French singer and actor earned global recognition
PARIS — Charles Aznavour, the French crooner and actor whose performing career spanned eight decades and who endeared himself to fans around the world with his versatile tenor, lush lyrics and kinetic stage presence, has died. He was 94.
One of France’s most recognized faces, Aznavour sang to sold-out concert halls until the end, resorting to a prompter only after having written upwards of 1,000 songs by his own estimate, including the classic “La Boheme.”
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Aznavour’s “masterpieces, voice tone” and “unique radiance.”
“Deeply French, viscerally attached to his Armenian roots, recognized throughout the world, Charles Aznavour will have accompanied the joys and sorrows of three generations,” Macron said.
Often compared to Frank Sinatra, Aznavour started his career as a songwriter for Edith Piaf. The French chanteuse took him under her wing. Like her, his fame ultimately reached well outside France.
Aznavour was one of the Armenian diaspora’s most recognized voices and vocal defenders, but he sang in numerous languages. His reputation in the U.S. spanned generations.
Throughout his career, Aznavour wrote for Piaf and other popular French singers. The love ballad “She” topped British charts for four weeks in 1974 and was covered by Elvis Costello for the film “Notting Hill.”
Liza Minnelli, who met Aznavour when she was a teenager, described following him to Paris.
“He really taught me everything I know about singing — how each song is a different movie,” she said in a 2013 interview. The two remained close through the decades, often performing together.
He resisted the description of crooner, despite decades of torch songs that are now firmly fixed in the French lexicon.
“I’m a songwriter who sometimes performs his own songs,” was his preferred self-description.
Shanoun Varenagh Aznavourian was born in Paris on May 22, 1924, to Armenian parents who fled to Paris in the 1920s and opened a restaurant. His singer father — whose own father was a chef to Russian Czar Nicholas II — and actress mother exposed him to the performing arts early on, and he acted in his first play when he was 9.
Aznavour, who cut the Armenian suffix from his stage name, decided to switch to music but still acted in films throughout his career. His movie credits include Francois Truffaut’s 1960 “Tirez sur le Pianiste” (Shoot the Pianist), Volker Schloendorff ’s 1979 “Die Blechtrommel” (The Tin Drum), and Atom Egoyan’s 2002 “Ararat.”
In 2001, the singer was awarded France’s prestigious National Order of Merit. In April 2002, along with other French celebrities, he urged people to sing France’s national anthem in a campaign to defeat far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his antiimmigrant stance.
“If Le Pen had existed (in my parents’ time), I wouldn’t have been born in France,” Aznavour said at the time.
Married three times, Aznavour had six children and is survived by his third wife.