Book description
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As she moved from her youth singing in the streets to the glamour
of the Paris music-halls, Piaf formed lasting friendships with such
figures as Maurice Chevalier, Jean Cocteau and Marlene Dietrich; she
wrote many of her own songs, aided the Resistance in the Second World
War, and mentored younger singers like Yves Montand and Charles
Aznavour. Yet her path to stardom was full of tragedies - the death of
her daughter in infancy; the death of Marcel Cerdan, her greatest
love, in a plane crash; her many illnesses, affairs and addictions,
all of which nourished her passionate performances and strengthened
her enduring bond with audiences.
In this mesmerising, definitive new biography Carolyn Burke
gives us Piaf in her own time and place, illuminating through
sympathetic readings of sources hitherto unavailable both the charm
and the pathos of the Little Sparrow' who enchanted generations and
still enthralls us today.
div>
Edith Piaf was one of the most greatly loved singers of the twentieth
century. From the start of her exceptional career in the 1930s, her
waif-like form and heart-wrenching voice endeared her first to the
French, then to audiences around the globe. < Praise for Lee
Miller: 'Lee Miller was an astounding woman, brought memorably to life
in this astounding book' Daily Telegraph 'Lee Miller "the
Surrealist icon turned wartime heroine behind the lens" attracts a
serious, and gripping biography from Carolyn Burke' Boyd Tonkin,
Independent 'Lee Miller does its perplexingly complicated subject more
than justice, adding welcome depths and nuances to the familiar legend'
Sunday Times 'Burke opens up the story of Lee's life. She offers many
incredible stories and passages of considerable insight' Daily Mail >
As she moved from her youth singing in the streets to the glamour
of the Paris music-halls, Piaf formed lasting friendships with such
figures as Maurice Chevalier, Jean Cocteau and Marlene Dietrich; she
wrote many of her own songs, aided the Resistance in the Second World
War, and mentored younger singers like Yves Montand and Charles
Aznavour. Yet her path to stardom was full of tragedies - the death of
her daughter in infancy; the death of Marcel Cerdan, her greatest
love, in a plane crash; her many illnesses, affairs and addictions,
all of which nourished her passionate performances and strengthened
her enduring bond with audiences.
In this mesmerising, definitive new biography Carolyn Burke
gives us Piaf in her own time and place, illuminating through
sympathetic readings of sources hitherto unavailable both the charm
and the pathos of the Little Sparrow' who enchanted generations and
still enthralls us today.
div>
Edith Piaf was one of the most greatly loved singers of the twentieth
century. From the start of her exceptional career in the 1930s, her
waif-like form and heart-wrenching voice endeared her first to the
French, then to audiences around the globe. <
