Legendary French singer, lyricist Charles Aznavour dies at 94
The legendary French singer Charles Aznavour — who said last week he would be happy to breathe his last on stage — has died aged 94, his spokeswoman said this week.
The songwriter, who had j ust returned from a concert tour of Japan, passed away at his home in Alpilles in southeastern France.
The veteran French actor Alain Delon said his old friend had “died in his sleep”.
“I loved that man. I am in bits,” he said.
Aznavour had to cancel several shows after breaking his arm in a fall earlier this year. But as late as Friday the diminutive singer told French television that though his Swedish-born wife wanted him to stop, he would happily die on stage.
“I always go forwards. I have no reverse gear,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron led the tributes, praising his “unique brilliance”.
“Proudly French, viscerally attached to his Armenian roots, known all over the world, Charles Aznavour accompanied three generations through their joys and pains,” he said.
Multilingual and a tireless traveller, Aznavour was named Entertainer of the Century by CNN in 1998.
He pioneered a new, highly emotional way of performing, turning every song into “a one-act play”.
In the English-speaking world he was often dubbed France’s Frank Sinatra.
But unlike the American crooner, he wrote his own songs, often breaking taboos about marriage, homosexuality and men talking about their emotions.
He was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris on May 22, 1924, to parents who had fled the massacres in their homeland when the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Aznavour went on to sell more than 180 million records in a career spanning eight decades.
Ironically, his favourite song was one of the few in his repertoire he didn’t write himself, La Boheme.
His family were heroes of the resistance against the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, regularly risking death to hide Jews and Communist partisans in their Paris apartment.
He began performing in their little restaurant with his sister when he was a child.
Aznavour got his big break after the war when he opened for the then-rising French star Edith Piaf. She took him to America as her manager and songwriter while he worked on his voice.
The two lived and drank together but Aznavour said they were never lovers.
“We loved each other but it was not sexual. She wasn’t my type. It’s very important to have a type,” he said.
Aznavour had his first No.1 hit in 1956 with Sur Ma Vie ( In My Life). That was followed by one of his biggest hits, Je M’Voyais Deja ( It Will Be My Day).
But it was his leading role in Francois Truffaut’s film Shoot The Piano Player in 1960 that catapulted Aznavour to international fame.
His classic For Me ... Formidable
followed, while the romantic ballad She was a huge international hit before going on to feature in the film Notting Hill.
As he grew older, Aznavour loved nothing more than toying with his audiences over his advanced age, pretending to trip or to forget his lyrics.
“I’m very old, you know,” he liked to say. “Too old.”