The presenter and writer Bernard Pivot, who got millions of French people reading thanks to his show Apostrophes died Monday in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) at the age of 89, his daughter Cécile Pivot announced to AFP, this Monday, May 6, 2024.
Read also: Bernard Pivot before the dictation on the Champs-Élysées: “I prefer to talk about errors than mistakes”
President of the Goncourt academy from 2014 to 2019
A book in one hand, his pair of glasses in the other, Bernard Pivot also presented the show Culture broth and organized from 1985 the Golden Dicosa spelling championship that quickly became international.
He notably chaired the Goncourt academy from 2014 to 2019.
Beginnings in written press
Bernard Pivot was born on May 5, 1935 in Lyon. Trained at the Journalist Training Center (CFJ) in Paris, the young Pivot began his career as a journalist at the regional daily Progress before entering the Literary Figaroin 1958.
About ten years later, Bernard Pivot became head of department of Figaro. It will notably go through Point And the Sunday Journal as a humorous and literary columnist.
It was on New Year’s Day 1967 that Pivot appeared on television for the first time.
Apostrophesunbeatable show
In 1974, after the breakup of the ORTF, he had the idea ofApostrophesbroadcast for the first time on Antenna 2 January 10, 1975.
This show that he hosts live, after the Piano Concerto Number 1 by Rachmaninov, is unbeatable on Friday evening. We laugh a lot, we compete in wit, we smoke and drink, we insult each other, we kiss… The public loves it, the sales follow.
The giants of letters follow one another in this new kind of salon where Pivot knows how to create intimacy and bring together improbable duos.
Sagan, Barthes, Nabokov, Bourdieu, Eco, Le Clézio, Modiano, Levi-Strauss and even President Mitterrand will be his guests. In 1987, he clandestinely interviewed Lech Walesa in Poland. Facetious and meticulous reader, he submits his guests to the “Pivot questionnaire”, inspired by that of Proust.
When Apostrophes stops, the tireless journalist creates Culture broth, always on public service, with a broader horizon than books. When the show ceased in June 2001, the last number attracted 1.2 million viewers.
More information to come…
