This summer, the whole world remembered the good memories of Edith Piaf during the most anticipated event of the year. At the very end of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Céline Dion, who made her first performance in years, resumed The hymn to love by the French singer for a performance that will be remembered for a long time. During the competition, numerous hits from the one nicknamed “la môme” were heard by spectators and television viewers around the world, alongside standards from Joe Dassin and Michel Sardou.
However, it has now been more than 61 years since Edith Piaf left us, she who died on October 10, 1963 near Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes), of a ruptured aneurysm due to liver failure. His musical heritage, his life, brought to the screen by Marion Cotillard in The Kidand her tragic destiny made her an icon, whose moral right, that is to say the authorization to use her image, belongs today to Catherine Glavas Lamboukas and Christie Laume, the two sisters of her last husband, Théo Sarapo, whose real name is Théophanis Lamboukas. In an interview given to Figaro Last year, the two sisters of the actor and singer of Greek origin, who died in 1970 at only 34 years old in a car accident, confided in this legacy which was inevitably heavy to bear for their late brother and for them.
Théo Sarapo had to work hard to pay off Edith Piaf’s debts
“When she died in 1963, she made our older brother Théo Sarapo, his universal legatee”, specifies Catherine Glavas Lamboukas, before saying more about the heritage of the woman who owned a bastide of 420 square meters in a hamlet of 3,500 inhabitants: “Financially, he inherited the copyright of his songs, notably La vie en rose et The Hymn to Love which she co-signed. He also inherited royalties paid by record companies. But on the other hand, Edith left only debts. There was no fortune in a bank account, no real estate or paintings or jewelry having value.”
Obviously, the death of Edith Piaf and the years that followed were very complicated for the young man. “The years after Edith’s death were very hard. Théo and Edith were nineteen years apart but adored each other. Despite his sadness, Théo, who was a singer, had to give numerous concerts, particularly abroad, to survive. The State seized the slightest revenue. Théo made a point of repaying these debts in full. And he got there”assures his sister.
