生平介绍：
Edith Piaf,原名Edith Gassion，1915年12月19日出生于巴黎。有传说她母亲是在巴黎街道的路灯边生下她的，但事实上她是在当地的医院出生的。父亲Louis-Alphonse Gassion是一位街头杂耍艺人，母亲Anita Maillard是个卖唱的歌女,艺名叫Line Marsa。跟刚打算退役的法国足球巨星齐达内一样，Piaf的母亲Anita是有卡比利亚（北非阿尔及利亚地区民族，也称柏柏尔人，在依比利斯半岛活动，多为流浪者）血统的“下等法国人”。第一次世界大战期间，父亲从军，母亲在街头卖艺讨生活，根本无暇照顾女儿，Edith在幼年时，只得与在诺曼底的奶奶相依为命。在乡间，她度过了几年快乐的时光。战争结束后，父亲把她接回身边，她的生活开始没有什么幸福可言，为了生活，他们的草台班子在全法国流浪表演（世界名著、都德的《小东西》就描写了很多流浪艺人的艰辛），可怜的Edith，早早领略了生活的艰难。可能是家庭的遗传，Piaf天生一副好嗓子，渐渐地，她也正式成了戏班子里的一员。15岁的时候，这位乡下小妹子决心离开父亲，独自去巴黎闯荡。1932年，她与同为流浪艺人的Louis Dupon，一年后育有一女Marcelle，但这个小女孩只活了两岁就因脑膜炎而夭折 。Edith继续在街头卖唱，直到有一天，Louis Leplée——坐落在香榭丽舍大道（Avenue des Champs Elysées）的巴黎最优雅的酒吧之一le Gerny's的老板——无意间听到这个年轻姑娘的演唱，立刻被这个娇小女人的嗓音迷住了。他立刻签下了她，并为她取艺名为拉·莫姆·琵雅芙（在巴黎方言中，这是小鸟的意思）。Piaf的身高只有1.47m，确实像一只楚楚可怜的小鸟。琵雅芙是将多愁善感、幽默和严酷的现实主义极好地结合起来，她是法国传统歌曲的化身。
从1936年开始，直至去世，琵雅芙录制了许多专辑。她的最后一首歌是L'hommede Berlin，这是她在1963年初录制的。琵雅芙在世的时候并不富裕。事实上，琵雅芙经历过多次车祸，还有毒品困扰，她去世时还给比她小很多岁的第二任丈夫留下一大笔债务。琵雅芙的一生辉煌但短暂，她以她的方式给我们带来了无尽的欢乐。
历程：
老板Louis对她宠爱有加，并在36年为她录制了第一张唱片Les M?mes de la cloche（“乡下姑娘”的意思）。但苦命的Piaf总是那么不幸：那年4月，Louis Leplée被人在自己的家中谋杀！Piaf因与他有密切关系而被被警方传讯……各种“娱乐媒体”便大肆渲染这段“传奇”。
Piaf失去了靠山，但她关键时刻总有贵人相助，她的一个“粉丝”Raymond Asso，一位知名的冒险家，帮助她迅速摆脱了那些烦人的事情并离开了le Gerny's酒吧。在Raymond Asso的引导下，Piaf慢慢脱去了乡下女子的土气和在父母的市井阶层所沾染上的俗气，最后成为大家所熟悉的那个Edith Piaf——一副迷茫的神情，一副无助的样子，头发凄凄，嘴唇腥红，双臂沿着起皱的黑色毛衣下垂……她已经不再是乡下的小鸟，她成了巴黎的尤物。这一年，她拍摄了第一部电影，Jean Limur导演的La gar?onne，几个月后又是第二部电影Bobino。40年，她与戏剧演员Paul Meurisse同居Paul教会Piaf很多东西，特别是如何得体地处理社会上的种种问题。剧作家Jean Cocteau为他们两度身编写了一部话剧Le bel indifférent，在夫婿及Jean Cocteau的帮助下，Piaf的表演获得极大成功，这部戏也激发了她对戏剧的兴趣，展现了她的表演天分。
随后，夫妻俩一起出演了Georges Lacombe的电影Montmartre sur scène。拍摄过程中，Piaf与电影音乐作者Henri Contet结下了特殊的友情，Henri后来成为Piaf最主要的词曲作者。
当年这只楚楚可怜的小鸟逐渐羽翼丰满了，二战期间，Piaf已经可以勇敢地以自己的方式反抗占领者：她不顾德国人的警告，坚持与犹太音乐家合作并演出。此时的她已经变得成熟，不单指其性格，也指她的艺术表现形式以及她与社会方方面面协调的能力。她巧妙周旋在各种势力之间，利用自己的经验和成就，实现自己的意愿。
44年，初到巴黎的毛头小子Yves Montand闯入了她的生活。年过30的她不顾一切爱上了他，并张开翅膀保护这个初到巴黎的乡下小伙。Piaf已经不是小鸟，她成了保护女神和引路人。可能与Yves有类似的幼年生活经历，她对Yves既有情人的爱，也有一种近乎母爱的情感。她为把自己的制作团队介绍给Yves，她让她的“御用”作曲家Henri Contet为小伙子写出了Yves最早的成名曲Battling Joe及Luna park。
她一步步将Yves引入社交界，指导他阅读，交游，使他很快与巴黎融入一体（看到这里，小伙子们都动心了吗？）。45年，她与Montand合演了电影Etoile sans lumière。
在45年以前，Piaf只有一首有影响力的歌曲是由她自己填词的，那就是La vie en Rose（Louiguy作曲）。这首歌曾经被她周围的人认为意识太超前，不会受欢迎，但结果是如今这首歌已经几乎成了Chanson（法语单词，“歌曲”的意思。港台将其翻译成更加美感的“香颂”）的代名词。
46年，Piaf注意到年轻的创作歌手组合Cmopagnons de la Chanson，她非常欣赏他们的才干。为自己与Yves着想，她设法将他们网罗到门下，专为她自己和Yves写歌作曲。在她的促成下，发行了一张专辑Les trois cloches，Yves借此获得1百万张唱片的销量……但不知什么样的原因，这一年，她与Yves莫名地分开了。也许是她预见了Yves不可限量的未来，所以选择了悄悄地离开……在我所听过的男声的La vie en Rose的版本中，Yves的和美国黑人Louis Armstrong的两个版本是我最喜欢的。
也许是为了散心，也许是为了摆脱过去。47年她第一次赴美国开演唱会，将Cmopagnons de la Chanson也一并带了过去。 这次新大陆之行对Piaf实在是一次挑战，在纽约Playhouse最初的几场演出只能算失败，美国佬并不了解这个女人，当然，语言也是理解的障碍。不过她决定继续留下来，而且把演出场地也搬到了曼哈顿（Manhattan）。她越来越成功，渐渐打开了新大陆市常当然她的收获还不止于此：她与演员、歌手Marlène Dietrich成为了终生的好朋友，同时与著名拳手Marcel Cerdan堕入情网。这段拳王与歌后的爱情故事成为47年大小报纸津津乐道的话题。
Piaf与Cerdan的幸福是充实的，那时，她与Marguerite Monnot合作为有情人写下了著名的香颂：L'hymne à l'amour——她的又一首不朽的经典。
但厄运似乎总不愿远离这个不幸而成功的女人，49年10月28日，Marcel Cerdan突然因空难而故去，传奇变成了悲剧。这次巨大的打击使Piaf在有生之年，再也没有真正地解脱出来……回顾往事，她爱的男人，总是被一股神秘、意外的力量从她身边被夺走。她变成了神秘主义者和宿命论者。
不过，这个坚强的女人并没有停止工作，50年她返回巴黎，在Pleyel继续演出。这一时期，年轻的词曲作家Charles Aznavour成了她身边的“全能人”：她的秘书，司机和知心人。事实上，自45年起，她就开始利用自己的影响在帮助CHARLES，只不过她没有象帮助Yves或Les Compagnons de la Chanson那样提携Charles罢了。但忠实的Aznavour依然对她念念不忘，为她写下很多优秀的歌曲。
1951年，Piaf再次找到了新的保护人——年轻的美国舞蹈演员兼歌手Eddie Constantine。但这段故事仅仅维持了7个月，神秘事件再次发生：这回是她自己，她连续遇上两起交通意外，其中第二次差点要了她的命。治疗过程中，她染上了毒瘾，自此再也未能从这个可怕的嗜好中挣扎出来……
