7 Edith Piaf 7interpretation of the chanson, or French ballad, made her
internationally famous. Among her trademark songs were
“Non, je ne regrette rien” (“No, I Don’t Regret Anything”)
and “La Vie en rose” (literally “Life in Pink” [i.e., through
“rose-coloured glasses,” from an optimistic point of view]).
Piaf ’s songs and singing style seemed to reflect the
tragedies of her own difficult life. Her mother, a café
singer, abandoned her at birth, and she was taken in by
her grandmother, who reared the girl in a house of pros-
titution. Piaf became blind at the age of three as a
complication of meningitis but recovered her sight four
years later. A few years after that she joined her father, a
circus acrobat, and accompanied him while he performed.
She sang in the streets of Paris until discovered by Louis
Leplée, a cabaret owner, who gave her her first nightclub
job. It was Leplée who began calling her “la môme piaf,”
Parisian slang for “little sparrow,” in apparent reference to
her diminutive size—under 5 feet (142 cm) tall and about
90 pounds (40 kg) in weight. She later adopted the name
professionally. Her debut was acclaimed by the actor
Maurice Chevalier, who was in the audience that night.
In 1935 Piaf made her theatrical debut, and within a
few years she was singing in the large music halls of Paris.
Initially her material was standard music hall fare, but
eventually she had songwriters such as Marguerite Monnot
and Michel Emer writing songs specifically for her. In
the mid-1940s she became a mentor to the young Yves
Montand, and she worked with him in the film Étoile sans
lumière (1946; “Star Without Light”). She had an affair
with the middleweight boxer Marcel Cerdan, who died
in a plane crash on his way to meet her. Her unhappy
personal life and unadorned though dramatic style under-
lined her expressive mezzo-soprano voice, and she was
able to move audiences wherever she or her recordings
traveled.