Édith Piaf- La Vie En Rose - 1954

Today is the birthday of Édith Piaf, shown here performing “La Vie En Rose” in 1954. This from the Writer’s Almanac:

It's the birthday of singer Edith Piaf, born Edith Giovanna Gassion, in Paris (1915). Piaf's mother was a cafe singer who abandoned her at birth, and her father was an acrobat who took her with him on tours and encouraged her to sing on the streets and in cafés. In a few years, she was singing in the top music halls of Paris and she had recorded two records. The passion and depression Edith Piaf's velvety voice conveyed earned her many famous admirers. Jean Cocteau wrote a play for her. To aid the French Resistance in World War II, Piaf traveled to German prisoner-of-war camps and sang for the French inmates. During these tours, she would be photographed with the POWs and those pictures would be enlarged and put on false ID cards, which she would distribute on the next visit. Today, there's a plaque in Paris where she was born that says, "On the steps of this house... was born into the greatest poverty Edith Piaf, whose voice later stunned the world."