No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [132]
17 “People knew”: Jacques Guesnet quoted in “Bernay n’a pas oublié sa ‘Môme,’ ” Normandie, n.d.
18 “When I wanted”: EP quoted in “Bernay donne une rue à Piaf,” L’Eveil normand, June 16, 1988.
19 “But my faith”: EP, Ma vie, p. 63.
20 “We wanted to”: Marcelle Lallier quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 71.
21 “Papa was not”: EP, Au bal, p. 85.
22 “Gifted athletically”: Ibid., p. 82.
23 “I lived in”: Ibid., pp. 83–84.
24 A snapshot: See Marcelle Routier, Piaf l’inoubliable, p. 12.
25 “I was so afraid”: EP interview, Joie de vivre, quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 76.
26 “We kept on traveling”: EP, Au bal, p. 84.
27 “Father spread his ‘hanky’ ”: Ibid.
28 “I had never”: Ibid.
29 “rich child’s”: Ibid., pp. 85–86.
30 “For people”: Ibid., p. 86.
31 “I’m not in the business”: Louis Gassion quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 78, and EP, Au bal, p. 87.
32 “A handsome man”: EP, Au bal, p. 87.
33 “I still remember”: EP quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 79.
34 “I had worked”: EP interviews, Joie de vivre, in ibid., p. 80.
35 “Young woman wanted”: Quoted in ibid., p. 81.
36 “the girlfriend”: Ibid.
CHAPTER TWO • 1926–1932
1 “A new mother”: EP, Ma vie, p. 14.
2 “I had gone”: Ibid.
3 “My father doesn’t”: Ibid., p. 88.
4 “While our parents”: Herbert Gassion quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 83.
5 Fréhel had long been famous: Born Marguerite Boulch in 1891, the singer first performed in a well-known Parisian café-concert at the age of sixteen. Colette wrote in her novel The Vagabond that Fréhel had “the sulky face of a young apache” and sang “like a street urchin” in the years before the war, when she was a celebrated performer. After a disastrous love affair with Maurice Chevalier, Fréhel went into exile in Constantinople and Eastern Europe for eleven years. Addicted to cocaine and badly overweight, she managed to make a spectacular comeback in Paris during the mid-1920s.
6 “mistakes”: Herbert Gassion quoted in Duclos and Martin, pp. 85–86.
7 “I bought her”: Pierre Hiégel in Bernard Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions publiques, p. 137.
8 “Everyone kissed”: Clément Lépidis, Belleville au coeur, p. 59.
9 “I was bowled over”: Simone Berteaut, Piaf: A Biography, p. 21.
10 “that same voice”: Ibid., p. 24.
11 “Saturdays we’d hit”: Ibid., p. 28.
12 “alive”: Ibid., p. 29.
13 “He looked”: EP, Ma vie, pp. 14–15.
14 “cutlery or plates”: Ibid., p. 15.
15 “She went so far”: Denise Gassion, Piaf, ma soeur, p. 27.
16 “Edith wouldn’t”: Berteaut, p. 36.
17 “She had a voice”: Odette Laure in Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 167.
18 “I felt that something”: EP, Ma vie, p. 16.
19 “As for the kiss”: EP, Au bal, pp. 72–73.
20 “And when Edith”: Gassion, p. 28.
21 “She interpreted”: Rina Ketty in Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 147.
CHAPTER THREE • 1933–1935
1 “the most intense”: Patrice Bollon, Pigalle, p. 18.
2 “I didn’t have”: Berteaut, p. 38.
3 “It’s not easy”: Ibid., p. 39.
4 “There is nothing”: René Fallet, Pigalle (Paris: Dormat, 1949), quoted in Bollon, p. 7.
5 “Edith never spoke of him”: Berteaut, p. 43.
6 “I had to look out”: EP, Ma vie, p. 19.
7 “had a soft spot”: Le Breton, La Môme Piaf, pp. 12–13.
8 “Her shoes”: Ibid., pp. 14–15.
9 “It was a mystery”: Maurice Maillet, Edith Piaf inconnue, pp. 33, 38.
10 “Life-saving shock”: EP, Ma vie, p. 20.
11 “the tough guy”: Ibid., p. 21.
12 “I had a desperate, almost morbid, need”: Ibid., pp. 22–23.
13 “When she tried to reason”: Maillet, pp. 40–41.
14 “She took strength”: Ibid., pp. 43–44.
15 “she prayed”: Marc Bonel and Danielle Bonel, Edith Piaf, p. 200.
16 “For eight days”: EP, Ma vie, p. 120.
17 “Ten francs”: Ibid., p. 122.
18 “You’re right”: EP quoted in Jean Noli, Edith, pp. 77–78.
19 “It was a very dark moment”: Berteaut, p. 44.
20 “She must have been”: EP quoted in Jacqueline Cartier and Hugues Vassal, Edith et Thérèse, p. 163.
CHAPTER FOUR • 1935–1936
1 “People have the wrong”: Berteaut, pp. 45–46.
2 “the pianist”: Ibid., p. 45.
3 “Her songs expressed”: Ketty, in Marchois, Opinions, p. 147.
4 “Fate took me”: EP, Au bal, p. 33.
5 “We