No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [136]
38 “Edith, the pianist, and I”: Andrée Bigard, in Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 29.
39 “I loved him”: EP to Glanzberg, March 31, 1944, in Freyeisen, p. 163.
40 “She wasn’t up to”: Gassion, pp. 78–79.
CHAPTER EIGHT • 1944–1946
1 “We said goodbye”: Madame Billy, p. 130.
2 “powerful emotions”: Françoise Holbane, “Edith Piaf au Moulin de la Galette,” Paris-Midi, June 6, 1944.
3 “His personality was terrific”: EP, Au bal, p. 109.
4 “I had fallen in love”: Yves Montand, with Hervé Hamon and Patrick Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, pp. 108–9.
5 “Yves never argued”: Contet quoted in ibid., pp. 110–11.
6 “Montand, who is beginning”: Midi-Soir, Nov. 10, 1944, quoted in ibid., p. 124.
7 “Don’t be a fool!”: EP quoted in ibid., p. 118.
8 “No sanction”: Herbert Lottman, The People’s Anger, pp. 259–60. Cf. Duclos and Martin, pp. 225–26.
9 “some of which were”: EP quoted in “Les 118 Evadés d’Edith Piaf,” Ce Soir, Oct. 21, 1944.
10 “the songs you can’t drop”: Montand, p. 124.
11 “this tall handsome guy”: “Edith Piaf triomphe aux nouveautés,” Victoire Tendance, Nov. 25, 1944, in Marchois, Piaf: Emportée, p. 32.
12 “She was a little shaken”: Lydia Livi Ferroni quoted in Montand, p. 125.
13 “Don’t try to rise”: Serge Weber, in Francs-Tireurs, Feb. 15, 1945, in Brierre, p. 67.
14 “tristesse souriante”: Pierre Francis, “Edith Piaf et Yves Montand au Théâtre des Variétés” [April 1945], in Marchois, Piaf: Emportée, p. 43.
15 “When I toured with Yves”: EP quoted in Monique Lange, Piaf, p. 100.
16 title, lyrics, and music: Because Piaf had SACEM accreditation as a lyricist but not as a composer, she asked Marguerite Monnot to lend her name to “La Vie en rose.” When Monnot refused, Piaf turned to her old friend and accompanist Louiguy (Louis Guglielmi), who agreed.
17 “What triggered their shared distress”: Montand, p. 128 (these remarks by Hamon and Rotman).
18 shouting “Bravo!”: René Bizet, in Paris-Presse, Sept. 15, 1945, quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 242.
19 “small-time hoods”: Jean Wiener, in Spectateur, Oct. 3, 1945, in Marchois, Piaf: Emportée, p. 44.
20 “the strongest personality”: Max Favalelli, in La Dépêche de Paris, Oct. 28–29, 1945, in Montand, p. 133.
21 “Maybe you’re right”: Enclosed in EP to JB, Oct. 29, 1945.
22 “A telegram”: Ibid.
23 “I shall always be proud”: EP, Au bal, pp. 112–13.
24 “When Edith managed”: Danielle Bonel quoted in Brierre, p. 69, where the author also quotes a contemporary of Piaf’s who claims that she engineered the break by telling Montand that he did not need her. It is tempting to think that Piaf’s way of provoking the ends of liaisons in some way replayed the dynamics of her abandonment by her mother.
25 “mountains of snow”: EP to JB, Saint Moritz, Feb. 19, 1946.
26 “boy-scout-like”: EP, Au bal, pp. 115–16.
27 “the strange marriage”: Jean Cocteau, “Les Compagnons de la Chanson,” Diogène, May 24, 1946, in Marchois, Piaf: Emportée, p. 45.
28 “lessons”: EP to JB, June 20, 1946.
29 “Words and music”: Henri Contet, “Du Palais de Chaillot au Club des Cinq,” Toujours Paris, May 23–29, 1946, in Marchois, Piaf: Emportée, p. 46.
CHAPTER NINE • 1946–1948
1 “In the troubled post-Liberation”: Jean-Claude Klein, Florilège de la chanson française, p. 206.
2 “modernize”: EP, Au bal, p. 117.
3 “Madame Edith Piaf is a genius”: Jean Cocteau, text read May 16, 1946, in EP, Au bal, preface, and in Duclos and Martin, p. 253.
4 “I cannot allow”: Fred Mella, Mes Maîtres enchanteurs, pp. 100, 105.
5 “She thought of herself”: Jean-Louis Jaubert, in Marchois, Edith Piaf: Opinions, p. 144.
6 “Know that all of Paris”: EP telegram quoted in Dominique Grimault and Patrick Mahé, Piaf Cerdan, p. 34.
7 “It began very badly”: EP quoted in Duclos and Martin, p. 260.
8 “the heat”: EP to JB, Sept. 4, 1946.
9 “I love you as I have never”: EP to Dimitris Horn, in Helena Smith, “Yes, Piaf Did Have One Great Regret,” Guardian, Dec. 8, 2008, p. 17.
10 “If a song”: EP quoted in Henri Spade, “Edith Piaf chante le malheur mais croit au bonheur,” Radio 46, Nov. 22,