Édith Piaf

French singer, a noted chanteuse with a tragic private life. In her career as a cafe singer, she became one of the most famous and beloved entertainers in Paris.

She was born literally in the streets of Paris, under a lamppost at rue de Belleville on a freezing winter night on a policeman's cape, the illegitimate child of a wanton chanteuse and a street acrobat. More or less abandoned by her mom, the child was brought up in a brothel in Normandy run by her dad's kin. As a child she was blinded for three years with cataracts on both eyes, but miraculously recovered her sight at age six. The local priest urged that she be moved to a different environment, so her dad took her, putting her to work passing the hat while he performed. Though her father trained her to follow his vocation, she became a street singer instead.

At 14, she left her dad to strike out on her own. The following year she met her 12-year-old half sister and the two joined forces. For the rest of her life, the two were inseparable and for two decades, plumbed the depths of dirt, depravity and poverty.

Piaf's first love affair ended in desertion and a stillborn baby. She had a love affair of two years with Marcel Cerdan until his death in a plane crash on 27 October 1949.

After years of being never far from the streets, Piaf suddenly shot to stardom, the onstage rage of Paris. Other than a sudden freedom to indulge in extravagance, her life changed little. Money continued to slip through her fingers as easily as lovers slipped in and out of her bed. Her entire life had been extravagant, with the use of her body and her talent, with drugs and alcohol, overwork and poverty, always pushing herself. Always putting her freedom above all else, she sang, "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," as one who truly did regret nothing. She looked the part of her name, "Piaf," (little sparrow), in her too-big black dress, a tiny wisp of a woman.

She started a downhill slide.