No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [106]
Since Edith needed her escort by her side at all times, the American found it impossible to do portraits of the celebrities he was meeting, or to lead his own life. One night she insisted that he drive her from the Riviera to her country home, despite his fatigue. Davis lost control of the wheel near the end; two of Edith’s ribs were broken. For the rest of the tour, she sang with her rib cage bandaged and blamed Davis for the accident. By the time they reached Bordeaux, the American had had enough. They quarreled; he went back to Paris to devote himself to his portraits, ignoring Edith’s threats of suicide. “It was unbearable,” he later told the press. “She’s killing everyone with her impossible way of life.”
Edith had to believe that there was another life after this one, she told Jean Noli, the journalist who would help her write her memoirs. Thus far, her own had been “a series of deaths and resurrections. What the doctors never understand is that I always get well because of my moral strength.… You only die of illness when you’re afraid.” Although these Rosicrucian-influenced beliefs may have comforted the star, the lack of a companion that autumn, when her health again declined, made her doubt her certainty. In September, she was taken to the American Hospital to undergo an operation for pancreatitis. Jacques Pills rushed to see her; Yves Montand telegrammed from New York. Four days later, Edith’s intimates cheered when she awoke with a deep-throated laugh: “Her laughter … meant that she had come through, she hadn’t decided to leave them.”
The star spent October going between Paris and her country home with her entourage, who knew that her health depended on her ability to keep performing. Cocteau arrived in a black velvet cape to read her his new poems and tell her that he loved her. Monnot composed a dramatic setting for Edith’s equally dramatic lyrics for “C’est l’amour,” a proclamation of “le droit d’aimer” (“the right to love”), which was conferred by the tears one shed for the beloved. Michel Rivgauche wrote lyrics inspired by Edith’s persona, including the aptly titled “Ouragan” (“Hurricane”); Claude Léveillée, a Canadian composer who had joined the household at Piaf’s invitation, wrote music to match Rivgauche’s dark poems. Robert Chauvigny played piano at all hours; Marc Bonel devised riffs on the accordion and, with Danielle, calmed Edith, while helping to sustain the household’s effervescence.
“This is how Edith thought of creativity,” Hugues Vassal explained. She asked him to capture their ongoing rehearsals with his camera. “The music and lyrics had to wed her personality. That way she could give herself to a song. She also wanted to bring out the best in us, to push us as far as we could go.” Piaf was teaching her collaborators to trust their intuition. “Infallibly she found the movement or the pause that conveyed an emotion. Her gestures were meant to express the soul of a song, to help listeners feel what she felt.” During these late-night rehearsals, members of her entourage were often moved to tears, the photographer added. “She sang from her heart. She gave everything she had.”
Her intimates sensed that they were nourishing her spirit in these exchanges, but other members of Piaf’s court received more than they contributed. Some took advantage of her largesse. Rivgauche recalled the nightly gatherings of “abject beings, people who amused her, pilferers, spongers, those who took her money—a concept that simply didn’t matter to her.” By then, Edith had replaced Momone with a group of courtiers who were allowed to manipulate her even when she knew they were not acting in her best interest.
What mattered most to the star was to think that she was well enough to resume her career. In November, she undertook a string of engagements that would land her back in the hospital. For the rest of the year, reporters followed Piaf’s every move in their zeal to stoke the public’s fascination with what was