Eurovision Song Contest 1961

The Eurovision Song Contest 1961 was the 6th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Cannes, France, following Jacqueline Boyer's win at the 1960 contest in London, United Kingdom with the song "Tom Pillibi". It was the second time that France had hosted the contest; the first being in 1959 - also in Cannes. The contest was held at Palais des Festivals et des Congrès on 18 March 1961 and was the first to take place on a Saturday night, a tradition that has continued into modern times. The show was hosted by Jacqueline Joubert.

Eurovision Song Contest 1961
Dates
Final	18 March 1961
Host
Venue	Palais des Festivals et des Congrès Cannes, France
Presenter(s)	Jacqueline Joubert
Conductor	Franck Pourcel
Directed by	Marcel Cravenne
Host broadcaster	Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF)
Interval act	Tessa Beaumont and Max Bozzoni
Website	eurovision.tv/event/cannes-1961
Participants
Number of entries	16
Debuting countries	Finland  Spain  Yugoslavia
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	None
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1961
Vote
Voting system	Ten-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
Nul points	None
Winning song	Luxembourg "Nous les amoureux"

Sixteen countries participated in the contest - three more than in the previous edition; Finland, Spain and Yugoslavia all made their début this year.

The winner was Luxembourg with the song "Nous les amoureux", performed by Jean-Claude Pascal, written by Maurice Vidalin, and composed by Jacques Datin. This was Luxembourg's first victory in the contest, with the United Kingdom finishing in second place for the third consecutive year.

As the contest overran its allocated time, and the show was being broadcast live, the winning song's reprise was not shown in the UK.[1]

Location

Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Cannes - host venue of the 1961 contest.

The event took place in Cannes, France, with the venue being the original building of Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, after France got the right to host this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest for winning its previous 1960 edition with the song "Tom Pillibi" performed by Jacqueline Boyer.

Cannes, a city located on the French Riviera, is a busy tourist destination and known worldwide for hosting the annual Cannes Film Festival, with the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès also hosting the Film Festival. The original building was built in 1949 and was located on the boulevard of Promenade de la Croisette, on the present site of the JW Marriott Cannes. It also hosted the 1959 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Format

Jacqueline Joubert presented the show, having already done so two years earlier in 1959. The stage used for the 1961 Contest was notably larger than in previous years and was decorated with flowers. It is noticeable that during the voting, Luxembourg gave the UK eight points, and Norway also gave Denmark eight points. It was the largest number of points given to a country by a single jury since 1958, when Denmark provided France with nine points. Such a high number of points obtained by a country would not be achieved until 1970, when Ireland would receive nine points from Belgium.[1]

Participating countries

Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

A total of sixteen countries took part in the Contest, including the three debuting countries: Finland, Spain, and Yugoslavia.[1]

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra.[2][3]

•  Spain – Rafael Ferrer
•  Monaco – Raymond Lefèvre
•  Austria – Franck Pourcel
•  Finland – George de Godzinsky
•  Yugoslavia – Jože Privšek
•  Netherlands – Dolf van der Linden
•  Sweden – William Lind
•  Germany – Franck Pourcel
•  France – Franck Pourcel
•   Switzerland – Fernando Paggi
•  Belgium – Francis Bay
•  Norway – Øivind Bergh
•  Denmark – Kai Mortensen
•  Luxembourg – Léo Chauliac
•  United Kingdom – Harry Robinson
•  Italy – Gianfranco Intra

Returning artists

The contest saw the return of two artists this year with the Belgian representative, Bob Benny, who previously participated in the 1959 contest; and Nora Brockstedt, who performed for Norway in 1960.[1]

Results

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[4]	Place	Points
01	Spain	Conchita Bautista	"Estando contigo"	Spanish	9	8
02	Monaco	Colette Deréal	"Allons, allons les enfants"	French	10	6
03	Austria	Jimmy Makulis	"Sehnsucht"	German	15	1
04	Finland	Laila Kinnunen	"Valoa ikkunassa"	Finnish	10	6
05	Yugoslavia	Ljiljana Petrović	"Neke davne zvezde" (Неке давне звезде)	Serbo-Croatian	8	9
06	Netherlands	Greetje Kauffeld	"Wat een dag"	Dutch	10	6
07	Sweden	Lill-Babs	"April, april"	Swedish	14	2
08	Germany	Lale Andersen	"Einmal sehen wir uns wieder"	German, French	13	3
09	France	Jean-Paul Mauric	"Printemps, avril carillonne"	French	4	13
10	Switzerland	Franca di Rienzo	"Nous aurons demain"	French	3	16
11	Belgium	Bob Benny	"September, gouden roos"	Dutch	15	1
12	Norway	Nora Brockstedt	"Sommer i Palma"	Norwegian	7	10
13	Denmark	Dario Campeotto	"Angelique"	Danish	5	12
14	Luxembourg	Jean-Claude Pascal	"Nous les amoureux"	French	1	31
15	United Kingdom	The Allisons	"Are You Sure?"	English	2	24
16	Italy	Betty Curtis	"Al di là"	Italian	5	12

Scoreboard

Each country had 10 jury members who each awarded 1 point to their favourite song.

