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by journalists. “Smile, Edith,” the photographers said, to her dismay until she got used to the American habit of using first names—their way of showing affection, she decided. It was harder to get used to their way of saying her name: to French ears it sounded like “Eedees.” (To Americans, “Edith” pronounced in French resembled “Ay-deet.”) Unsure how to introduce the little French star to its readers, the New York Times called her a torch singer who “during the war won a large following among our GIs.” She was an odd kind of chanteuse, another Times reporter wrote: “no sequins, no slinkiness, no sophistication for Mlle. Piaf,” nor would her appearance have matched “a Hollywood casting director’s notion of good looks.”

While Les Compagnons marveled at the scale of life in prosperous New York—the skyscrapers, street carts purveying hot dogs at all hours, the Camel cigarette man blowing smoke rings over Times Square—Edith studied the American character. New Yorkers were always in a hurry, she decided, yet they were punctual, “a quality that I find commendable because I do not possess it myself.” What was more, they kept their promises. They were also “practical” and “easily pleased,” and had a touch of “just-a-boy-at-heart naïveté” that she found endearing. Soon after their arrival, a small plane flew over Manhattan with a streamer that read “Maurice Chevalier is coming back,” the United States having finally granted him a visa after his exoneration at home. If Chevalier was the typical Frenchman abroad, Piaf might become his female counterpart—provided she could express herself in English as he did, with a touch of Belleville gouaille and a “charming” French accent.

Edith set about learning English with the help of a tutor named Miss Davidson, one of the punctual Americans she admired in principle but whose 11 a.m. arrivals quickly lost their charm. In between lessons she studied a manual called L’Anglais sans peine (English Without Tears), which explained that the English “th” was pronounced as if one were lisping. But Miss Davidson’s knowledge of Belleville slang soon outshone Edith’s command of English. Still, she had “La Vie en rose” and other songs translated for New York audiences and set about learning them word by word. “What a marvelous country, and such kind people,” she wrote Bourgeat. “My nerves are on edge. I really want to touch their hearts, because I’m quite fond of them.”

Opening night, October 30, was a success, in large part because of the luminaries who came to the Playhouse in numbers—among them Lena Horne, Greta Garbo, Noël Coward, Gene Kelly, John Garfield, and Marlene Dietrich, who would become one of Edith’s closest friends. These veterans of show business enjoyed the old-fashioned variety show (hetero- and homosexual dance teams, unicycle riders, and two male gymnasts billed as “Poetry in Motion”) that preceded Les Compagnons, the highlight of the first act. After the intermission, they applauded warmly for each of Piaf’s eight numbers, including “Le Disque usé,” “Si tu partais,” and “La Vie en rose”—introduced by a master of ceremonies who gave awkward translations of the lyrics. (Her slangy classic “Je m’en fous pas mal” became “I Shouldn’t Care,” but listeners responded nonetheless to its insouciance.)

One member of the audience remained unmoved by Piaf’s entire program. The prominent critic George Jean Nathan began by allowing that four dollars was a lot to pay for a show “of the kind encountered in the past in one or another of the little music halls on the Paris Left Bank, admission to which was a few francs, or in some cases, merely the appearance of having enough sous in one’s pocket to pay for a beer.” Nathan’s review went downhill rapidly. Calling those who applauded Les Compagnons a claque, he reserved his barbs for the “small, chunky woman with tousled reddish hair, heavily mascara’d eyes, and a mouth made up to look like a quart bottle of [mercurochrome].” After noting her “forlorn appearance,” he disparaged her voice, “which, whatever the nature of the song, cultivates the pitch