The son of a banker, Antoine Lapointe, and his wife, Antoinette Rousseau Lapointe, Joseph-Auguste-Julien-Paul-Marie Lapointe was born 22 September 1929 at Saint-Félicien in the Lac Saint-Jean region of Quebec. He studied at the Séminaire de Chicoutimi and at the Collège Saint-Laurent and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Montreal. After leaving school, he became a journalist with Evénement-Journal in Quebec City in 1950, staying there for four years. In Quebec he married Gisèle Verreault, an artist, on 29 November 1952; they have two children, Michèle and Frédéric. In 1955 Lapointe moved to La Presse in Montreal, working with the paper until 1960. With Jean-Louis Gagnon he helped found the Nouveau-Journal in Montreal in 1961, occupying the post of director of information. Moving to Le Magazine Maclean, serving as general editor from 1963 to 1968, he then joined Radio-Canada, where he has in turn...