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, announced his daughter Cécile Pivot to AFP.
Remembered with a book in one hand and his glasses in the other, Bernard Pivot also presented the program “Bouillon de culture” and organized from 1985 the Dicos d’or, a spelling championship which quickly became international. Joining the Goncourt Academy in 2004, he became its president in 2014 and withdrew at the end of 2019.
Bernard Pivot, who turned 89 on Sunday, had the idea for “Apostrophes” in 1974, after the breakup of the ORTF. The first issue was broadcast for the first time on Antenne 2 on January 10, 1975.
This show that he hosts live, after Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto number 1, is unbeatable on Friday evenings. We laugh a lot, we compete in wit, we smoke and drink, we insult each other, we kiss… The public loves it, the book sales follow.
“Apostrophes” lasted fifteen years, from 1975 to 1990, followed by millions of viewers. And certain extracts still have great success on the internet. So when the Gabriel Matzneff affair arose in January 2020, an author who benefited from great indulgence while he had sexual relations with minors, we rewatched a show from March 1990 on which the writer was a guest.
With 30 years of hindsight, the sequence is shocking. “Today, morality comes before literature. Morally, it’s progress,” defends Bernard Pivot. After the end of “Apostrophes”, he created “Bouillon de culture”, still on public service, with a broader horizon than books.
Born in Lyon on May 5, 1935, Bernard Pivot was also known to be an enlightened wine lover and a football fan, in particular of AS Saint-Etienne.
Bernard Pivot
