Edith Piaf's Husband Takes the Cannes Stage for Monaco

MAY 15 1959 · 12:05

Jacques Pills · "Mon ami Pierrot" · Monaco · 1959 Placement: 11 · Score: 1 · Language: French · Composers: André Lodge, Pierre Cour · Venue: Palais des Festivals et des Congrès · Host: Cannes, France · Type: national debut · Broadcast: pre color Pills — French cabaret singer, 49, Edith Piaf's estranged husband — takes the Cannes stage as the only representative of the Principality of Monaco. He sings a whimsical Pierrot-themed chanson with polished music-hall diction and earns a single point. Eleventh place, last of the evening. Piaf herself is in the Cannes audience but the divorce papers have been signed since 1957. Context Monaco had joined the EBU in 1959. Prince Rainier's government pushed an independent cultural profile distinct from France. Pills was proposed partly because of his Monégasque heritage and partly because of the news-value of the Piaf connection. The couple had divorced two years earlier but their marriage remained a French tabloid staple. Legacy Monaco would go on to win Eurovision with Séverine in 1971. Pills died in 1970 after mentoring a young Édith Mathieu who would later become Mireille Mathieu. The 1959 performance is now cited as much for the Piaf footnote as for itself — Pills walked into Cannes carrying the most famous French marriage of the 20th century.