[LMBTO] Sir Bruce Forsyth and Eurovision...

Us Brits knew him as 'Brucie' - Bruce Forsyth, the male entertainer with the longest television career and who was bringing enjoyment and pleasure to audiences for SEVENTY-FIVE years, died today, August 18th 2017.  This was his distinctive pose, "The Thinker", mimicking the Rodin sculpture - along with many, many catchphrases linked with a multitude of shows, he was "Mr Entertainment" in the UK for decades.  Whether that be with game shows such as "The Price Is Right" and "The Generation Game", being the host at the London Palladium shows or the lead host on "Strictly Come Dancing", he was an institution of British comedy and variety shows, only recently 'retiring' in his mid 80s.  Any singing that he did was normally part of the act on the show he was hosting, although the picture above was of him at Glastonbury in 2013 on the Avalon stage, making him the oldest performer at the festival:

An incredible entertainer, an amazing showman, a superb host - you could fill days of television schedules with his output and find yourself laughing and smiling.   Having said all that, what did Brucie have to do with Eurovision, I hear you all cry?  Not a lot, to be fair - there was one Contest however, one very famous, very closely fought show where a member of his family had a special connection.  You know the one, the one where a female soloist with a French language singing career in Canada shot to international stardom by winning Eurovision by one point:



Yes, the 1988 Contest, where Celine Dion beat Scott Fitzgerald to the prize, "Ne partez pas sans moi" beating "Go" by a winning margin of 0.73%.  The link to the UK song was Bruce's daughter Julie, who wrote and composed Scott's ballad:
That meant that a certain entertainment giant got to sit in the audience and watch proceedings, along with the voting:



We didn't get to see his reaction to Yugoslavia failing to give Scott Fitzgerald a single point but fans of the comedy show "Room 101" did see him 'get closure', as Paul Merton put it:



To be fair to Yugoslavia, Julie Forsyth was always more annoyed with The Netherlands who gave the UK no points at all, as Scott had had a hit there in the 1970s and was fairly well known.  Bruce's concern with how the voting was going was more borne out of fatherly protection for his daughter's accomplishments:
This image of him in the Dublin audience, seeing his reaction as he realised that the UK might be runners-up yet again and that his daughter would not be going back up on stage to collect the accolades due to the winning songwriter, spoke volumes of how this massive celebrity cared about his family AND also about whether the UK would win at Eurovision that year.  Of course, if they had have won, a host would have been needed for the 1989 Contest...
Sir Bruce Forsyth was one of the best tv show hosts that the UK has ever had - would he have ever done Eurovision?  He was still a consummate professional at the end of the 1980s but comedy whilst hosting was not really 'the done thing' back then.  Having your hosts present the Contest professionally and with one having French language proficiency were the order of the day, so his style and skills would not have been a perfect match.  If a more 'lighthearted approach' to presenting, as is more the case now, was prevalent then, Brucie would have been in his element but perhaps his comedy style and interaction with the audience might have been in danger of taking over the gig!  Unfortunately we will never know - Eurovision's loss perhaps?

Only one thing left to say:

Thank you for your song and dance career, your entertainment of audiences and viewers throughout the decades, your personable nature with the general public that put them so at ease on any show you presented and for that little cameo in  Dublin in 1988, where you unintentionally added to one of the most unforgettable nights in Eurovision history...