In Paris, at the Père Lachaise cemetery, next to Edith Piaf, her last husband and late love - a young adorer of the famous French singer Theophanis Lamboukis (Theo Sarapo) - was buried. The Gassion family crypt contains the remains of Piaf's only child. Daughter Mercel is the fruit of the first love of 16-year-old Edith.
Reflecting on herself, La Mome Piaf always said that she lived only on stage and would die the day she stopped singing. October 14, 1963, 40 million admirers of the voice of France saw off their idol on their last journey. All around was covered with flowers. The church refused to perform the funeral service and the burial ceremony for the great singer, explaining that she lived "in a state of public sin." “It was an idol of fabricated happiness,” announced the Vatican's official organ, L'Osservatore Romano.
Under 50, constantly suffering and at the same time uncontrollably happy, the woman claimed that she had lived a terrible life, and added: "I do not regret anything." Piaf's friend, the famous director Marcel Blistin, wrote in his book "Goodbye Edith": "She will be forgiven a lot because she loved a lot."
In the biography of the singer, who so loved to create legends and myths around her name, today it is not easy to separate the truth from fiction. Only a compilation of information contained in numerous publications comes to the rescue:
- biographies made by such Edith Piaf biographers as Jean Dominique Braillard, Silver Rainer, Albert Bensoissant;
- "My Friend" - stories by Jeanette Richard, dresser, hairdresser and companion of the singer;
- the memories of Simone Berto, Edith's half-sister, whom she loved very much and affectionately called Momon;
- memoirs written in the last year of her life and included in the book "Life told by herself";
- autobiography "At the Ball of Fortune"; "My life".
The parents of the future La Mome Piaf were from traveling circus families. They met at a Paris fair. 20-year-old hot brunette Annette was selling nougat with her mother, a flea trainer. Light and graceful Louis, who worked as an acrobat with horses in his father's room, performed in the square.
Petite physique and short stature (147 cm) Edith owes her father. The sweeping energy, eye-catching eyes and a husky, sexy voice are what the daughter inherited from her mother.
Annette Giovanna Margarita Maillard was a singer who performed in Parisian cafes under the pseudonym Lin Marsa. According to the stories of her father, Edith's mother went on stage in a simple black dress and sang dark stories about broken hearts. Being a very windy special, she left the baby in the care of her dysfunctional parents, as soon as the child was a month old. And in 1918, completely not interested in the further fate of 3-year-old Edith, she left her husband. She did not appear in her daughter's life until she became a famous singer throughout the country. The failed actress Lin Marsa found her abandoned daughter and demanded financial assistance. Piaf constantly provided support to her mother, but never met this woman.
Edith's father volunteered for the front at the beginning of World War I. In December 1915, he received two days' leave to see his newborn daughter. Louis named the baby after the British nurse Edith Cavell, who was shot by the Germans. The next time he saw the girl only at the age of 2, when he returned home from the front. Taking the child from the mother of his ex-wife, Gassion entrusted the care of her to a second grandmother, who did not live in his homeland, in Normandy. Louise, who worked as a cook in a city brothel, took good care of her granddaughter. The "strange girl from Paris" was pampered and treated with sweets by the inhabitants of the "house of the devil". But spending all the time in a place with such a reputation, Edith was ill-mannered, barely knew how to write and did not go to school. The father takes his daughter home, and at the age of 12 she begins to work with him in the traveling circus Caroli: Louis shows acrobatic tricks and tricks, Edith walks around the audience with a hat. The father tried to teach his daughter his craft, but she was absolutely incapable of this. Then Louis told her to perform in between numbers and sing "so loud to drown out the lions." It soon became clear that the audience began to come not so much to circus performances as to listen to the beautiful voice of a little awkward girl. The fees for the presentation would be quite enough for a modest life, if not for one "but".