连续的打击，使她沉迷于毒品与酒精，这严重损害了她的身体……她似乎想借婚姻改变命运，1952年7月，她与歌手Jacques Pills举行了她一直梦想的第一次正式的婚礼。婚后，他们双双赴美演出，她演出了新婚夫婿Jacques Pills为她写的几首作品。这是她第5次赴美演出，当然，当年让她打开新大陆之门的Le Versailles那里依然是必去的。
这一年她经历了几次毒品不良反应，身体情况非常糟糕。但也在这年，她达到了她个人艺术事业的最高峰，巡回演唱会不断。她糟糕的身体几乎拖垮了她。53-54年，她不得不闭门修养。但是，当55年接到在奥林匹亚剧场（所有歌手的圣地）的邀请后，Piaf再次焕发出令人惊奇的激情和能量，这次演出获得极大的成功，鼓舞了她继续演艺事业的信心。
58年再次在奥林匹亚演唱会上，她演出了她另一首重要作品Mon manège à moi。之后，她认识了歌手、曲作家Georges Moustaki，9月她与Georges竟然又一次遇上了严重的交通事故……随后，在纽约的演唱会上，Piaf倒在了舞台上。似乎预见来日无多，她拒绝了朋友们、医生的建议，坚持60年的奥林匹亚演唱会照旧进行。
Piaf的玫瑰色人生还未结束，61年夏天，她结识了她生命中最后一个男人——Theophanis Lamboukas，她叫他Sarapo（希腊语“我爱你”的意思），这个希腊歌手陪她走完了人生最后的一段旅程。这年7月，她在祖国法国接受了“终身成就大奖”。62年9月25日，在巴黎埃菲尔铁塔下为全巴黎演唱了Le Jour le plus long，她的光耀无与伦比。
Edith Piaf is almost universally regarded as Frances greatest popular singer. Still revered as an icon decades after her death, the Sparrow served as a touchstone for virtually every chansonnier, male or female, who followed her. Her greatest strength wasnt so much her technique, or the purity of her voice, but the raw, passionate power of her singing. (Given her extraordinarily petite size, audiences marveled all the more at the force of her vocals.) Her style epitomized that of the classic French chanson: highly emotional, even melodramatic, with a wide, rapid vibrato that wrung every last drop of sentiment from a lyric. She preferred melancholy, mournful material, singing about heartache, tragedy, poverty, and the harsh reality of life on the streets; much of it was based to some degree on her real-life experiences, written specifically for her by an ever-shifting cast of songwriters. Her life was the stuff of legend, starting with her dramatic rise from uneducated Paris street urchin to star of international renown. Along the way, she lost her only child at age three, fell victim to substance abuse problems, survived three car accidents, and took a seemingly endless parade of lovers, one of whom perished in a plane crash on his way to visit her. Early in her career, she chose men who could help and instruct her; later in life, with her own status secure, she helped many of her lovers in their ambitions to become songwriters or singers, then dropped them once her mentorship had served its purpose. By the time cancer claimed her life at age 47, Piaf had recorded a lengthy string of genre-defining classics — Mon Légionnaire, La Vie en Rose, LHymne à lAmour, Milord, and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien among them — that many of her fans felt captured the essence of the French soul.Piaf was born Edith Giovanna Gassion on December 19, 1915, in Ménilmontant, one of the poorer districts of Paris. According to legend, she was born under a street light on the corner of the Rue de Belleville, with her mother attended by two policemen; some have disputed this story, finding it much likelier that she was born in the local hospital. Whatever the case, Piafs origins were undeniably humble. Her father, Louis Gassion, was a traveling acrobat and street performer, while her Moroccan-Italian mother, Anita Maillard, was an alcoholic, an occasional prostitute, and an aspiring singer who performed in cafés and on street corners under the name Line Marsa. With her father serving in World War I, Edith was virtually ignored by both her mother and grandmother; after