Saturday, June 2, 2012

V:1952 - On stage...

A Woman's New York by Alice Hughes

EDITH PIAF's TRICK IS TO MAKE NEW YORKERS FEEL

   Each season folks trek to the Versailles Cafe to hear Edith Piaf. She's not much to look at; white-faced, dyed reddish hair, figure too thin in some places, too bumpy else where and too short for graceful clothes. She has almost no jewels and her stocking color is wrong for the corrective shoes she wears. No apllied glamor whatsoever, but the unmistakable talent she possesses in her throat, hands and soul. The way she sings makes you feel. If there's one thing New York audiences never get enough of, it is emotional reaction. Most folks are dead pan through a performance; "sit on their hands." But not when La Piaf is singing. The Versailles Cafe is said to pay her $4,000 a week for her twice-a-night warbling, and keeps re-engaging her season after season. So her love agonies put to song prove profitable.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Saturday, May 19, 2012

I: 1948 - Opening night...

It Happened Last Night by Earl Wilson

PIAF TEACHES FRENCH TO E.W.

   I was a linguistic triumph parading my Ohio State University French at Edith Piaf's hit opening at Nick and Arnold's Versailles.

Monday, May 14, 2012

VI:1955 - Celebrated visitors...

Edith Piaf - Versailles - New York - 1955
Left to right : James Michener - Shirley Yamaguchi - - Joe DiMaggio.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

VII:1956 - Dressingroom visitors...

Edith Piaf and Daniel Morgaine - Versailles - 1956
Left to right : Daniel Morgaine - .


     [...] nous sommes installés à l'une des meilleures tables de ce gigantesque cabaret qui offre aux New-Yorkais l'illusion de se trouver à la cour d'un roi-soleil, version Néron.
     Le miracle de la voix de Piaf se produit une fois de plus. Une voix qui empoigne, donne le frisson, confère aux paroles les plus banales une force, une conviction stupéfiantes.
     A la fin du spectacle je me faufile dans les coulises que je connais bien en tirant maman par la main:
     - Nous allons la déranger, murmure-t-elle. Ce n'est pas la peine, Daniel. Allons-nous en... Elle doit être fatiguée...

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Saturday, April 21, 2012

IV:1950 - Opening night...

Pitching Horseshoes with Billy Rose

   I was at the Versailles a couple of Wednesdays ago when Piaf opened, and the ringside tables were filled, not by characters with blackjacks and broken noses, but by the kind of people who really belong down front — Ginger Rogers, Louis Sobol, Judy Garland and Prince Serge Obolensky, who hasn't toted a gun since he was a paratrooper in the last war. As for the rest of the room — well, it was jam-packed with plain Joes and Jennies out for a good time—folks you could rub up against without getting homicide all over you.
   Billy Rose