convert input text field special characters using javascript

[carlfaulkner]

basically i have an input field called cities. They are french cities and the input field uses autocomplete. Some cities have the special characters like accents. These cities display the accents correclty when autocomplete generates a city but when you user selects one the city displays the html ascii code in the input field. Is there a way i can have onchange event that takes the value of the input field and converts the special characters and updates the input field with the new value/string.