Maritie (12 December 1922 – 23 November 2002) and Gilbert (20 March 1920 – 18 September 2000) Carpentier, a married couple, were artistic producers of very popular variety TV and radio shows in France and in many French-speaking countries, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Biography Family and studies Gilbert Carpentier, born in 1920, was the grandson of the French inventor Jules Carpentier (manufacturer, with the Lumière brothers, of the first cinematographe device) and the French acoustician Gustave Lyon. An alumnus of the Conservatoire de Paris music school, he was a pianist, organist and music composer. Radio Just after World War II, Gilbert Carpentier started working at the French radio Radio-Luxembourg (which will later become RTL) as an organ player, then as a radio technician. From 1946, he started to compose musical illustrations, then, with the help of his wife Maritie who wrote the texts, started to produce radio soaps. From the 1950s, Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier directed six popular shows radio shows on Radio-Luxembourg: "L’heure musicale", "Le Club des Vedettes", (presented by Maurice Biraud), "Musique à la Clay" (presented by Philippe Clay), "Les contes de l’aigle", "L’heure exquise" (presented by Anne-Marie Carrière) and "Le miroir aux Etoiles", hosted every Sunday by a different artist. Music In 1957, they created a series of Babar records for children. Maritie Carpentier adapted the writings from Jean de Brunhoff while Gilbert Carpentier composed the musics. Those records were awarded the Grand prix du disque prize in 1957 from the Académie Charles Cros, the French equivalent of the US Recording Academy. TV Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier are mostly famous for being pioneers of variety TV shows in France. From 1960, after a proposal from the French main public TV channel ORTF, they started working for the TV. They first created numerous TV shows with their friends Roger Pierre and Jean-Marc Thibault, broadcast live on the ORTF. Later on, others artists joined, including Jean Poiret, Michel Serrault, Jacqueline Maillan or Jean-Claude Brialy. In 1965, they asked Serge Gainsbourg to write a song to represent Luxembourg at the Eurovision Song Contest. Gainsbourg wrote Poupée de cire, poupée de son for the upcoming young French singer France Gall. The song won the contest and quickly became a world hit. Until the 1980s and especially in the 1970s, they created and directed several of variety TV shows in France, being influential in making some French artists very popular