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West France with AFP.
Posted on 01/10/2018 at 15h19
Read the digital newspaper the singer Charles Aznavour died in the night from Sunday to Monday 1st October, at the age of 94 years. The "French Sinatra" leaves behind an impressive international career.
His titles have made the whole globe vibrate for decades, marking several generations: "La bohème", "I already saw myself", "La Mamma", "as they say"... From the height of his sixty-five metre, Charles Aznavour, who died in the night from Sunday to Monday at 94 years old, was the last "great" of the French song, of which he was the ambassador throughout the world.
"I made an unexpected but exemplary career," the French Sinatra had entrusted. "It's all about luck." of luck but also of talent and will, since he had to fight in his beginnings to impose his size, his physique and his voice atypical, before arriving at the top of the poster.
Charles Aznavour (right) and Mick Micheyl in 1957. | Afp
"Critical side, I was served: it was said that I was ugly, small, that one should not let the cripples sing," recounted the one that the Anglo-Saxon critic had nicknamed in his debut "Aznovoice" (pun meant: he has no voice).
Charles Aznavour (real name Aznavourian) was born in Paris to a couple of immigrants from Armenia who were waiting for a visa for the United States. He will keep strong ties with the country of his ancestors. In his early days, he wanted to become an actor and made figuration in theatre and cinema.
Debut under the sponsorship of Edith Piaf
Aznavour embarked on the duet song with Pierre Roche in the early years of 1940. In 1946, he met Charles Trent and Edith Piaf. She calls him "genius con" and forces him to do his nose again. He writes for others ("bluer than the blue of your Eyes" for PIAF, "I Hate Sundays", refused by PIAF but adopted by Juliette Greco) but has no success as an interpreter and sees muffled of the unflattering moniker of "Husky towards gold".
Edith Piaf, surrounded by Eddie Constantine (left) and Charles Aznavour, in 1950. | Afp
The Donne changes in the middle of the years 50 with the success of "On My Life" (1954) and passages to the famous Parisian concert hall the Olympia. At the cinema, he toured with François Truffaut to "shoot the Pianist" in 1960, the year of the release of "I was already seeing myself", one of his most famous songs.
In 1963, Aznavour triumphed at Carnegie Hall in New York City and became an international star and embarked on a world tour. He then went to Armenia for the first time.
Two years later, he mounted the operetta "Monsieur Carnaval", from where "La Bohème" was drawn. In 1968, he married a Swede, Ulla Thorsell, in the third marriage.
Charles Aznavour and Swedish supermodel Ulla Thorssel at their wedding in Las Vegas on January 5, 1967. | Afp
His songs on the International
In the years 1970, Aznavour rubbed shoulders with societal themes in his songs: "Dying To Love", taken from the film of the same name and inspired by the suicide of a teacher in 1969 after an affair with a pupil, or "as they say", which evokes homosexuality.
The greatest artists take up his songs: Ray Charles sings "La Mamma" (written by Aznavour with Robert Gall, the father of France Gall), Fred Astaire "old-fashioned Pleasures" and Bing Crosby "Yesterday Again". He also pursued his career in cinema, including "The Drum," by Volker Schlöndorff (1979) or "The Ghosts of the Hatter" by Claude Chabrol (1982).
In 1988, he helped Armenia, which had been wounded by an earthquake, founded the "Aznavour for Armenia" committee and wrote the text of the humanitarian song "For You Armenia".
Continue the scene to the end
In 1991, he shared the stage in Paris with his friend Liza Minnelli, and in 1995 bought the musical editions Raoul Breton (PIAF, Trent, and later Linda Lemay).
When others think about retirement, he continues to chain records, souvenir books and concerts around the world. "I never, ever uttered the word farewell!", he was in 2011, before starting a series of 22 concerts at the Olympia for his 87 years.
Charles Aznavour in Carthage, Tunisia, in 2009. | STR/EPA/MAXPPP
On stage, he impresseded by his vitality intact and made only a few concessions at the age: a teleprompter to compensate for the holes of memory, an armchair for the strokes of fatigue, on which he rested more often in September for the latter Representations in Japan after having fractured an arm this summer.
In one of the songs, "I Will abdicate," Aznavour evoked death by ironically amusing himself with his status as a monument to the song: "If I still have a beautiful spectacle to do/a beautiful burial would flatter my ego."
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