Edith Piaf & Théo Sarapo

"When I analyse this love, I don't find a mistress's love but something which until now has been refused me-a mother's love. Théo, with his laughter and youthful spirit, gives me the impression at times that I've been given a son. A mother sleeps within even the most voluptuous of mistresses. Only narrow-minded people are offended by what I've done. I know that my love for Théo is nothing to be ashamed of."

This was 47-year-old Edith Piaf, speaking to a journalist about her 27-year-old husband, just months before her death in October 1963.

In the space of just twenty-one months, Théo Sarapo went from working as a hairdresser by day and trawling the bars and clubs of Paris' Left Bank by night...to becoming the husband of the most famous singer in the history of the French music-hall. One year and one day later, as had only been expected from the outset-indeed, he had been warned by Piaf's doctors that she would never reach fifty-he became her grieving widow.

Drawing on interviews with the couple's friends, colleagues and songwriters-some of whom were also friends of the author, David Bret tells Piaf and Théo's story. It is one of intense devotion between a caring, unselfish young man who, by way of French law at the time, stood to gain only a mountain of debts upon Piaf's passing-and an ailing superstar, the likes of whom France and the world will never see again.