Freddy quinn biography

Freddy was born on September 27th, 1931 in Vienna, Austria. In his youth he loves the circus, but in 1950 he chooses for music and starts singing in the bars from Hamburg.
In 1952 he joins an international competition for the first time in Belfast, Ireland, where he wins the first prize.
However it takes till 1954 before he records his first songs, mainly songs about life at sea and some country music.
He soon extends his career by learning to act, and he will join several movies in Germany.
1956 sees Freddy representing Germany at the first Eurovision Song Contest together with Walter Andreas Schwarz. It is the only year that countries enter the contest with two songs. No points are given, and only the winner, Lys Assia is anounced.
Freddy's songs however become instant hits in Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Belgium and several other countries.
"La Paloma","Junge, komm bald wieder" and "Die Gitarre und das Meer" bring him fame, golden records and many awards.
Freddy keeps singing all his life, and in 2002 he makes his last tour, which ends in the city where he is born : Vienna.

Austrian singer and actor (born 1931)

Musical artist

Freddy Quinn (born Franz Eugen Helmut Manfred Nidl; 27 September 1931) is an Austrian singer and actor whose popularity in the German-speaking world soared in the late 1950s and 1960s. As Hans Albers had done two generations before him, Quinn adopted the persona of the rootless wanderer who goes to sea but longs for a home, family and friends. Quinn's Irish family name comes from his Irish-born salesman father, Johann Quinn. His mother, Edith Henriette Nidl, was an Austrian journalist. He is often associated with the Schlager scene.

Biography

Quinn was born in Niederfladnitz, Lower Austria, and grew up in Vienna. As a child he lived in Morgantown, West Virginia, with his father, but moved back to live with his mother in Vienna. Through his mother's second marriage to Rudolf Anatol Freiherr von Petz, Quinn adopted the name Nidl-Petz.

At the end of World War II, as part of a refugee group, Quinn encountered American troops in Bohemia. Due to his fluent English, the 14-year-old succeeded in pretending to be of American nationality. He was subsequently sent to the US in May 1945 with a military transport. On Ellis Island, he learned that his father had already died in 1943 in a car accident. The boy was immediately sent back to Europe and, before returning to his mother in Vienna, was stranded for a whole year in Antwerp in a children's home, where he learned to speak French and Dutch.

Upon moving to Germany, he was "discovered" in St. Pauli, Hamburg, and was offered his first recording contract in 1954. He represented Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland, with the atypical song, "So geht das jede Nacht", about an unfaithful girlfriend who dates many men. He did not win, and the full results of the contest were never released so his placement is no

Germany’s first-ever Eurovision artist, Freddy Quinn, has announced he’s finally getting married – at the age of 91 years old!

Quinn, who sold more than 60 million records and appeared in at least 15 films over his illustrious career is marring his long-time friend Rosi (64). The two became a couple sometime after the death of Quinn’s longtime parter Lilli Blessmann in 2008.

Interviewed by the German paper Bild, Rosi was asked if Freddy proposed in a romantic way. Her reply was:

“No! It’s not Freddy’s way. We’ve talked about this for so many years. And a few weeks ago he suddenly said: We’ll do it now! Let’s get married! And then everything happened very quickly and we were in the middle of planning. There is so much paperwork to do.”

Bild points out the wedding will be a small affair, just a small event with some family and friends.

Freddy Quinn was one of two artists from Germany at the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in Lugano in 1956. That was the only Contest where the results were never revealed, so officially, he tied for second place (along with the other 12 acts). You can listen to the live performance of So geht das jede Nacht below.

On 27 September 2021, Freddy Quinn, singer, sailor, circus artist and much more besides, celebrates his 90th birthday.

His early years were spent in Vienna. Freddy Quinn was born Manfred Nidl in 1931 in either Vienna, Niederfladnitz (Lower Austria) or Pula (Croatia), depending on the source; his parents were Austrian journalist Edith Nidl and Irish merchant Johann Quinn. As a child, he lived in Vienna and went to primary school in the 8th district.

But the adventurous young man was keen to see the world and soon left his home behind. His travels took him from Vienna to the USA and back again, via Hungary, Ellis Island and Antwerp, through Southern Europe and North Africa, and included extensive spells at sea and in the circus as well as basic training with the Foreign Legion, which he eventually decided not to join. His fascinating biography could probably fill a whole series of adventure novels.

In the 1950s he eventually cast anchor in Hamburg and started his extraordinary career in the music industry, cultivating the ‘authentic’ character of the singing sailor whose true home is the sea and who always yearns for faraway places. Legend has it that his first songs were released under the name Freddy because no one at the pressing plant knew how to spell his last name.

Like many other stars in show business, ‘the boy with the guitar’ did not write his songs himself but made every song his own with his unmistakable voice and distinctive style of singing. Among his many hits were the chart-toppers ‘La Paloma’ and ‘Heimweh’, the German-language version of Dean Martins’s biggest hit ‘Memories Are Made Of This’. Many cover versions by younger bands, among them Element of Crime, underline the cross-generational appeal of this larger-than-life artist.

Freddy Quinn also starred in successful musical films and TV shows where he had viewers on the edge of their seats when he walked the tightrope without a safety net or harness – forever the cool