the war, her father sent her to live with his own mother, who helped run a small brothel in the Normandy town of Bernay. The prostitutes helped look after Edith when they could; one story goes that when five-year-old Edith lost her sight during an acute case of conjunctivitis, the prostitutes shut down the brothel to spend a day praying for her in church, and her blindness disappeared several days later.Ediths father returned for her in 1922, and instead of sending her to school, he brought her to Paris to join his street act. It was here that she got her first experience singing in public, but her main duty at first was to pass the hat among the crowd of onlookers, manipulating extra money from whomever she could. She and her father traveled all over France together until 1930, when the now-teenaged Edith had developed her singing into a main attraction. She teamed up with her half-sister and lifelong partner in mischief, Simone Berteaut, and sang for tips in the streets, squares, cafés, and military camps, while living in a succession of cheap, squalid hotels. She moved in circles of petty criminals and led a promiscuous nightlife, with a predilection for pimps and other street toughs who could protect her while she earned her meager living as a street performer. In 1932, she fell in love with a delivery boy named Louis Dupont, and bore him a daughter. However, in a pattern she would repeat throughout her life, she tired of the relationship, cheated, and ended it before he could do the same. Much like her own mother, Edith found it difficult to care for a child while working in the streets, and often left her daughter alone. Dupont eventually took the child himself, but she died of meningitis several months later. Ediths next boyfriend was a pimp who took a commission from her singing tips, in exchange for not forcing her into prostitution; when she broke off the affair, he nearly succeeded in shooting her.Living the high-risk life that she did, Edith Gassion almost certainly would have come to a bad end had she not been discovered by cabaret owner Louis Leplée while singing on a street corner in the Pigalle area in 1935. Struck by the force of her voice, Leplée took the young singer under his wing and groomed her to become his resident star act. He renamed her La Môme Piaf (which in Parisian slang translates roughly as the little sparrow or the kid sparrow), fleshed out her song repertoire, taught her the basics of stage presence, and outfitted her in a plain black dress that would become her visual trademark. Leplées extensive publicity campaign brought many noted celebrities to Piafs opening night, including Maurice Chevalier; she was a smashing success, and in January 1936, she cut her first records for Polydor, Les Momes de la Cloche and LÉtranger; the latter was penned by Marguerite Monnot, who would continue to write for Piaf for the remainder of both their careers.Tragedy struck in April 1936, when Leplée was shot to death in his apartment. Police suspicion initially fell on Piaf and the highly disreputable company she often kept, and the ensuing media furor threatened to derail her career even after she was cleared of any involvement. Scandal preceded her when she toured the provinces outside Paris that summer, and she realized that she needed help in rehabilitating