Pia Colombo

A French singer of Italian origin, Éliane Marie Amélie Colombo, known as Pia Colombo, was born in Homblières in the Aisne region on July 6, 1934, to an emigrant Italian boilermaker father and a French mother from the north of France. Raised by her grandmother, she was reunited with her parents at the age of twelve, and discovered her artistic vocation at a ballet at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1946. Although she was destined for a career as a dancer, illness struck her and her growth stopped in adolescence. She turned to the theater, and met an English teacher and occasional author and composer, who wrote songs for her. Pia Colombo and Maurice Fanon embarked on a love affair that led to marriage from 1960 to 1963, followed by a long friendship and professional collaboration. Hired at the La Colombe cabaret in 1954, then at L'Écluse at the same time as Barbara, in 1956, the singer was signed by the Versailles label, then by Philips, where she enjoyed success with "rive gauche" titles such as "Le Bal de quartier " (1958), "Tique taque", Brel's "La Colombe", Brassens' "Les Croquants" and "Défense d'afficher", offered to her by Serge Gainsbourg. On the bill at the Olympia from 1958, on tour and at Bobino with Brassens, Pia Colombo also performed Maurice Fanon's tailor-made songs, including "Oh dis, l'amour" and "Jean-Marie de Pantin ". Awarded a Coq d'or de la chanson française in 1959, she tried, despite the yé-yé wave, to maintain her notoriety in cabarets all over Paris, from the Tête de l'Art to the Trois Baudets and from the Théâtre Mouffetard to the Contrescarpe. In 1962, she performed Claude Nougaro's "Le Rouge et le noir", then returned to La Colombe in 1964. Noticed by theater director Roger Planchon, she appeared in several plays and, in 1966 at the TNP (Théâtre national populaire), performed the songs from Grandeur et décadence de la ville de Mahagonny, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. After a run at the Olympia (1967) and a tour of the Soviet Union, she became involved in the events of May 1968, adapting her repertoire accordingly. Between theater appearances, she recorded for the Disc'AZ, Festival, BAM and Meys labels, then for CBS for Pia Colombo Chante Ferré '75. Diagnosed with cancer in 1977, she nevertheless performed at the Printemps de Bourges festival (1978) and wrote the show Requiem autour d'un temps présent with her ex-husband, which toured for two years and was recorded. Pia Colombo returned to the Olympia in 1981, before dying in Créteil on April 16, 1986 at the age of 51.