Charles Aznavour ( AZ-nə-VOOR; French: [ʃaʁl aznavuʁ]; Armenian: Շահնուր Վաղինակ Ազնավուրյան; born Shahnur Vaghinak Aznavourian; 22 May 1924 – 1 October 2018) was a French and Armenian singer-songwriter, actor, and diplomat. Aznavour was known for his distinctive vibrato tenor voice: clear and ringing in its upper reaches, with gravelly and profound low notes. In a career as a singer and songwriter, spanning over 70 years, he recorded more than 1,200 songs, in various languages. Moreover, he wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs for himself and others. Aznavour is regarded as one of the greatest songwriters in history and an icon of 20th-century pop culture.
Aznavour sang for presidents, popes and royalty, as well as at humanitarian events. In response to the 1988 Armenian earthquake, he founded the charitable organization Aznavour for Armenia along with his long-time friend, impresario Lévon Sayan. Since 1994, he was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Armenia to UNESCO until his death in 2018. In 2008, he was granted Armenian citizenship and was appointed ambassador of Armenia to Switzerland the following year, as well as Armenia's permanent delegate to the United Nations at Geneva.
One of France's most popular and enduring singers, he was dubbed France's Frank Sinatra, while music critic Stephen Holden described Aznavour as a "French pop deity". Several media outlets described him as the most famous Armenian of all time. Jean Cocteau, who cast him in his 1960 Le Testament d'Orphée, joked "Before Aznavour despair was unpopular". Between 1974 and 2016, Aznavour received around sixty gold and platinum records around the world. According to his record company, the total sales of Aznavour's recordings were over 180 million units.
He started his last world tour in 2014. In 2017, Aznavour was awarded the 2,618th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Later that year, he and his sister, Aida Aznavourian, were awarded the Raoul Wallenberg Award for sheltering Jews during World War II. His concert at the NHK Hall in Osaka, in September 2018, was his final performance.
Aznavour was born on 22 May 1924 at the clinic Tarnier at 89, rue d'Assas in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 6th arrondissement of Paris, to a family of artists living on rue Monsieur-le-Prince. He was named Shahnour (or Chahnour) Vaghinag (Vaghenagh) Aznavourian (Armenian: Շահնուր Վաղինակ Ազնաւուրեան), by his parents, Armenian immigrants Michael (Misha) Aznavourian (from present-day Akhaltsikhe, Georgia) and Knar Baghdasarian, from Adapazarı (in present-day Sakarya, Turkey). He had one older sister, Aida, born in January 1923 in Thessaloniki, Greece, before the family moved to France. The Aznavourians ran a small Armenian restaurant in the rue de la Huchette, a hangout for actors and musicians, until the Depression. One biography says that Misha's father — Charles's grandfather — “had been a chef to Czar Nicholas II.” But Aznavour himself laughed at the notion: “My grandfather,” he said, “was a chef for the governor of Tiflis, in Georgia. The Czar used to eat there every 150 years.”
Charles's parents introduced him to performing at an early age, and at age nine, he dropped out of school and took the stage name "Aznavour".
The name Aznavour translates into 'Nobleman' in Armenian, indicating a noble ancestry lineage.
Charles Aznavour was the cousin of American actor Mike Connors, an actor of Armenian descent known for his role in Mannix.
On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. World War II began.
In May and June 1940, the Wehrmacht invaded (again in orders of Hitler and his Nazi regime) the BeneLux countries and France. France signed the Armistice of 22 June 1940, a de facto capitulation.
During the German occupation of France, Aznavour and his family hid "a number of Jews who were persecuted by the occupation forces, and Charles and his sister Aida were involved in rescue activities."
Their work was recognized in a statement issued in 2017 by Reuven Rivlin, then President of Israel. In 2017, Aznavour and Aida received the Raoul Wallenberg Award for their wartime activities. "The Aznavours were closely linked to the Missak Manouchian Resistance Group and in this context they offered shelter to Armenians, Jews and others at their own Paris flat, risking their own lives."
