La Vie oh là là
Presentation copy inscribed by Pivot to Maurice Genevoix and his wife: “à Mme et Mr. Maurice Genevoix, avec mes sentiments choisis. B. Pivot.”
La Vie oh là là collects the columns Bernard Pivot wrote during his early years at Le Figaro littéraire. Having graduated second in his class from the Centre de formation des journalistes de Paris in 1957, he joined the newspaper the following year, where he would write a column for fifteen years (until 1974) after having served as its editor-in-chief.
He decided to leave the paper when Jean d’Ormesson became its director general. At the time, Pivot was vice-president of the Société des rédacteurs du Figaro, the association defending the independence of the editorial staff. His commitment provoked reluctance among some influential members of management and led to his forced departure. Despite this episode, relations between Pivot and d’Ormesson remained cordial. Pivot even showed great humor about it: with his severance pay, he had a swimming pool built at his house in Beaujolais, with a plaque in one corner of the pool reading “Piscine Jean d’Ormesson”!
In 1975, Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber proposed a magazine project to him, which led a year later to the creation of Lire; Pivot then simultaneously launched the program Apostrophes on Antenne 2, which he hosted from 1975 to 1990 for 724 episodes, and which remains the benchmark for literary culture on French television. Jean d’Ormesson appeared on it 26 times.
Maurice Genevoix, however, was invited only once, despite the journalist’s affection for the man and his work. But it was for a full-length feature devoted entirely to him, on 20 June 1980, on the occasion of the publication of his autobiography Trente mille jours.