"To sing about love, you have to be handsome," they tell a young unknown man who imitates Charles Trenet in an elegant Parisian venue where German soldiers met with their conquests. He wants to sing his own songs, but they won't let him. He is Varenagh Aznavourian, also known as Charles Aznavour, who would later become the great gentleman of French song.
This quote appears in the film Monsieur Aznavour, a dramatic biopic directed and written by Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade that has brought tears to several members of his family, especially to his children Misha (54) and Katia (56) who, along with Katia's husband, producer Jean Rachid Kallouche, have been part of the creative process. For his mother, Ulla, third wife and widow of the author of La bohème (1966), it has been a difficult experience. Remembering half a century of love hurts in the heart.
The theatrical release is on October 31. This time, Aznavour is embodied by Tahar Rahim, a sublime performance that earned him a nomination for the César for Best Actor in 2025.
His birth in Paris in May 1924 came after his parents' miraculous exile, Mischa Aznavourian and Knar Baghdasaryan, due to the Armenian genocide in Turkey (1915-1918) by the Ottoman Empire. His sister Aida was born a year earlier in Greece.
These were times of great uncertainty and poverty. The family lived in a tiny apartment in the French capital. After Mischa and Knar could not continue with their shows, the patriarch opened a restaurant where he used to perform with his son and where they often served food to the less fortunate. They closed because the accounts didn't add up, so Knar supported her family as a seamstress.
The kindness of the Aznavours extended throughout World War II as they risked their lives to shelter Armenians and Jews persecuted by the Nazi Army. In honor of their altruistic work and in memory of their parents, Charles and Aida were honored with the Raoul Wallenberg Medal in 2017. Coincidentally, Aida Aznavour passed away on October 22 at the age of 102.
Thanks to her, letters, recordings, and brochures have been preserved since the two brothers debuted in 1933 in small productions. This essential documentation is reflected in the biography Petit frère, which also reveals historical data on the Aznavours' connection to the French Resistance.
To pay for his music and theater classes, Charles sold newspapers, made some extra money in local contests, and at the beginning of World War II, he took the risk of selling perfumes, chocolate, and lingerie on the black market.
For the first time, in 1942, when he met pianist Pierre Roche, a ray of light shone on his imminent future. The duo Roche & Aznavour received help from publisher Raoul Breton, who in 1947 introduced them to Edith Piaf. Although the artist always denied they were lovers, "she wasn't my type," he confessed to The Telegraph in 2018, the rest assumed they were. At that time, Aznavour had been married for a year to singer Micheline Rugel, with whom he had two children, Seda (78) and Charles (73). The marriage ended in 1952 when she found out that a year earlier the singer had been unfaithful to her with cabaret dancer Arlette Bordais, with whom he had a son named Patrick, who died in 1975 from a drug overdose.
Edith Piaf was so excited about the duet that she invited them to tour with her in France and later in the United States between 1947 and 1948. Their arrival in New York was problematic as they were detained on Ellis Island until Piaf paid the bail due to their lack of proper documentation. The duo dissolved because Roche decided to settle in Canada, while Charles missed France.
At the beginning of the 1950s, Piaf, who nicknamed Aznavour the stupid genius, paid for the nose operation he had trouble with during the Occupation of France by the Axis Forces. According to The Connexion, the Nazi Army mistook him for a Jew due to the size of his nose. He proved he wasn't by showing them his uncircumcised penis.
In addition to being a lyricist and right-hand man of Piaf, for whom he had written Plus bleu que tes yeux, Aznavour also worked as a driver and errand boy, with his salary he was able to leave the attic without light and water where he had been living.
Thanks to the interpreter of La vie en rose, Aznavour was a witness to his own life. Piaf gave him a Super 8 camera with which he immortalized many of his trips, concerts, and intimate moments with his loved ones. His friend, director Marc di Domenico, edited the footage to create the documentary Le Regard de Charles.
A year after marrying Evelyne Plessis, with whom he had no children, Aznavour had his first major success as a composer with Sur ma vie (1956), with which he debuted at the Olympia in Paris, where he became the headliner the following year.
Although he had made a cameo in cinema in 1936, his first significant role was in the film La Tête contre les Murs (1959), which led to a dazzling career with 63 films.By the early 60s, he had already become a star after composing and singing Les Deux Guitares, Toi et moi, Les Comédiens, or For Me Formidable and creating great songs for Juliette Gréco, Gilbert Bécaud, Maurice Chevalier, or Serge Gainsbourg.
Few had bet on him. They said he was too short, too ugly, and had a horrible voice. In fact, a critic even went as far as to mock him, as recalled by the Daily News: "Why have they left a cripple on stage?"
Admired in the United States, in 1967 he married for the third and final time in Las Vegas with Swedish Ulla Thorsell, with whom he had three children, Katia, Misha, and Nicolás (48). Although his tax residence was in Switzerland, the family was in love with France, where he spent several months a year for almost three decades in Mouriès, on the French Riviera, in a villa of 660 square meters.
His legacy has been immense. More than 1,200 songs in seven languages and over 180 million records sold. Time magazine and CNN named him the most important pop singer of the 20th century in 1988; in 2017, at 93 years old, he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Bad Bunny recently paid tribute to him, and Bob Dylan tips his hat to him. He was close to Chirac and Sarkozy.
In his last interview with Vogue France in 2017, the singer-songwriter considered that "posterity is useless. I don't believe in it at all. Nothing will outlive me. Three or four songs maybe, but my name will be forgotten. What would I like to leave behind? (...) To be honest, what I would like to leave are the royalties for my grandchildren. I will be able to rest in peace." And he has been doing so since October 1, 2018.