her career and image. When she returned to Paris, she sought out Raymond Asso, a songwriter, businessman, and Foreign Legion veteran; she had rejected his song Mon Légionnaire, but it had subsequently been recorded by Marie Dubas, one of Piafs major influences. Intensely attracted to Piaf, Asso began an affair with her and took charge of managing her career. He partially restored her real name, billing her as Edith Piaf; he barred all of Piafs undesirable acquaintances from seeing her; he set about making up for the basic education that neither Edith nor Simone had received. Most importantly, he talked with Piaf about her childhood on the streets, and teamed up with LÉtranger composer Marguerite Monnot to craft an original repertoire that would be unique to Piafs experiences. In January 1937, Piaf recorded Mon Légionnaire for a major hit, and went on to cut the Asso/Monnot collaborations Le Fanion de la Légion, Cest Lui Que Mon Coeur a Choisi (a smash hit in late 1938), Le Petit Monsieur Triste, Elle Frequentait la Rue Pigalle, Je Nen Connais Pas la Fin, and others. Later that year, Piaf made concert appearances at the ABC Theater (where she opened for Charles Trenet) and the Bobino (as the headliner); the shows were wildly successful and made her the new star of the Paris music scene.In the fall of 1939, Asso was called to serve in World War II. Early the next year, Piaf recorded one of her signature songs, LAccordéoniste, just before its composer, Michel Emer, left for the war; she would later help the Jewish Emer escape France during the Nazi occupation. In Assos absence, she took up with actor/singer Paul Meurisse, from whom she picked up the refinements and culture of upper-class French society. They performed together often, and also co-starred in Jean Cocteaus one-act play Le Bel Indifférent; however, their relationship soon deteriorated, and Piaf and Simone moved into an apartment over a high-class brothel. By this time, the Nazis had taken over Paris, and the brothels clientele often included Gestapo officers. Piaf was long suspected of collaborating with — or, at least, being overly friendly to — the Germans, making numerous acquaintances through her residence and performing at private events. She resisted in her own way, however; she dated Jewish pianist Norbert Glanzberg, and also co-wrote the subtle protest song Où Sont-Ils Mes Petits Copains? with Marguerite Monnot in 1943, defying a Nazi request to remove the song from her concert repertoire. According to one story, Piaf posed for a photo at a prison camp; the images of the French prisoners in the photo were later blown up and used in false documents that helped many of them escape.Before the wars end, Piaf took up with journalist Henri Contet, and convinced him to team up with Marguerite Monnot as a lyricist. This proved to be the most productive partnership since the Asso years, and Piaf was rewarded with a burst of new material: Coup de Grisou, Monsieur Saint-Pierre, Le Brun et le Blond, Histoire du Coeur, Ya Pas DPrintemps, and many others. Her affair with Contet was relatively brief, but he continued to write for her after they split; meanwhile, Piaf moved on to an attractive young singer named Yves Montand in 1944. Under Piafs rigorous tutelage, Montand grew into one of French pops biggest stars within a