Having married a second time, Gassion became the head of a large family. On his shoulders lay the care of the seven children who had a stepmother. And in 1919, Edith had a half-sister. His wife extorted from Louis all the money she earned in the circus, and also kicked out of the house her youngest daughter Simone, who was not 11, to earn her own money. After another scandal in her father's family, Edith leaves the circus and gets a job in a dairy shop. But the early climbs and hikes with a bunch of milk bottles quickly bored her. The 14-year-old girl returned to her former craft and took to the streets of Paris to sing as her father taught. She took her sister as her assistant. The daily earnings of about 300 francs were enough for him and Simone to pay for a room in a shabby hotel. Thus began the independent life of the daughters of Louis Gassion, whom they did not forget and took care of until his death in 1941. Edith always remembered with gratitude about her father, who gave her a beloved younger sister, a faithful friend and companion. The instructions of the circus artist Louis Gassion on how to go out with his singing to a respectable audience were her first lessons in the craft, to which Piaf devoted herself without a trace.
A 16-year-old girl singing songs on the corner at the corner of Troyon and McMahon Avenue fell in love with a guy who was a year older than her. Louis Dupont worked as a delivery boy in a store. When he delivered groceries on his bike, he stopped to listen to the performances of the street singer every time. Throwing a coin on the saucer with which Edith walked around the audience with a wide gesture, a tall, blond, smiling young man looked her straight in the eyes and whistled with delight. Once he came up and said: "Come on, we will live together." And she followed him - handsome, strong, unique. Edith, whose childhood passed with her grandmother, who worked as a cook in a brothel, developed a very peculiar idea of love: "If a man stretched out his hand, the girl should go with him."
The relationships of the young people were not romantic, there was too little room for lyrics in the Parisian slums of Menilmontand, one of the poorest districts of Paris. But in his autobiographical book, Piaf begins the chapter about the heroes of his many novels with the title "Little Louis." Dupont was as young and naive as Edith. This was my first love. The guy moved to his sisters on the same day he met his beloved. Edith no longer performed on the street, the first engagement of the singer in 1933 was the cabaret Juan-les-Pins. A year later, they had a daughter. Marcel looked like her mother in infancy. The blond chubby butuzik became "Daddy's daughter" by the age of one. To pay for the room, support her family and sister, Edith worked hard. The baby had to be left at the hotel in the evenings or taken with him. Father Marcel demanded to quit singing and devote more time to the child. Many biographers of the singer support the version that the separation of the couple was initiated by Edith: she chose the scene and left her husband. However, in her autobiography, the singer sets out other reasons for the events that later led to the first irreparable tragedy in her personal life.
Edith and Louis were as young and happy as children. But in this serenity, the girl vaguely lacked something. She dreamed of support, a strong male hand, a real man, and once she deceived her husband. Taking her daughter, Edith fled from him with a man older, stronger and more courageous - a soldier of the Foreign Legion. Dupont tracked down the fugitive in the vicinity of Belleville. He took the girl away and shouted: "If you want to see your daughter, come back home!" Edith returned to Little Louis for the sake of the child. She quickly forgot about the legionnaire, but life did not go on as usual.
Being constantly in search of her dreams and being familiar with men from the age of 14, the girl often fell in love passionately and passionately. This was largely facilitated by performances in the Place Pigalle and in the cabaret - the sailor Pierre, Spagi Leon, the pimp Albert and other adventures. But all this was later. Now she devoted all her time to singing - Louis's beggarly earnings were not enough for a living.
Soon, two-year-old Marcel fell seriously ill. The mother, who stayed with her daughter for several days in the hospital, also overcame the disease. At that time they did not know how to treat tuberculous meningitis, they simply looked after the patients, relying on providence. Edith managed to overcome the disease, and little Marcela died on July 7, 1935. On the Boulevard Chapnel, a man approached the grimy nineteen-year-old girl, and the couple headed to the hotel. The girl looked so pathetic that he asked why she was doing it. And he heard in response: "I need to bury my daughter, ten francs are not enough." The man gave her money and left.
Experiencing general grief, Louis understood that only a child was holding Edith next to him. When their baby was gone, he, who sincerely loved and forgave betrayal, left her with the words: “You were for me a princess from a magical dream, but the dream ended. I wish you happiness! Louis Dupont appears in Piaf's memoirs not only as the father of her child. In Edith's life, this was the only man who left her. All subsequent relationships with husbands and lovers, the singer stopped herself, the food they lost the halo of passion and romance. She believed that it was necessary to leave first, without waiting for such a decision to be made by a man. “If love cools down, you need to either warm it up or throw it away. This is not a product that is kept in a cool place,”Piaf wrote in her autobiography.
