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No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf by Carolyn Burke

by
September 2011, no. 334

No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf by Carolyn Burke

Bloomsbury, $32.99 pb, 282 pp

No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf by Carolyn Burke

by
September 2011, no. 334

In the autumn of 1962, as a student in Paris, I went to watch Edith Piaf perform atop the Eiffel Tower. My memory is of being in a thick crowd at ground level, straining to see a tiny floodlit figure while a huge metallic voice resounded across the night sky: ‘Non, je ne regrette rien …’ In this new biography of Piaf, Carolyn Burke reminds us that this was a publicity event for the launch of Daryl Zanuck’s film about D-Day, The Longest Day. Piaf, at forty-six, her health ruined, had only a year to live, but still managed to overcome her frailty and her fear of heights to project her whole being into the iconic image that the world had of her.

Colin Nettelbeck reviews 'No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf' by Carolyn Burke

No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf

by Carolyn Burke

Bloomsbury, $32.99 pb, 282 pp

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