year, and she broke off the affair when his popularity began to rival her own. Her next protégés were a nine-member singing group called Les Compagnons de la Chanson, who toured and recorded with her over the next few years (one member also became her lover). Now recording for the Pathe label, she scored a major hit in 1946 with Les Trois Cloches, which would later become an English-language smash for the Browns when translated into The Three Bells. Later that year, she recorded the self-composed number La Vie en Rose, another huge hit that international audiences would come to regard as her signature song.Piaf embarked on her first American tour in late 1947, and at first met with little success; audiences expecting a bright, gaudy Parisian spectacle were disappointed with her simple presentation and downcast songs. Just as she was about to leave the country, a prominent New York critic wrote a glowing review of her show, urging audiences not to dismiss her out of hand; she was booked at the Café Versailles in New York, and thanks to the publicity, she was a hit, staying for over five months. In that time, she met up with French boxer Marcel Cerdan, an acquaintance of about a year. In spite of Cerdans marriage, the two began a passionate affair, not long before Cerdan won the world middleweight championship and became a French national hero. Unfortunately, tragedy struck in October 1949, when Cerdan was planning to visit Piaf in New York; wanting him to arrive sooner, she convinced him to take a plane instead of a boat. The plane crashed in the Azores, killing him. Devastated by guilt and grief, Piaf sank into drug and alcohol abuse, and began to experiment with morphine. In early 1950, she recorded LHymne à lAmour, a tribute to the one lover Piaf would never quite get over; co-written with Marguerite Monnot, it became one of her best-known and most heartfelt songs.In 1951, Piaf met the young singer/songwriter Charles Aznavour, a future giant of French song who became her next protégé; unlike her others, this relationship always remained strictly platonic, despite the enduring closeness and loyalty of their friendship. Aznavour served as a jack-of-all-trades for Piaf — secretary, chauffeur, etc. — and she helped him get bookings, brought him on tour, and recorded several of his early songs, including the hit Plus Bleu Que Tes Yeux and Jézébel. Their friendship nearly came to an early end when both were involved in a serious car accident (as passengers); Piaf suffered a broken arm and two broken ribs. With her doctor prescribing morphine for pain relief, she soon developed a serious chemical dependency to go with her increasing alcohol problems. In 1952, she romanced and married singer Jacques Pills, who co-wrote her hit Je Tai Dans la Peau with his pianist, Gilbert Bécaud; Bécaud would soon go on to become yet another of the pop stars launched into orbit with Piafs assistance. Meanwhile, Pills soon discovered the gravity of Piafs substance abuse problems, and forced her into a detox clinic on three separate occasions. Nonetheless, Piaf continued to record and perform with great success, including appearances at Carnegie Hall and Paris legendary Olympia theater. She and Pills divorced in 1955; not long afterward, she suffered an attack of delirium tremens and had to be hospitalized.As