Freddy Quinn

Born Franz Eugen Helmuth Manfred Nidl on September 27, 1931, in Vienna, Austria, the singer and actor is better known by his stage name Freddy Quinn. As a child, he lived in Morgantown, West Virginia with his father but eventually moved back to Vienna to live with his mother. While he was active in the entertainment business for over 50 years, his commercial heyday in Germany and Austria was in the 1950s and 1960s. His 1956 single "Schön war die Zeit” -  a German-language version of Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This” – was a million seller. Freddy Quinn represented Germany at the 1956 Eurovision Song Contest in Lugano, Switzerland, with the song "So Geht Das Iede Nacht". He did not win the competition and the full results were never published, so his final ranking is unknown. Freddy Quinn released his debut solo album, One in a Million, in 1958. He followed that album with Freddy (1958) and Das Ist Freddy (1961). After a series of hits, he turned to acting and starred in a series of films including Freddy, the Guitar and the Sea (1959), Freddy unter Fremden Sternen (1959), Freddy and the Song of the South Pacific (1962), and Homesick for St. Pauli (1963).  The 1961 album Auf Hocher See was his first hit album, reaching Number 2 on the album chart. A year later, his album Heimweh Nach St. Pauli repeated the previous album’s success and also landed at Number 2. All of these early successes paved the way for a successful career that included a total of 28 studio albums, 18 EPs, and 97 singles, including "Heimweh (Dort, Wo die Blumen Blüh'n)” (1956), “Die Gitarre und das Meer” and “Unter fremden Sternen (Fährt ein weißes Schiff nach Hongkong)” (1959), “La Paloma” (1961), “Junge, Komm Bald Wieder” ( 1963) and “Hundert Mann und ein Befehl” (1966). Freddy Quinn has released no less than 45 compilations, including Electrola… Das ist Musik! in 2019. He retired from the music business in 2009.