The Lavigueur family is a

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

family who made headlines in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in the 1980s after winning a lottery jackpot of $7,650,267 in 1986, then the largest prize ever given by

Loto-Québec Loto-Québec is a crown corporation in the Canadian province of Quebec. Established in 1969, it is responsible for overseeing lottery and gaming in the province. The corporation operates lottery games such as draw games and scratch cards, casi ...

. The trials and troubles of the Lavigueur family have since become entrenched in Quebec popular culture for various reasons: the fact that a poor family became multimillionaires overnight; the intervention of a stranger who found the lottery ticket lost by the family's father; the judicial saga of one of the family's daughters, the only member of the family to not have participated in the purchase of the winning ticket, suing her father for a fraction of the jackpot; the subsequent family disputes that tore apart the family which dissipated its fortune, all of which received wide coverage in the mainstream media of Quebec.

Jackpot

The Lavigueurs lived in

Centre-Sud The Centre-Sud is a neighbourhood located in the easternmost edge of the Ville-Marie borough of the city of Montreal. Home to Montreal's Gay Village and to the Sainte-Marie area, the Centre-Sud has long been seen as one of the city's most compl ...

, a neighbourhood of

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

. Jean-Guy Lavigueur had been unemployed for a year and a half after having worked for 34 years at United Bedding Company. The father had been raising his four children, Sylvie, Yve, Louise and Michel, with the help of his brother-in-law Jean-Marie Daudelin, since the death of the children's mother, Micheline Daudelin, who died of sudden cardiac arrest in 1983. The couple also had two girls who died in infancy from heart problems. A few days before the draw, Jean-Guy Lavigueur lost his wallet, which was given back to him by a good Samaritan, 28-year-old William Murphy, from

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, who had recently moved to Montreal, and was himself unemployed. Murphy found the wallet and gave it back to Lavigueur, with the lottery ticket which he knew was the jackpot winner. When he got to the Lavigueur house, the eldest son, Yve, answered the door and refused to let him in, not understanding what he wanted. Murphy came back a second time to meet the father. The new millionaires were Jean-Guy, Sylvie, Yve and Michel Lavigueur, Jean-Marie Daudelin, and William Murphy, with whom the family agreed to share the jackpot. In 1986, Louise Lavigueur, the only member of the family who did not take part in the purchase of the ticket, sued her father to get a share of the jackpot.

Family members

Two members of the Lavigueur family are still alive: Yve and Sylvie. Yve published a book in 2000 about the family's story and helped with the production of a 6-episode TV series which was broadcast by SRC, the French-language branch of the CBC, in 2008. Sylvie chose to remain away from public life. Louise Lavigueur died from heart failure in 1991, at age 22. The father, Jean-Guy Lavigueur, died from respiratory problems on November 26, 2000. Michel Lavigueur committed suicide on February 11, 2004, at age 32.

Popular culture

Television

On December 31, 1986, in a humorous year-end review, ''Bye-bye 86'', Radio-Canada included a sketch titled ''"Le bourgeois gentilhomme Lavigueur,"'' inspired by

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

's ''

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'' (, translated as ''The Bourgeois Gentleman'', ''The Middle-Class Aristocrat'', or ''The Would-Be Noble'') is a five-act ''comédie-ballet'' – a Play (theatre), play intermingled with music, dance and singing – wri ...

''.

Comics

From 1986 to 1989, the humour magazine ''

Croc Croc or CROC may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming * Croc (game designer), a French video game designer * '' Croc: Legend of the Gobbos'', a 3D platform video game ** ''Croc'' (2000 video game), a 2D sidescrolling port of the abov ...

'' published a monthly satirical

comic a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

titled ''Les Ravibreur'', which showed the newly famous family and depicted them as simple-minded, uneducated people. The main character was easily recognizable as a caricature of Jean-Guy Lavigueur.

Movies

From 1986, three Dutch movies (''

Flodder ''Flodder'' is a 1986 Dutch comedy film written and directed by Dick Maas, and distributed by First Floor Features. It is the first film in the Flodder franchise and is followed by two more films and a spin-off series. The film follows an anti- ...

'', ''

Flodder in Amerika ''Flodders in America'' ( nl, Flodder in Amerika!), released in Quebec as ''Les Lavigueur Redéménagent'', is a 1992 Dutch comedy film directed by Dick Maas. The film is the sequel of the successful film ''Flodder'' from 1986. It was filmed on l ...

'', and ''

Flodder 3 '' Flodder 3 '' (Alternative titles: ''Flodder Forever'' or ''Flodder: The Final Story'') is a 1995 Dutch comedy film directed by Dick Maas. It is the third and last movie about the anti-social family, called 'Flodder'. The movie is a continuatio ...

'') were translated into ''

joual ''Joual'' () is an accepted name for the linguistic features of Quebec French that are associated with the French-speaking working class in Montreal which has become a symbol of national identity for some. ''Joual'' is stigmatized by some and ce ...

'' in Quebec and given the French titles ''Les Lavigueur déménagent'', ''Les Lavigueur redéménagent'' and ''Les Lavigueur, le retour''. However, these comedies had nothing to do with the real-life family or their experiences.

Books and TV

In 2000, Yve Lavigueur published ''Les Lavigueur: leur véritable histoire'' ("The Lavigueurs: the real story", ) with Éditions St-Martin. The book became the basis for a TV series shot in 2007 and broadcast in 2008.La vérité une fois pour toute
Métro,

Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...

, December 13, 2007, page 27. The series was directed by

Sylvain Archambault Sylvain Archambault (born March 6, 1963) is a Canadian film and television director from Quebec. He is most noted as director of the feature film '' Piché: The Landing of a Man (Piché, entre ciel et terre)'', which was the winner of the Billet d' ...

, who had directed '' Le négociateur''.

External links

''Flodder''
on

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:family, Lavigueur French-Canadian families Lottery winners People from Montreal