an interpretive singer, Piaf was at the height of her powers during the mid-50s, even in spite of all her health woes. Her international tours were consistently successful, and the devotion of her massive French following verged on worship. She scored several more hits over 1956-1958, among them La Foule, Les Amants Dun Jour, Lhomme à la Moto, and the smash Mon Manège à Moi. During that period, she also completed another stay in detox; this time would prove to be successful, but years of drug and alcohol abuse had already destabilized her health. In late 1958, she met another up-and-coming songwriter, Georges Moustaki, and made him her latest lover and improvement project. Teaming once again with Marguerite Monnot, Moustaki co-wrote Milord, an enormous hit that topped the charts all over Europe in early 1959 and became Piafs first successful single in the U.K. Later that year, she and Moustaki were involved in another car accident, in which her face was badly cut; in early 1960, while performing at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, she collapsed and began to vomit blood on stage, and was rushed to the hospital for emergency stomach surgery. Stubbornly, she continued her tour, and collapsed on-stage again in Stockholm; this time she was sent back to Paris for more surgery.Piaf was soon back in the recording studio, eager to record a composition by the legendary French songwriter Charles Dumont. Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien became one of her all-time classics and a huge international hit in 1960, serving as something of an equivalent to Frank Sinatras My Way. Piaf went on to score further hits with more Dumont songs, including Mon Dieu, Les Flons-Flons du Bal, and Les Mots DAmour. She staged a lengthy run at the Olympia in 1961, and later that year met an aspiring Greek singer named Théo Sarapo (born Theophanis Lamboukis), who became her latest project and, eventually, second husband. Sarapo was half her age, and given Piafs poor health, the French media derided him as a gold digger. Nonetheless, they cut the duet À Quoi Ça Sert lAmour in 1962, and performed together during Piafs final engagement at the Olympia that year. Despite her physical weakness — on some nights, she could barely stand — Piaf had lost very little of the power in her voice.Piaf and Sarapo sang together at the Bobino in early 1963, and Piaf also made her final recording, LHomme de Berlin. Not long afterward, Piaf slipped into a coma, brought on by cancer. Sarapo and Simone Berteaut took Piaf to her villa in Plascassier, on the French Riviera, to nurse her. She drifted in and out of consciousness for months before passing away on October 11, 1963 — the same day as legendary writer/filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Her body was taken back to Paris in secret, so that fans could believe she died in her hometown. The news of her death caused a nationwide outpouring of grief, and tens of thousands of fans jammed the streets of Paris, stopping traffic to watch her funeral procession. Her towering stature in French popular music has hardly diminished in the years since; her grave at Père-Lachaise remains one of the famed cemeterys most visited, and her songs continue to be covered by countless classic-style pop artists, both French and otherwise.