Severine

The winner of the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest, where she represented the tiny principality of Monaco, French singer Séverine was born Josiane Grizeau on October 10, 1948, in Paris. A virtual unknown when she was selected to appear at the contest, she swept to victory with the plaintive "Un Banc, un Arbre, une Rue" (A Bench, a Tree, a Street), a song that went on to become a major international hit. Indeed, it even made the Top Ten in the U.K., a nation that was generally resistant to foreign-language recordings, with its triumph rendered even sweeter by the fact that it was t...