Who is in the picture?

The one in the picture is Paul Mauriat (1925-2006), a French orchestra leader, music arranger and composer.

In his early career, Mauriat became the musical director for French singers Charles Aznavour (1924 – 2018) and Maurice Chevalier (1888 – 1972). Between 1967 and 1972, he wrote numerous songs with French songwriter André Pascal (1932 – 2001) for French singer Mireille Mathieu (b. 1946). He composed the music for several French movie soundtracks. He earned his first international hit with "Chariot", which was recorded as "I Will Follow Him" and spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963 and was featured prominently in “Sister Act” (1992) starring Whoopi Goldbery (b.1955).

In 1965, Mauriat establish Le Grand Orchestre de Paul Mauriat, which specialized in the easy listening genre and released hundreds of recordings and compilations for the next 28 years. In 1969, Mauriat started his first world tour with his Grand Orchestra, visiting countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and other Latin American countries.

Paul Mauriat enjoyed particularly phenomenal success in Japan starting in the late 1960s. He had sold over 15 million albums in Japan and performed over 1,000 shows in 25 Japanese tours by 1996.

He is best known for his million-selling remake of André Popp's "Love is Blue". Other recordings for which he is known include "El Bimbo", "Toccata", "Love in Every Room/Même si tu revenais", and "Penelope".