		Voting results
Total score	Italy	United Kingdom	Luxembourg	Denmark	Norway	Belgium	Switzerland	France	Germany	Sweden	Netherlands	Yugoslavia	Finland	Austria	Monaco	Spain
Contestants	Spain	8		1			2			2		1	1				1
	Monaco	6		1					1						3			1
	Austria	1		1
	Finland	6	2	2		1				1
	Yugoslavia	9		1		1			1	2			1			3
	Netherlands	6	2							1	1			2
	Sweden	2								2
	Germany	3				1						1				1
	France	13		2	1						4	1			1		2	2
	Switzerland	16	2	2								4	2	1		2	2	1
	Belgium	1			1
	Norway	10				1		5						1	2			1
	Denmark	12					8					2	1		1
	Luxembourg	31	3			1			1	1	5	1	1	5	3	4	4	2
	United Kingdom	24	1		8	1		1	7				3					3
	Italy	12				4		4		1			1	1			1

Broadcasters, commentators and spokespersons

Spokespersons

Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1961 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.[5]

1.  Italy – Enzo Tortora
2.  United Kingdom – Michael Aspel[3]
3.  Luxembourg - TBC
4.  Denmark – Ole Mortensen
5.  Norway – Mette Janson[6]
6.  Belgium – Ward Bogaert
7.   Switzerland – Boris Acquadro
8.  France – Armand Lanoux
9.  Germany – Heinz Schenk
10.  Sweden – Roland Eiworth[7]
11.  Netherlands – Siebe van der Zee[8]
12.  Yugoslavia – Saša Novak
13.  Finland – Poppe Berg
14.  Austria – Emil Kollpacher
15.  Monaco – TBC
16.  Spain – Diego Ramírez Pastor

Broadcasters and commentators

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	ORF	Wolf Mittler	[5]
Belgium	RTB	French: Robert Beauvais	[5][9]
	BRT	Dutch: Nic Bal	[5]
Denmark	Danmarks Radio TV	Sejr Volmer-Sørensen	[5]
Finland	Suomen Televisio and Yleisradio	Aarno Walli	[5]
France	RTF	Robert Beauvais	[5][9]
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Wolf Mittler	[5]
Italy	Programma Nazionale	Corrado Mantoni	[5]
Luxembourg	Télé-Luxembourg	Robert Beauvais	[5][9]
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo		[5][9]
Netherlands	NTS	Piet te Nuyl	[5][10]
Norway	NRK and NRK P1	Leif Rustad	[5]
Spain	TVE	Federico Gallo	[5]
Sweden	Sveriges TV and SR P1	Jan Gabrielsson	[5][11]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Theodor Haller	[5]
	TSR	French: Robert Beauvais	[5][9]
United Kingdom	BBC TV	Tom Sloan	[5][3]
	BBC Light Programme	Pete Murray
Yugoslavia	Televizija Beograd	Serbo-Croatian: Ljubomir Vukadinović	[5]
	Televizija Zagreb	Serbo-Croatian: Gordana Bonetti	[5]
	Televizija Ljubljana	Slovene: Tomaž Terček	[5]

References

1. "Eurovision Song Contest 1961". EBU. Retrieved 13 February 2009.
2. "And the conductor is..." Retrieved 10 July 2018.
3. Roxburgh, Gordon (2012). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume One: The 1950s and 1960s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 254–264. ISBN 978-1-84583-065-6.
4. "Eurovision Song Contest 1961". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
5. "Eurovision 1961 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
6. Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
7. "Infosajten.com". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
8. "Greetje vanavond nummer zes", Nieuwe Leidsche Courant, 18 March 1961
9. Christian Masson. "1961 - Cannes". Songcontest.free.fr. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
10. "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
11. Thorsson, Leif (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna ["Melodifestivalen through time"]. Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB. p. 34. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.

External links

• Official website