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Much loved French 'Frank Sinatra' Charles Aznavour has died

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Much loved French 'Frank Sinatra' Charles Aznavour has died

PostAuthor: Anthea » Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:27 pm

French 'Frank Sinatra' Charles Aznavour was found dead in
his bathtub of natural causes at the age of 94, autopsy shows


Please click photo to enlarge
995

      Charles Aznavour died yesterday at his home in Alpilles in southeastern France
      Politicians called for a national ceremony and a street to be named after him
      Aznavour sold over 100m records and was described as France's Frank Sinatra
      French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to singer's 'unique brilliance'
French singer Charles Aznavour - best known for his 1974 hit 'She' - died in his bath of natural causes caused by heart and breathing difficulties, an autopsy has found.

Tributes continued to pour in on Tuesday for the legendary crooner who was found dead at his home in the southeastern town of Alpilles on Monday.

The 94-year-old's death sparked mourning across France. He was one of the country's best known entertainers, selling 180 million records during his eight-decade career.

Aznavour was discovered Monday lunchtime 'lying in his bathroom bathtub, next to his bedroom,' prosecutor Patrick Desjardins told reporters.

An autopsy, carried out in the southern city of Nimes, found the death 'occurred in the morning of October 1, in the wake of an acute oedema caused by cardiorespiratory failure,' Desjardins said.

'Foul play can be ruled out, but the circumstances surrounding the death are not precisely known.'

The body has been returned to his family.

Aznavour, who had just returned from a concert tour in Japan, had said last week that he wanted to breathe his last on stage.

The Eiffel tower was lit up in gold Monday night in his honour, while global artists such as Sting and Lenny Kravitz also lauded the 'eternal' influence of the 'gentleman' of French singing.

French newspapers Tuesday splashed the singer on their front pages, with a number praising him as the 'last of the giants'.

Politicians, including former president Francois Hollande, called for a national ceremony, but officials were expected to check his family's wishes.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo ordered a giant screen to be set up on a bridge over the Seine river to display photographs of the artist.

She also called for the capital to rename a street in his honour.

A giant screen showing Aznavour was also set up in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, while radio and television broadcast his songs and life story.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said a 'national day of mourning' would be organised in Armenia on the day the funeral takes place in France.

Aznavour, sometimes described as the French Frank Sinatra, was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian on May 22, 1924 in Paris.

His parents were Armenians who fled massacres in their homeland as the Ottoman empire collapsed.

Aznavour, who was three-times married, leaves a wife, Ulla, and five surviving children.

He was due to accompany French President Emmanuel Macron to a summit of francophone countries in Armenia on October 10 and 11.

Yesterday afternoon, Macron paid tribute to the singer's 'unique brilliance'.

'Proudly French, viscerally attached to his Armenian roots, known all over the world, Charles Aznavour accompanied three generations through their joys and pains,' the 40-year-old French leader wrote of Aznavour on Twitter.

'His masterpieces, his tone, his unique brilliance will live far beyond him.'

As late as Friday the diminutive singer told French television that though his Swedish-born wife wanted him to stop, he would happily die on stage.

'I always go forwards,' said the performer who tried to write a song every day. 'There is no backwards step with me.

'All I can do is live, and I live on stage. I am happy up there, and you can see that,' he added.

The singer had planned to go back on tour later this month, starting with a concert in Brussels on October 26.

Aznavour's family said that 'his legacy will live forever' in a Facebook message in French, English and Armenian.

Multilingual and a tireless traveller, Aznavour was named 'Entertainer of the Century' by CNN in 1998 because of his immense global popularity.

He pioneered a new, highly emotional way of performing, turning every song into 'a one-act play'.

In the English-speaking world he was often dubbed France's Frank Sinatra, but unlike the American crooner, he wrote his own songs, often breaking taboos about marriage, homosexuality and men talking about their emotions.

Ironically, his favourite song was one of the few in his repertoire he didn't write himself, 'La Boheme'.

His family were heroes of the resistance against the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, regularly risking death to hide Jews and Communist partisans in their tiny Paris apartment.

Aznavour got his big break after the war when he opened for the then rising French star Edith Piaf.

She took him to America as her manager and songwriter while he worked on his voice, and urged him to get a nose job - advice he at first resisted.

He eventually relented and had what he described as 'not a nose but a long, long can opener' shortened.

While the two lived and drank together, Aznavour said they were never lovers.

'We loved each other but it was not sexual. She wasn't my type. It's very important to have a type,' he said.

Aznavour had his first number one hit in 1956 with 'Sur Ma Vie' (In My Life). That was followed by one of his biggest hits, 'Je M'voyais Deja' (It Will Be My Day).

But it was his leading role in Francois Truffaut's film 'Shoot the Piano Player' in 1960 that catapulted Aznavour to international fame.

Buoyed by its success he took New York's Carnegie Hall by storm in 1963 before touring the world and seeing his songs recorded by stars from Ray Charles to Liza Minnelli and Fred Astaire.

As he grew older, Aznavour loved nothing more than toying with his audiences over his advanced age, pretending to trip or to forget his lyrics.

'I'm very old you know,' he liked to say, 'Too old.'

A life-long campaigner for the massacres of up to 1.5 million Armenians to be recognised as genocide, Aznavour nevertheless pleaded for respect for difference and for other cultures in his last interview.

'Tolerance is the most important thing' for humanity, he said last week. An early champion of gay rights, he also claimed to be '100 percent a feminist. A man always should put himself in a woman's place,' he said.

The poet of the lovelorn and broken-hearted had earlier revealed that he and his wife of half a century, Swede Ulla Thorsel, never rowed.

'I am from hot and she is from cold. We have managed for the best.'

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Much loved French 'Frank Sinatra' Charles Aznavour has died

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Re: Much loved French 'Frank Sinatra' Charles Aznavour has d

PostAuthor: Piling » Wed Oct 03, 2018 4:13 am

He was our oldest singer, a French icon AND an idol for Armenians all over the world. He supported strongly Armenia after independence and also many actions of Armenian activists against Turkey.

Once in Istanbul, the owner of the hotel, an Armenian, who was a French speaker, asked me to explain some words of his lyrics. Kutstchera's wife told me how they attend, some decades ago, a visit of Azanavour to an Armenian primary school in Jerusalem. He was both an ambassador of French culture and of Armenian tragedy, He refused all his life to visit Turkey.
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Re: Much loved French 'Frank Sinatra' Charles Aznavour has d

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:21 pm

It sounds as thought Charles Aznavour was a really lovely man :x
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