Emma Saïd Ben Mohamed (10 December 1876 – 18 July 1930) was a French circus performer. She was the maternal grandmother of

Edith Piaf Edith is a feminine given name derived from the Old English word , meaning ''wealth'' or ''prosperity'', in combination with the Old English , meaning '' strife'', and is in common usage in this form in English, German, many Scandinavian lang ...

, France's national chanteuse.

Early life

Emma was born on 10 December 1876 in her parents' car, which was stationed on the rue de la Paix in Soissons, France. Her father, Saïd Ben Mohamed, an Algerian Kabyle acrobat, was born in 1827 in Mogador, now known as

Essaouira Essaouira ( ; ), known until the 1960s as Mogador (, or ), is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. It has 77,966 inhabitants as of 2014. The foundation of the city of Essaouira was the work of t ...

today.Death certificate Year 1890, France, Montluçon (03), 1890, N°501, 2E 191 194 Her mother, Margherita (alternatively ''Marguerite''; née Bracco), also an acrobat, was born in 1830 in Murazzano, Italy. Saïd and Margherita were married on 4 February 1853 in Poitiers. Two of Margherita's sisters, Anna and Maria Elisabetta, also married Moroccan circus performers.

Career

In 1894, Emma married fellow circus performer Auguste Eugène Maillard, whom she met while they were touring with the circus. Her stage name at this time was Aïcha. In 1895, their daughter, Annetta Giovanna was born in Livorno. Annetta became a cabaret singer under the stage name of

Line Marsa Annetta Giovanna Gassion (; 4 August 1895 – 6 February 1945), known by stage name Line Marsa, was a French cabaret singer and circus performer, as an equestrian and tightrope artist. She is best known as the mother of internationally renowned s ...

. In 1915, Annetta gave birth to a daughter, French singer

Édith Piaf Édith Giovanna Gassion (19 December 1915 – 10 October 1963), known as Édith Piaf (), was a French singer and lyricist best known for performing songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres. She is widely regarded as France's greatest popu ...

. Emma's husband Eugène died in 1912. Emma became the primary caregiver of her granddaughter Édith from 1915 to 1918. However Édith was a neglected child, and she was sent to her paternal grandmother in Normandy. Emma remarried in 1923 to Adolphe Louis Cornu, a hairdresser. At the beginning of the 1920s, she lost her ability to sing, and she became a cleaner.

Death

A smoker and an alcoholic, Emma died in July 1930, aged 53, of tuberculosis.

In popular culture

Emma was portrayed by Farida Amrouche in

Olivier Dahan Olivier Dahan (; born 26 June 1967) is a French film director and screenwriter. His third directed film, '' La Vie en Rose'', was one of the only French cinema films to win two Academy Awards, including the first acting Oscar in the French lang ...

's biopic ''

La vie en rose ; ) is the signature song of popular French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947. The song became very popular in the United States in 1950, when seven versions reached the ''Billboard'' cha ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohamed, Emma Said Ben 1876 births 1930 deaths 19th-century French women singers 20th-century French women singers Édith Piaf French people of Italian descent French people of Kabyle descent People from Soissons 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis French circus performers Tuberculosis deaths in France