing sheet music, c. 1938. Her version of Asso’s “Mon Légionnaire” and other songs she inspired restarted her career after the Leplée scandal. (illustration credit i1.8)
Edith and her close friend Marguerite Monnot (with whom she would co-write some thirty songs), studying one of their compositions in 1950 (illustration credit i1.9)
Petit format sheet music for “C’était un jour de fête,” a love song written by Piaf and Monnot in 1941
In her first film role (La Garçonne, 1936), as an entertainer at a lesbian nightclub, Edith croons “Quand même,” whose title recalls Sarah Bernhardt’s motto. (illustration credit i1.10)
Edith examines a score with René Bergeron (center) and Jean-Louis Barrault (right) in Montmartre-sur-Seine (1941); the film popularized four of her songs composed with Monnot, including the bluesy “L’Homme des bars.” (illustration credit i1.11)
Jean Cocteau and Edith in a publicity shot for Le Bel indifférent, the one-act play he wrote for her and Paul Meurisse (illustration credit i1.15)
This special issue of the tabloid Voilà, “The Stars Go to the Front,” heralds the plans of French entertainers, starting with Piaf, to entertain the troops at the outset of World War II. (illustration credit i1.16)
An unknown friend, Edith, the composer Norbert Glanzberg, and Andrée Bigard enjoy life in the Unoccupied Zone, c. 1942.
Edith shares conditions with French prisoners of war in Germany, August 1943, during a trip that resulted in some of them escaping thanks to plans organized by the Resistance and executed in secret by Piaf and her secretary, Andrée Bigard. (illustration credit i1.12)
Edith in Neuf garçons, un coeur (1947): the film features her singing her compositions “La Vie en rose” and “Sophie,” originally written for Yves Montand. (illustration credit i2.1)
Edith and Yves Montand after a joint concert, 1945 (illustration credit i2.2)
Jean-Louis Jaubert (then Edith’s current beau, far left), Maurice Chevalier (center), Piaf, and friends in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 1947 (illustration credit i2.3)
Edith performing with Les Compagnons de la Chanson, 1947
Drawings of Edith and Les Compagnons illustrating the Herald Tribune review in which Virgil Thomson calls her the embodiment of French song
Edith reading the newspaper in her dressing room at the Versailles Club, her favorite New York venue, 1947
Tony Zale taking a right jab from Marcel Cerdan during their September 21, 1948, match at Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, which ended with Cerdan’s becoming world middleweight champion (illustration credit i2.10)
Edith, Marcel Cerdan, and Simone Berteaut, aka Momone, New York, 1948 (illustration credit i2.4)
Edith and Lena Horne, c. 1948 (illustration credit i2.5)
Franchot Tone and Edith during a radio broadcast linking New York and Paris, 1950 (illustration credit i2.6)
Edith’s wedding to Jacques Pills, New York, September 16, 1952, with Loulou Barrier, Marlene Dietrich, and Nicholas Prounis, manager of the Versailles (illustration credit i2.11)
Paris police protecting Théo Sarapo and Edith from admiring fans after their wedding at the Greek Orthodox Church, Paris, October 9, 1962; on Théo’s left, Claude Figus (illustration credit i2.7)
Edith strikes a saucy pose at the Rosicrucian Temple in San Jose, California (1956), with her entourage and members of the Order. Standing, left to right: Orlando Perrotta, Marc Bonel, Jacques Liébrard, (her guitarist-lover), and Albert Doss. Seated to Edith’s right is Danielle Bonel, and to her left is Lysanne Coupal, her secretary, whom she dismissed when she learned of Coupal’s affair with Liébrard. (illustration credit i2.12)
Piaf’s second recital at Carnegie Hall, January 13, 1957, when, despite severe bronchitis, she sang twenty-three songs in French and English for the three thousand spectators (illustration credit i2.8)
Flyer announcing Piaf’s third engagement at Carnegie Hall. (It had to be canceled when she collapsed from bleeding ulcers requiring repeated surgeries and a prolonged stay at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital.) (illustration credit i2.13)
Edith gathering wild-flowers in the fields during a period of convalescence in Dreux, 1958 (illustration credit i2.14)
Edith coaching her protégé-lover Félix Marten in her Boulevard Lannes apartment, with Michel Rivgauche at the piano, 1958 (illustration credit i2.15)
Edith feeding her new companion, artist Douglas Davis, whose portraits of her were used on her record covers, 1959 (illustration credit i2.16)
Sheet music for “Non, je ne regrette rien,” the song that brought Piaf back to life after her “suicide tour” (portrait by Douglas Davis)
Charles Dumont and Edith, Christmas 1960 (illustration credit i2.9)
Théo and Edith walking in the woods in Belgium, 1962 (illustration credit i2.17)
Mourners traversing Père Lachaise cemetery to reach Edith’s grave on October 14, 1963, the day of her funeral, when her cortege stopped traffic all the way across Paris. (illustration credit i2.18)
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