What nickname did Louis Leplée give Edith Piaf?
In 1930s Belleville a four-foot-ten teenager named Édith Gassion sang beneath the quartier’s only working streetlamp. She believed the yellow glow acted like a spotlight, drawing late-night café drinkers to drop francs into her cap. Her repertoire mixed sailor ballads, café-concert waltzes and shards of opera she’d learned from a neighbour’s gramophone. On 20 October 1935 nightclub owner Louis Leplée walked past and froze at her vibrato cutting through rain. He hired her for his Champs-Élysées club, shortening her stage name to La Môme Piaf (“the little sparrow”).
Wardrobe found a too-large black dress; Piaf kept it, saying the folds hid nerves. Debut posters misspelled her surname as “Piaff,” but she refused corrections—“mistakes bring luck.” Crowds loved her raw delivery; composer Raymond Asso coached her to clip final consonants for dramatic glide. Tragedy struck when Leplée was murdered months later and tabloids linked Piaf to underworld acquaintances. She fought back by touring unheated provincial halls, singing in fox sleeves but no coat so audiences could “see her heart shiver.”
By the 1940s she was mentoring Charles Aznavour and Yves Montand, insisting they busk under that same streetlamp “to earn the echo.” Paris later refurbished the post with a plaque reading Ici chantait Piaf. Each December the city installs a vintage Edison bulb, recreating the 30-watt halo that.
