Last Sunday, the French TV programme “Vivement Dimanche” was dedicated to Dorothée, a favorite children's presenter and singer from the mid 70's to the mid 90's. The lady who has disappeared from the screens since 1997 had many guests around her, people with whom she worked at the time, including two of her main back-up singers: Francine Chantereau and Martine Latorre. Those two are closely related to the Eurovision Song Contest. Not only were they half of Cocktail Chic, but they were also “chorus girls” for a large number of French speaking entries along the 70's and the 80's.

"La chanson française est une véritable histoire de famille", Ase Kleveland said by way of introduction to the French entry back in Bergen in 1986. That is a fact asthe 1986 French entry was a family affair indeed. Dominique (Latorre) and Catherine (Bonnevay) are sisters and Francine and Martine are their cousins.The four of them began their career together, behind French megastar Claude François in the late 60's. They also released two singles under the name "Les Fléchettes", as Claude François' own label was called "Flèche". This first try was not a success, but the girls soon became the most wanted background singers in show business.

Alittle-known fact is that the ladies have been seen many times on the Eurovision Song Contest stage; in 1977 when they even backed up Marie Myriam's winning entry. The next year they sang together with no less than 4 teams on the stage of "Le Palais des Congrès" in Paris, Monaco, Belgium and Germany. In 1986, the ladies got together to perform a song at the French national selection (Catherine already had tried her luck solo in 1977) and they won the ticket to Norway. The song Européennes – composed by the Costa Brothers, who were frequently on stage with them – ended 17th, the worst French result since 1966. Still, two of them were once again on a Eurovision stage, backing Céline Carzo in Zagreb. And their last experience to date was in the 1998 national Swiss selection, where they backed two out of the three French-speaking entries.