Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Every now and then Eurovision song contest winners come back to the contest and looking back quite often it hasn't been such a good idea. A total of 14 previous winners have managed to return (and even more have tried but failed to win the national final. Latest of them is Swedish Loreen last year). In this series I have a brief look at them and how did it go..... French theater, television and movie actor, comedian, imitator, author, singer and fashion designer for Dior, Jean-Claude Pascal (1927-1992) won the Eurovision song contest 1961 for Luxembourg with Nous les amoureux . The Croix de guerre awarded war hero was a popular star at the time, and later was awarded also Commendeur des Arts et des Lettres medal. He took an easy win beating UK to the second place with 31 points vs 24.  He released 17 albums between 1960-84, several tv-movie and tv-series, nearly 40 movies between 1949-73.  He was voted the most elegent man of France several times. In 1981 he w...

So, here it is, the Swiss entry, Michael von der Heide's Il pleur d'or and it's not bad at all. He has a very nice voice, the song is a nostalgic 80's French pop that makes me think of amongst others Jean-Jacques Goldman, Texas, Lena Ph and Kylie Minogue and something else I can't yet put my finger on but.... a big but. I'm afraid it falls on the "nice category" and we all know "nice" doesn't work well enough in Eurovision - if most people like you but not enough to vote and no one hates you you may end up somewhere like 11th in every country and score a flat zero in the end. But the song's a grower for sure and I can imagine in a few year's time I will perhaps remember it as one of the Switzerland's bests, but I doubt it will set the scoreboard on fire in Oslo 2010. I hope I'm wrong though!

Cannes hosted Eurovision again when the 7th one was held there March 18, 1961. It was also the first time the contest was on Saturday night. Also a new record of participating countries was made: 16. Finland was amongst the newcomers and started the long, long march towards success.... it would take 45 years to win. The rest was very similar to the contest held 2 years before, including the presenter Jacqueline Joubert and scoreboard. Spain entered and Conchita Bautista even danced a bit. A first. The first Greek singer was in, represanting though Austria. Luxembourg took its first win and Jean-Claude Pascal returned in 1981... He died in 1992 at the age of 65. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEAmncSJs9k and here his 1981 entry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qahpOktl0Y But this isn't the only Eurovision held on March 18th....