No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [130]
I am indebted to Giselle Tellier for arranging my tour of Bernay with local historians Philippe Le Turcq and Marie Caruel of the Bernay Office de Tourisme, where I was granted access to hitherto unavailable documents on Piaf’s childhood. My Belleville chapters were enriched by touring the area with Margo Berdeshevsky and with Patrick Dewarez, whose images perpetuate the tradition of Willy Ronis, an important visual source for my writing.
It was a great pleasure to work with Jean-Paul Mazillier and Anthony Berrot, whose archive of documents, memorabilia, and photographs is the major private repository of Piafiana, much of it having been passed to them by Danielle Bonel. Without their help I could not have documented Piaf’s life as fully or illustrated it with some of the thousands of photographs in their extensive collection.
I also want to express my thanks to Hugues Vassal, who documented the star’s final years and gave me access to his own collection of images, which enabled me to grasp the drama surrounding her illnesses and last days. I am also indebted to Solène Vassal, who is carrying on the work of the Vassal archive.
Interviews conducted with the following witnesses in France, and the materials they gave me, added inestimably to my portrait of Piaf: Edmonde Charles-Roux, Françoise Asso, Micheline Dax, Georges Moustaki, Charles Dumont, Irène Hilda, Serge Glanzberg, Fred Mella, Annick Taillière, and the late Erik Marchal de Salm. Jeanne McDonagh vividly recalled Piaf’s performances at the Versailles; Darlene Baker told me about the star’s relationship with her brother, Douglas Davis; Gene Lees’s comparison of French and American song styles informed my understanding of Piaf’s reception in her adopted homeland.
In addition, David Gullentops shared materials that illuminate Piaf’s friendship with Jean Cocteau; Julia Panama located unpublished correspondence between Piaf and Toto Girardin; Anne Bramard-Blagny gave me documents, including her film, on the friendship of Piaf and Marguerite Monnot; Frédéric Brun explained the chronology of Piaf’s adherence to the Rosicrucian Order and her relations with his father, Jean Dréjac; Andrew Solt and Mary Sherwood gave me film clips of Piaf’s performances on the Ed Sullivan show; Rob Hudson made available documents concerning Piaf’s recitals at Carnegie Hall; Ann Holsberry discovered old French tabloids for me at various marchés aux puces.
I want to express my profound gratitude to those who encouraged me to write this book and guided me in the process: my wise and witty agent, Georges Borchardt; my research assistant, Kristina Valendinova; my inventive image wrangler, Lance Sprague; and many people both known and unknown to me at Knopf, especially my sagacious editor, Robert Gottlieb, and his scrupulous assistant, Sarah Rothbard. I am profoundly indebted to all of them.
I give a deep bow of thanks to both my immediate and extended families—Valda Hertzberg, Garance Burke, and Terry Burke, who kept me going throughout the writing of this book, and the sanghas of the Santa Cruz and San Francisco Zen Centers. I am also grateful to the following, for comfort, hospitality, references, refuge, and for reading and critiquing my manuscript:
Pico Iyer, Hiroko Takeuchi, Michael Wolfe, Cathy Suma-Wolfe, Marc Lambron, Anne Bast, Patricia de Fougerolle, Pauline de Boisfleury, Gérard Gagnepain, Michèle Jolé, Marilyn Goldberg, Louise Bernikow, Joan Schenkar, François Lévy, Michelle Lapautre, Bertrand Lacarelle, Russell Porter, Jacques Primack, Edwige Belorgey, Stephen Pollard, Mary Nelson, Alexandra Pringle, Didier Pascalis, Allison Anthony, Peter Myers, Edith Kunz, Dominique Gérard, Marco Tugayé, Linda Gardiner, Marilyn Hacker, Bette Taxera, Naomi Sawelson-Gorse, Rita Bottoms, Jay Olson, Georges Van Den Abbeele, Marty Michaels, James Robinson, Rita Robinson, Christa Fraser, Tom Honig, Drew Miller,