October 10, 1963: Édith Piaf Dies

October 10, 1963: Édith Piaf dies in Paris at age 47, after years of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse stemming from a car accident years earlier.

She was born as Édith Giovanna Gassion in Paris, on December 19, 1915, a week after Frank Sinatra. She began touring with her father at age 14. She had an affair, and at age 17, gave birth to a daughter, Marcelle, who died from meningitis 2 years later. Marcelle would be her only child.

In 1935, she was hired by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, who gave her her stage name, La Môme Piaf. There is a dispute as to the translation: Either "The Bonnet Kid" or "The Sparrow Kid." He also gave Édith her signature look, a black dress. He was murdered by gangsters in 1936, and since she knew them, she was questioned as an accomplice by the police, but cleared.

Her image was in tatters, but her next boyfriend, songwriter Raymond Asso, built her back up. He changed her name to Édith Piaf, kept the undesirables away, and, in addition to the songs he wrote for her, brought Marguerite Monnot in to write songs for her, many of them reflecting her life as a poor kid in Paris.

In 1940, she starred in Le Bel Indifférent, a play by Jean Cocteau, then one of France's greatest living writers, and a lifelong friend thereafter. Despite the Nazi occupation, her fame grew, and she became a symbol of French Resistance. She performed at Paris' legendary Moulin Rouge nightclub, and began an affair with actor Yves Montand.

By 1947, 2 songs that she wrote had become famous all over the world: Her own recording of "La Vie en Rose" (The Life In Pink), and "What Can I Do?" recorded by Montand, Montand became as popular as she was, and she couldn't take it, and she broke up with him. She soon began an affair with Marcel Cerdan, who had been Middleweight Champion of the World. That affair ended when Cerdan died in a plane crash in 1949.

"France's national chanteuse" became popular in America. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 8 times, including live in 1950 and 1956 during her tours, the other times with clips filmed in Paris.

In 1952, Piaf married her 1st husband, singer Jacques Pills. They divorced 5 years later. In 1960, in a successful effort to save the Paris Olympia music hall from bankruptcy, she recorded Charles Dumont's song "Non, je ne regrette rien" ("No, I do not regret anything"), and performed several concerts at the Olympia. In 1962, she married Théo Sarapo, a Parisian-born singer of Greek descent who was 20 years younger. 

But she was in a bad car crash in 1951, and, on top of her alcoholism, she became addicted to the painkiller morphine. She was in 2 more car crashes, and her drug dependency deepened. Her liver was hopelessly damaged, she developed cancer in it, and died on October 10, 1963, at her country home in Plascassier. Sarapo drove her body back to Paris, so her fans would believe she died there.

Her death was announced the next day. Cocteau gave a tearful public statement about it, and died later that day. But he already, literally, had a broken heart: He had suffered a heart attack the previous April. And he was not young, 74.

Sarapo also died young, in 1970, at 34, in a car crash, in Limoges, France.

In the film Bull Durham, Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) played a record of her singing "Non, je ne regrette rien" as a prelude to romance.

Marion Cotillard played Piaf in the 2007 film La Vie en Rose, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, the 1st time an Oscar had ever been given for a French-language role. Although the facial resemblance was undeniable, Piaf was 5 feet even and Cotillard is 5-foot-10, and so some special effects were necessary.

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October 10, 1963 was a Thursday. The baseball season ended 4 days earlier, when the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a 4-game sweep of the New York Yankees. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 6 days later.

There was 1 score on this historic day, and it was in the NHL: The Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Gordie Howe scored 2 goals for the Wings. The Hawks got a goal from Bobby Hull and another from Stan Mikita, but it wasn't enough.