Edith Piaf, Paris, and Père Lachaise

Marion Cotillard's Oscar-winning portrayal of Edith Piaf brought the legend to life, and my own Piaf chronicles almost full circle.

France went into mourning when Madame Piaf died, on Thursday, October 10, 1963. Over four hundred thousand watched as her funeral procession wound through the gray streets of Paris' Belleville neighborhood to Père Lachaise Cemetery. I was ten and pressing autumn leaves between wax paper for a sixth grade science class project due that Friday, that I still have. She was the French singer who married Marcel Cerdan. I knew who he was; from a story in SPORT magazine. World middleweight champ, "The Fighter We'll Never Forget" who, like several rock stars, had died young, in a plane crash. I had never heard of Edith Piaf. She wasn't on the top 40. But Cerdan liked her. That meant I had to find out more about her.

College French classes and a Phillips label album titled "Adieu Little Sparrow" filled in some details. She used as a stage name a word that could also describe a creature of the street or gutter or, in some contexts, less complimentary things. It was like calling yourself Johnny Rotten. She was the first punk.

She wrote song lyrics but wasn't credited because she didn't belong to the French music publishing equivalent of ASCAP and BMI because she couldn't pass the entrance exam because she couldn't read. Was that true? The more questions you asked, the more questions you asked. Why, of all the rock-era American songs, was "Black Denim Trousers" the only one she covered? With one foot in the grave, did she really marry someone young enough to be her son? What was so special, anyway, about someone who always wore black and never sang a happy song in her life?

Monsieur Tom learned that there were happy songs; and it was he who, before Annie Savoy did so in "Bull Durham," played "La Vie En Rose" to set a proper romantic mood. He also met a française who, as a girl, had fought in the Resistance during 1944; who married an American GI and moved to Michigan, who had Piaf albums he never knew existed. (He made sure to get them all on tape.)

The visitor exits the Metro at the Père Lachaise station and walks two blocks down the Avenue Menilmontant. Near the cemetery's main entrance, vendors sell maps and souvenirs. In 1994 I was new in town, with Paris at my disposal for ten days. My French wasn't that good, I was still overwhelmed by the City Of Light, and twelve francs -- about US 2.50 at the time -- seemed like a lot for a map I would never use again. (Little did I know that I would come back twice.) I figured I'd go in, turn right and keep the wall to my right per the Frommer's, wander towards the back corner, and let the spirit of Madame Piaf lead me to her.

Père Lachaise is an old cemetery. In above-ground crypts, vaults stand open; their lids moved aside as if the occupants had gone somewhere and were due back at any moment. Famous names appear on worn tombstones: Frederic Chopin, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan. And not-so-famous names: former Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo; Ferdinand de Lesseps, chief engineer of the Suez Canal project. There is also Jim Morrison, in a category of his own. He was easy to find. His was the grave site with all the kids in black clothes standing around it.

Madame Piaf was also easy to find. Hers was the crypt covered with fresh flowers. Thirty-one years later, ils ne pas oublier.

Famille Gaisson-Piaf. Madame Lamboukas dite Edith Piaf, read the inscriptions. In the multi-level gravesite are also father Louis Gaisson, daughter Marcelle, and Theophalis Lamboukas, the young Greek guy whom she married one year and one day before her death, whom she re-named Theo Sarapo.

Why are you going to Paris? I was asked. What's there to see that you can't see in books? Do you speak French? (Say something.) Do you have a credit card? Don't lose your passport. Don't forget to take enough clean clothes. GOOD clothes . . . why are you going back? Didn't you see it all the first time? Stay away from . . . Well-meaning mothers are not the best travel agents. Yet the Paris calendar remained tacked up in Mom's kitchen all the way through 1995.

People you thought were, if not friends, benign acquaintances, also don't like it when someone does something they've wished they could have, but never managed to pull off. Paris means passports and traveler's checks and strange food and ten hours in the air each way and day after day in a place where the native language isn't English. It's easier to label as a faggot anyone who would dare express an interest in French culture or show them a picture of Edith Piaf's grave site.

But it was a Pathé-Marconi label re-issue album of Piaf hits, purchased in a used record shop on the Boulevard St. Germain, that earned Monsieur points with a certain hotel concierge who came from an era when imperfect French was simply not acceptable.

You like her, don't you? Mom asked. Yes, I said; and I would go back, to explore the working class Belleville neighborhood that "Piaf" the movie brought to life. After all the travel misadventures and dumb questions and insults, I would open a fourth folder of Paris pictures and think: Non! Je ne regrette rien!