Louis‑Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749)
George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898)
Fritz Reiner (1885-1963)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Dalton Baldwin (1931)
Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
William Christie (1944)
Marianne Faithfull (1946)
Olaf Bär (1957)
Steven Esserlis (1958)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)
and
Italo Svevo (1861-1928)
Constance Garnett (1861-1946)
and from The Writer's Almanac:
It’s the birthday of French chanteuse Édith Piaf (1915). Piaf was born
Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, on the outskirts of Paris. Her
mother was a café singer and a drug addict, and her father was a street
performer who specialized in acrobatics and contortionism. Neither of
them particularly cared for Piaf, so she mostly grew up with her
grandmother, who ran a brothel. Piaf was looked after by prostitutes and
later claimed that she was blind from the ages of three to seven
because of keratitis, or malnutrition, though this was never proved.
Her father reclaimed her when she was nine and Piaf began singing with
him on street corners until he abandoned her again. She lived in shoddy
hotel rooms in the red-light district of Paris and sang in a seedy café
called Lulu’s, making friends with pimps, hookers, lowlifes, and
gamblers, until she was discovered by an older man named Louis Leplée.
Leplée ran a nightclub off the Champs-Élysées. He renamed Piaf La Môme
Piaf, “The Little Sparrow,” dressed her entirely in black, and set her
loose on the stage. Piaf was a hit, and recorded two albums in one year,
becoming one of the most popular performers in France during World War
II.
Édith Piaf died on the French Riviera at the age of 47. More than 40,000
people came to her funeral procession. Soviet astronomer Lyudmila
Karachkina named a small planet after Piaf; it’s called 3772 Piaf. Her
songs have been covered by Madonna, Grace Jones, and even Donna Summer.
Édith Piaf’s last words were, “Every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for.”
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