Edith Piaf / David Bret

'Every damn fool thing you do in this life, you pay for.' Édith Piaf was one of 20th-century France's brightest stars, an international sensation, and since her death in 1963 has become a legendary figure. Her life story is so compelling that it has become difficult to separate the fact from the fiction, thanks to a wealth of stories, plays, films and biographies designed to lionize: her birth on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72 on a pile of coats; being raised in a brothel; her role in the French resistance; the near misses with death; the money, the men, the moods, the drugs, the fame. Shrouded by these stories, the 'real' Édith Piaf is often indistinguishable from the legend.