It is unlikely that those who retelling the life stories of the legendary singer claim that on the second day after the funeral of her daughter she, as if nothing had happened, sang verses and had fun in a cabaret. According to the recollections of her sister Simone, Edith kept the only surviving photograph of her daughter and a strand of her blond hair in the same way as the icon with the image of St. Teresa, who healed her from blindness in childhood.
In 1936, when the singer parted with her next lover, he stole a photo of Marcela, intending to blackmail her and demand that she return to him. Former miner Rene was unable to forgive and forget. This large, strong man with a rough face pursued the singer for many years. His figure appeared unexpectedly: near the hall in which she performed; at the entrance to the restaurant where you dined; on the platform of the station when I returned to Paris. There were phone calls threatening to disrupt the debut at the Alhambra. This stopped only for three years, which the man, who almost killed Piaf at parting, spent in prison, where he ended up due to a fight in a cafe and the use of weapons. Every time, performing at a cabaret in Lille, she felt Renee standing still and silently on her eyes. If he happened to walk by, he would whisper ominously: "I have not settled the score with you yet." The commemorative medallion with the face of Marcela returned to Piaf only 20 years later. After one of the introductions, the abandoned lover approached her with the words: “Take this. I didn't realize that I had lost you forever."
The name that the young parents Edith and Louis chose for their newborn daughter in 1933 was liked by the mother. That was the name of one of Edith's Norman cousins. Under the pseudonym Lin Marsa, her mother performed on stage. In the working-class districts of Paris, the song of the revolutionary France "Marseillaise" was popular. Marcel is a double name. Like paired Alexander / Alexandra, Victor / Victoria, both boys and girls are called so. According to one of the legends about Piaf, she always looked for support in men with the same name as her baby. Striving for love that would turn her whole life, Piaf dreamed that a divine, unpredictable courageous Marcel would appear in her life. After all, the origin of this name comes from the god of war Mars.
Among the people who played significant roles in her life, who were faithful to her as a friend and helped in difficult situations - screenwriter and playwright Marcel Ashar, director Marcel Blistin. The one who could outshine all other men was her greatest happiness and no less terrible grief, was the French boxer of Algerian origin Marcel Cerdan. "Moroccan scorer" - said his fans about the brilliant athlete. "My champion" - called Serdan Edith Piaf. It was the true love of adulthood, which discovered a woman in her.
Marcel did everything that could please his beloved at least a little: he showered him with gifts, fulfilled all her whims, carried in his arms in every sense of the word. A giant with huge fists next to this small but incredibly strong woman turned into a lamb. He adored her, and it was mutual. Edith, who has always demanded undivided domination in relationships with men, has come to terms with the role of the back-street (the one that appears through the back door). Serdan was not ready to leave his family - in Casablanca he had a wife and three sons. The athlete challenged the journalists who fanned the scandal around the hot celebrity couple. During a press conference following the September 21, 1948 world middleweight title fight, Serdan anticipated the questions by saying, “Do you want to know if I love Edith Piaf? Yes I love! Yes, she is my mistress, but only because I am married. " Not a single newspaper after that dared to say a single line about the connection between the two French celebrities. The singer received a gorgeous bouquet of roses with a note “From gentlemen. The woman who is loved more than anything else."
The tumultuous romance that began in the summer of 1948 was not destined to be continued. On October 28, 1949, the boxer went to the United States for a rematch with Jake La Motta. Before the fight, he was going to meet with Piaf in New York. She urged her beloved to come as quickly as possible. He answered on the phone that he also missed it and would change the planned trip by sea to an air flight. The Lockheed L 749 Constellation aircraft carrying Marcel Cerdan crashed in the Azores region.
Edith Piaf's song Hymne a l'amour, which sounds today around the world as a hymn to incredible and all-consuming love, is dedicated to a man whose name was the same as that of her little daughter - Marcel.