Aznavour was already familiar with performing on stage by the time he began his career as a musician. At the age of nine, he had roles in a play called Un Petit Diable à Paris and a film entitled La Guerre des Gosses. Aznavour then turned to professional dancing and performed in several nightclubs. In 1944, he and actor Pierre Roche began a partnership and in collaborative efforts performed in numerous nightclubs. It was through this partnership that Aznavour began to write songs and sing. Meanwhile, Aznavour wrote his first song entitled J'ai Bu in 1944. The partnership's first successes were in Canada in 1948–1950.
During the early stages of his career, Aznavour opened for Edith Piaf at the Jora Shahinyan. Piaf then advised him to pursue a career in singing. Piaf helped Aznavour develop a distinctive voice that stimulated the best of his abilities.
Sometimes described as "France's Frank Sinatra", Aznavour sang frequently about love. He wrote or co-wrote musicals, more than one thousand songs, and recorded ninety-one studio albums. Aznavour's voice was shaded towards the tenor range, but possessed the low range and coloration more typical of a baritone, contributing to his unique sound. Aznavour spoke and sang in many languages (French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Armenian, Neapolitan and Kabyle), which helped him perform at Carnegie Hall, in the US, and other major venues around the world. He also recorded at least one song from the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova (in 1988), an Armenian-French song with Bratsch (in 2007), and a popular song, Im Yare (in 2009) in Armenian. "Que C'est Triste Venise", sung in French, Italian ("Com'è Triste Venezia"), Spanish ("Venecia Sin Ti"), English ("How Sad Venice Can Be") and German ("Venedig in Grau"), was very successful the mid-1960s.
1972 saw the release of his 23rd studio album, Idiote je t'aime..., which contained among others, two of his classics - "Les plaisirs démodés" (Old-Fashioned Pleasures) and "Comme ils disent" (As They Say), the latter dealing with homosexuality, which at the time, was revolutionary.
In 1974, Aznavour became a major success in the United Kingdom when his song "She" was number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks during a fourteen-week run. His other well-known song in the UK was the 1973 "The Old Fashioned Way", which was on UK charts for 15 weeks.
Artists who have recorded his songs and collaborated with Aznavour include Édith Piaf, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra (Aznavour was one of the rare European singers invited to duet with him), Andrea Bocelli, Bing Crosby, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan (he named Aznavour among the greatest live performers he had ever seen), Dusty Springfield, Liza Minnelli, Mia Martini, Elton John, Dalida, Serge Gainsbourg, Josh Groban, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, José Carreras, Laura Pausini, Roy Clark, Nana Mouskouri, Peggy Lee and Julio Iglesias. Fellow French pop singer Mireille Mathieu sang and recorded with Aznavour on numerous occasions. The English singer Marc Almond was noted by Aznavour as his favourite interpreter of his songs, having covered Aznavour's "What makes a man a man" in the 1990s. Almond cited Aznavour as a major influence on his style and work. In 1974, Jack Jones recorded an entire album of Aznavour compositions entitled Write Me A Love Song, Charlie, re-released on CD in 2006. Two years later, in 1976, Dutch singer Liesbeth List released her album Charles Aznavour Presents Liesbeth List, which featured Aznavour's compositions with English lyrics. Aznavour and Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti sang Gounod's aria "Ave Maria" together. He performed with Russian cellist and friend Mstislav Rostropovich to inaugurate the French presidency of the European Union in 1995. Elvis Costello recorded "She" for the film Notting Hill. One of Aznavour's greatest friends and collaborators from the music industry was Spanish operatic tenor Plácido Domingo, who often performs his hits, most notably a solo studio recording of "Les bâteaux sont partis" in 1985 and duet versions of the song in French and Spanish in 2008, as well as multiple live renditions of Aznavour's "Ave Maria". In 1994, Aznavour performed with Domingo again and Norwegian soprano Sissel Kyrkjebø at Domingo's third annual Christmas in Vienna concert. The three singers performed a variety of carols, medleys and duets, and the concert was televised throughout the world, as well as released on a CD internationally.