Charles Aznavour to Be Honored in NYC by FAR

He was born Shahnour Vaghenag Aznavourian, 87 years ago in Paris, to Armenian parents who opened their own restaurant the day he was born. When World War II came, Aznavour’s father joined the French army and his parents closed the restaurant. Raised in an atmosphere of “music, love and poverty,” Aznavour was encouraged to entertain. To help support the family, he joined a touring children’s company, and even hawked newspapers on boulevards, acquiring the famous “frog” in his throat.

“I learned about songs and music from my father and about theater and poetry from my mother. I grew up among singers, actors, dancers who were Armenian and Russian in a Jewish ghetto. Can you imagine what a beautiful combination that is,” he says animatedly during an interview, smiling disarmingly, gesturing animatedly and using his expressive penetrating eyes, his most impressive features.

But success was not always his constant companion. Making his stage debut at 9 as an actor-dancer, he spent 20 years fighting to get to the top of the theatrical world, seeing the songs he had written become famous only when sung by Edith Piaf, Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier, Juliet Greco and others.

“I became a successful writer very slowly. My songs became so popular in France that one day they accepted the man who wrote them. I started the kind of song that faces the reality of life — everyday movement, everyday feelings, everyday story. Nobody before wrote anything about deaf-mute love, homosexual love, a song about an ugly woman. They were all afraid. I’ve done it. Everybody else came after me.”

Since those difficult days, Aznavour has ridden to the top of the performing crest. His best has been described in eloquent terms, as “fantastic charisma” and “electric magic.” He describes it as the “hunger of succeeding, of achieving something. Any entertainer who achieves something important has a monstrous attitude. Piaf was a monster. I’m a monster. We’re frightening people.”

Though described as the Frank Sinatra of France, he has sung in nine languages in the world’s most famous musical venues, including Carnegie and Radio City Music halls. His songs, such as She, Dance in the Old Fashioned Way and Yesterday When I Was Young are regular staples in the international record-selling markets and have been performed by world famous singers. Ils sont tombes (They Fell), his song dedicated to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, became a best-seller in many countries.