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French singer Charles Aznavour has died at the age of 94, the French press reported, quoting his spokesman.
Aznavour, born to Armenian parents Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris, has sold more than 100 million records in 80 countries. With nearly 1,400 songs to his credit – 1,300 that he himself wrote – he has sometimes been described as the French answer to Frank Sinatra for his melancholy and moving style.
He left school at the age of nine to become a child actor and pursued a successful parallel acting career, appearing in particular in Francois Truffaut's new classic, Shoot On The Pianist, The Ghosts of Claude Chabrol's Hatter. (The Hatter's Ghost) and the film adaptation in 1979 of The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass.
His singer career was forged in busy Paris during the Second World War, singing in cabaret shows while his parents were secretly working with the resistance, hiding Jews, communists and other people in their apartment. "French is my working language but my family language is still Armenian," he said in 2017.
Aznavour opened for Edith Piaf at the Moulin Rouge, and the legendary singer was an early advisor – and roommate. "I brought her my youth, my madness, she loved all my jazzy side," he told the Guardian in 2015. She advised him to do a nose job, but to declare "I preferred you" after the operation.
He is perhaps best known for She, a romantic ballad in 1974 in which Aznavour confronts the same joy and the same quarrel in a relationship, while declaring "the meaning of my life is her". He spent four weeks at the top of the UK rankings and was also recorded in French, German, Italian and Spanish. The song was relaunched by Elvis Costello for the Notting Hill 1999 soundtrack, reaching the British number 19.
The ballet director, Sir Matthew Bourne, was among those who paid tribute, saying he was "considered one of the greatest performers of the live song. I had the chance to see him at Royal Albert Hall last year. His interpretation of his own song What Makes A Man A man was unforgettable. Piers Morgan remembers interviewing him, stating, "One of the greatest singers the world has ever seen and a man so smart, eloquent, graceful and charming. "
At the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017, director Peter Bogdanovich said: "Sinatra once declared that each song was a piece of an act with a character and Charles was at the an extraordinary actor and singer. "
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