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
Grand final18 March 1961
Host
VenuePalais des Festivals et des Congrès
Cannes, France
Presenter(s)Jacqueline Joubert
Musical directorFranck Pourcel
Directed byMaurice Barry
Executive producerMarcel Cravenne
Host broadcasterRadiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF)
Interval actTessa Beaumont and Max Bozzoni
Websiteeurovision.tv/event/cannes-1961
Participants
Number of entries16
Debuting countries
Returning countriesNone
Non-returning countriesNone
Vote
Voting systemTen-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
Nul pointsNone
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

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]

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][5] 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
Spain8122111
Monaco61131
Austria11
Finland62211
Yugoslavia9111213
Netherlands62112
Sweden22
Germany3111
France132141122
Switzerland1622421221
Belgium11
Norway1015121
Denmark128211
Luxembourg31311151153442
United Kingdom241811733
Italy12441111

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.[6]

  1.  ItalyEnzo Tortora
  2.  United KingdomMichael Aspel[3]
  3.  Luxembourg - TBC
  4.  DenmarkOle Mortensen
  5.  NorwayMette Janson[7]
  6.  Belgium – Ward Bogaert
  7.   SwitzerlandBoris Acquadro
  8.  France – Armand Lanoux
  9.  GermanyHeinz Schenk
  10.  SwedenRoland Eiworth[8]
  11.  NetherlandsSiebe van der Zee[9]
  12.  Yugoslavia – TBC
  13.  FinlandPoppe Berg
  14.  Austria – Emil Kollpacher
  15.  Monaco – TBC
  16.  SpainDiego 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 [6]
 Belgium RTB French: Robert Beauvais [6][10]
BRT Dutch: Nic Bal [6]
 Denmark Danmarks Radio TV Sejr Volmer-Sørensen [6]
 Finland Suomen Televisio and Yleisradio Aarno Walli [6]
 France RTF Robert Beauvais [6][10]
 Germany Deutsches Fernsehen Wolf Mittler [6]
 Italy Programma Nazionale Corrado Mantoni [6]
 Luxembourg Télé-Luxembourg Robert Beauvais [6][10]
 Monaco Télé Monte Carlo [6][10]
 Netherlands NTS Piet te Nuyl [6][11]
 Norway NRK and NRK P1 Leif Rustad [6]
 Spain TVE Federico Gallo [6]
 Sweden Sveriges TV and SR P1 Jan Gabrielsson [6][12]
  Switzerland TV DRS German: Theodor Haller [6]
TSR French: Robert Beauvais [6][10]
 United Kingdom BBC TV Tom Sloan [6][3]
BBC Light Programme Pete Murray
 Yugoslavia Televizija Beograd Serbo-Croatian: Ljubomir Vukadinović [6]
Televizija Zagreb Serbo-Croatian: Gordana Bonetti [6]
Televizija Ljubljana Slovene: Tomaž Terček [6]

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 Song Contest 1961". 4Lyrics.eu. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  6. "Eurovision 1961 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  7. Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
  8. "Infosajten.com". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  9. "Greetje vanavond nummer zes", Nieuwe Leidsche Courant, 18 March 1961
  10. Christian Masson. "1961 - Cannes". Songcontest.free.fr. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  11. "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
  12. Thorsson, Leif (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna ["Melodifestivalen through time"]. Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB. p. 34. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.

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