Editing Mireille Mathieu (section)

===Debut (1962–1965)===
Mathieu began her career by participating in an annual singing contest in Avignon called ''On Chante dans mon Quartier'' ("We Sing in My Neighborhood"). Photos depict the event as rather modest, with a simple curtain and one projector light. The stage was only twenty feet square, and the singer had to share it with a large piano and musicians. A large, boisterous, and mostly young audience was very much in evidence. The judges sat at a table in front of and below the elevated stage. Anyone who signed the contract in the weeks leading up to the show was allowed to perform. Talent scouts made this a worthwhile event for singers from hundreds of miles around.<ref name="autobiography" />

Mathieu received private singing lessons from Madame Laure Collière, who was also a piano teacher in Avignon.<ref name="life magazine">{{Cite news|title=A New 'Sparrow' Stirs France|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rlUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA115|access-date=22 September 2010|newspaper=[[Life (magazine)|Life]]|date=10 June 1966|pages=115–16}}</ref> Self-described as very stubborn in her autobiography, she wrote about singing love songs that the audience deemed inappropriate for a young girl.<ref name="autobiography" /> As a result, she lost to [[Michèle Torr]] in 1962 when she sang "Les Cloches de Lisbonne" at the first contest, and lost again in 1963 when she sang Édith Piaf's "L'Hymne à l'amour." However, in 1964, she won the event with another Piaf song: "[[La Vie en rose]]."<ref name="autobiography" />

Her victory earned her a free trip to Paris and a pre-audition for the televised talent show ''Jeu de la Chance'' ("Game of Luck"), where amateur singers competed for audience and telephone votes. Her participation and train fare were arranged by [https://brassmusiccafe.com/product/mireille-mathieu-music-by-ennio-morricone-1972-remastered-2016-cd-new-32-99/ Raoul Colombe], the deputy mayor of Avignon. Accompanied by a pianist at the studio and dressed in black like Piaf, she sang two Piaf songs for the audition judges but left dispirited: the [[Parisians]] at the studio mocked her [[Provençal dialect|Provençal]] accent, and her dyslexia caused her to mix up words.<ref name="autobiography" /> For example, her sister and current manager Monique is called "Matite" because Mathieu could not pronounce "petite" as a child.<ref name="autobiography"/>

During a 1965 summer gala, added to the [[Enrico Macias]] concert by Raoul Colombe (her first manager), Mathieu met her future manager, [[Johnny Stark (talent manager)|Johnny Stark]].<ref name="autobiography" /><ref name="Looseley">{{Cite book|last=Looseley|first=David|title=Popular music in contemporary France: authenticity, politics, debate|year=2003|publisher=Berg Publishers|isbn=978-1-85973-636-4|pages=32|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hy0rxkj8bdoC&pg=PA32}}</ref> Mathieu and her father initially thought Stark was American, based on his name and demeanor, and they nicknamed him ''l'Américain''. Stark had worked with artists such as [[Yves Montand]], and the relationship between him and Mathieu is often likened to that of [[Colonel Tom Parker]] and [[Elvis Presley]].<ref>{{Cite news|title=Rev. of ''En direct de l'Olympia'' – Mireille Mathieu|newspaper=[[Stereo Review]], Vol. 18|year=1967}}</ref> Stark is credited with making her a star and the successor to Piaf.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Adler|first=Philippe|title=Talent in France: Poetry, Panache and Variety|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-wgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA1-PA33|access-date=22 September 2010|newspaper=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]|date=1 May 1971}}</ref> By 1968, under his careful management, she had become France's most popular singer.<ref name="Looseley"/>