"Milord" par Edith Piaf

From an appearance in 1959 on The Ed Sullivan Show, it's a song about a prostitute admiring a dapper gentleman walking past her; good thing most people in the Sullivan audience didn't speak French...

Milord, also called Ombre de la Rue (A shadow of the streets) was written in 1959 by Georges Moustaki (with music by Marguerite Monnot); according to Wikipedia (and, you know, they're always right) it has also been sung by Cher, meaning I won't rest until I possess that version as well.
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In Memoriam: Edith Piaf

I think of her whenever I see a little sparrow hopping across the concrete in search of a few crumbs... Instead of food, though, the crumbs Edith Piaf (born on this day in 1915) sought were love. Her adopted surname, of course, meant 'sparrow'; certainly those qualities of frailty and doggedness must have been there when Louis Leplée - the nightclub owner - first laid eyes on her, singing in the street for coins, in 1935.

Leplee's murder the following year would be the first down in a career of ups and downs for Edith Piaf, as she was questioned by police in relation to the case; the mobsters who killed him were known to her and her involvement, however cursory, did not sit well with her new fans. She survived the scandal, as she would always do; in 1940 her new friend Jean Cocteau wrote her a role in his play Le Bel Indifférent. It was a success, and once more she was on her way.

Despite crippling stage fright, Piaf performed extensively throughout the war, but the song most often associated with the era (and her) - La vie en rose - would not enter her repertoire until 1946. Amazingly, she managed to escape the Nazi occupation with her reputation intact; so many, in the interest of self-preservation, either collaborated or gave the appearance of collaboration, and Piaf was no different. She would later claim to have aided the Resistance, but as they kept very inadequate records, the truth of that may never be known.

A post-war tour of the United States, undertaken with the then-unknown Charles Aznavour, saw both of them acclaimed across North America; naturally, she was on top of the world when, in October 1949, her lover Marcel Cerdan was killed in a plane crash. In 1951 she and Aznavour were in a car accident; although they survived, Piaf came away from it addicted to morphine, which was not helped by two subsequent crashes. In 1952 she married Jacques Pills, whose main job seems to be taking her to rehab; they divorced in 1956. She took a second husband, Théo Sarapo, in 1962, who performed with her towards the end.

Edith Piaf died of cancer in October 1963, the same day as her old friend Jean Cocteau; she was 47. In 2007 it was as if she'd come back to life when Marion Cotillard portrayed the singer in the hugely entertaining biopic, La Vie En Rose, for which its star was awarded a Best Actress Academy Award.
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Cocteau & Piaf: Friends 'Til The End

Real friendship - the kind that can withstand attacks from towering egos and the tempestuous emotions that are the handmaidens of substance abuse - is rare enough; yet Edith Piaf and Jean Cocteau found it in each other despite a bevy of neuroses to which yours truly can only aspire...

Piaf's star was still rising when, in 1940, Cocteau wrote his one-act play Le Bel Indifférent especially for her; Cocteau, by then, was a fixture in the artistic salons of Paris. Her casting brought the former singing urchin into a rarefied atmosphere, propelling her into a kind of stardom no writer (not even a French one) can hope to obtain.

Throughout the next 15 years they often fought but always reconciled, seemingly united by their outcast beginnings as much as by their mutual fame. So close were the Poet (which is what Cocteau always called himself, no matter what media he was expressing himself in) and the Sparrow (which in French is 'Piaf') that when they died on this day in 1955 within hours of each other, few could resist commenting on the poignancy of it.

Piaf died first, following a battle with liver cancer, in the south of France; when Cocteau heard he retired to his bed, and died of a heart attack a few hours later. Ah, but what is a heart attack if not a broken heart, and whose two hearts had been broken so often, so savagely as those two sensitive souls, Piaf and Cocteau?

United in life, reunited in death...
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Announcing: The Pop Culture Institute's Anthem

Enjoy at your leisure this stirring rendition of the Pop Culure Institute's anthem, "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" by Edith Piaf.
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"La Vie en Rose" In Theatres June 2007

It turns out my aversion to attending movies alone will have to be foregone. In amongst the shallow trench filled with dreck which is the summer movie season is this shining jewel.

Marion Cotillard's performance seems more like a seance than acting, such is her resemblance to Edith Piaf. The trailer gave me chills; I guess I should wear a sweater to the movie.
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