Freddy Quinn

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Freddy Quinn, 1977

Freddy Quinn (born on September 27, 1931 in Vienna , Niederfladnitz or Pula as Franz Eugen Helmuth Manfred Nidl , later Nidl-Petz , also Manfred Quinn ) is an Austrian pop singer and actor who between 1956 and 1966 had several number one successes in the German hit list, sold around 60 million records and became the most successful German-speaking singer at the time. He has been Hamburg by choice for many decades .

Life

youth

Freddy Quinn is the son of the Irish businessman Johann Quinn and the Austrian journalist Edith Henriette Nidl. After his father moved to the United States with him , Quinn first attended elementary school in Morgantown , West Virginia . He learned to play the bugle , a signal trumpet , and English became his second mother tongue. When his mother received custody, he came to her in Vienna , where, after becoming a member of the German Young People, he played in a fanfare parade there. After his mother's marriage to an “impoverished aristocrat”, Rudolf Anatol Petz (until the abolition of the nobility in Austria in 1919, Rudolf Anatol Freiherr von Petz ), who wrote animal poems primarily for one of his mother's two magazines, the Wiener Tierpost and Die Glocke , he was adopted by this one. Quinn didn't like him. He later had to struggle with a lawyer "for fifteen years to get rid of his adoptive father's name."

During the Second World War he was sent to Hungary via Kinderland , where he saw the end of the war. While fleeing from the Red Army , he met American forces near Pilsen . His fluency in English enabled the 14-year-old to impersonate the GIs as American. In May 1945 he was brought to the USA by military transport. In the refugee camp on Ellis Island , he learned that his father had been killed in a traffic accident in 1943. The boy was then sent back to Europe on the next ship and spent a year in Antwerp in a home for the difficult-to-educate because there were difficulties with his papers. When he got back to Vienna, he could speak Dutch and French. He spent his high school years in Vienna at the high school in Albertgasse in the 8th district.

As a minor, Quinn hitchhiked through southern Europe and North Africa and began a wandering life with various circus companies. In this milieu he made his way as a saxophone player , but also trained as an acrobat and rope walker. In Rome he played the piano for American troops . He managed to make his way by ship to Tunisia , Algeria , and later Marseille , Paris and Rotterdam . In the bars of the town of Sidi bel Abbès he played his guitar songs about longing and homesickness in front of the Foreign Legionaries stationed there, the majority of whom came from German-speaking countries. That earned him a lot of sympathy and money. A trainer from the Légion étrangère offered him that he could take part in the basic training on a trial basis and then decide whether he wanted to stay in the Legion or not. After three weeks of drilling, Quinn decided on civilian life and later returned to Germany.

Great success in the 1950s and 1960s

Freddy Quinn, 1963

As a country singer, he performed in front of American soldiers in Fürth and on their radio station AFN in Nuremberg . In 1954 he was in the Washington Bar in Hamburg-St. Pauli was discovered by Jürgen Roland and Werner Baecker , who were there as talent scouts for Polydor . Polydor then enabled him from 1954 to 1956 to study singing at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg. a. with the singing teacher Maja Evans, with which his real career began. He made his first record in 1955 under the pseudonym Frederico Quinn for Telefunken .

In 1956 he took on Polydor the plate H 50181 with two in German interpreted American fox-trots on. On the A side her name was Mary Anne (in the original: Sixteen Tons , German text by Peter Moesser ) and on the B side Heimweh ( Memories Are Made of This ) could be heard. Homesickness was the best-selling title of 1956 in the Federal Republic of Germany , although the first edition is said to have sold poorly because it was initially largely ignored by the broadcasters. On Bayerischer Rundfunk , the record was even broken by presenter Werner Götze as Schnulze of the year in front of an open microphone, but afterwards it was sold very well. For the first time, only the first name of a German performer was printed on the label of the record, as nobody in the press shop supposedly knew how Quinn was written. So he was only known as Freddy at first .

Also in 1956 he was hired exclusively by Polydor and represented Germany at the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson with the title This is how it works every night . Since only the winning title was publicly announced that year, nothing is known about its placement.

Autograph, Prairie Saloon Tour 1968

In 1958, Quinn recorded a single with the rock and roll numbers At the Hop and Stood Up in Japan under the pseudonym "The Manhattans" (not to be confused with the US R&B vocal group The Manhattans ) . In the same year Jürgen Roland brought him in for the crime series Stahlnetz in the episode Die Tote im Hafenbecken for a small supporting role as a punk singer in front of the television camera. Quinn then appeared in a number of music films that were tailor-made for him as a leading actor and in which he almost always played a character with the first name "Freddy". Many well-known actors worked at his side, such as Walter Scherau , Gustav Knuth , Heidi Brühl , Grethe Weiser , Heinz Erhardt , Gunnar Möller , Ralf Wolter and the Karl May film villain Rik Battaglia .

Quinn's melancholy songs, which mostly deal with the sea, the wide world and farewell, loneliness and wanderlust, found a wide audience in post-war Germany . He performed his sailor's ballads, composed and produced by Bert Kaempfert , Lotar Olias , Ernst Bader and James Last , among others , in a deep baritone . With titles like Heimweh, Heimatlos , The Legionnaire , The Guitar and the Sea , Under Stranger Stars , La Paloma and Junge, Come Again , Quinn had six number one hits in the German charts between 1956 and 1966 (he had a total of 26 placements in the German top ten) and was the most successful interpreter in Germany at this time. He sold over 60 million records and is still one of the most successful pop stars in Germany and Austria, alongside Udo Jürgens and Peter Alexander . No singer in Germany had more number one hits than Quinn. He became the first German record millionaire. By 1963 his fortune had already increased sixfold.

Freddy Quinn, 1971

In 1966, when the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were already dominating the German music market, Freddy sang the title Wir , a song against the emerging protest movement of left-wing students. On the A side of the record he dealt with the Vietnam War with A Handful of Rice . He then moved his main residence to the USA for a few years. His last number one hit was 100 men and a command, a German cover version of the song The Ballad of the Green Berets of Sergeant Barry Sadler , published 1966th

Later career

Freddy Quinn, 1985

After the 1960s, he had no more major hits, but with numerous tours, guest performances, film and television appearances, he was always present to an audience that had grown older with him. A late peak of his career reached Quinn when he before the finals of the 1974 FIFA World Cup in front of 78,200 spectators at Olympic Stadium Munich and 600 million before the television screens along with the Fischer choirs the song The Great Game sang. He appeared in the music shows Music from Studio B and Zum Blauen Bock , played in the Heinz Erhardt homage Noch 'ne Oper (1979) and also had small roles in Heidi and Erni (1990) and Großstadtrevier .

Quinn indulged in his passion for the circus and showed himself with spectacular, unsecured appearances on the tightrope, especially in the popular Christmas program Stars in der Manege . He was awarded the "Circus Oscar" for his performances and his commitment. He also moderated the program Zirkus, Zirkus , a ZDF production, in which he also directed. Quinn can also be heard as a narrator in the Scotland Yard radio plays , in which he speaks to Inspector Mac McIntosh, and as the singer of the theme song for the animated series Lucky Luke .

In 1981 he performed at Carnegie Hall in New York . In the same year he received the award as honor lock keeper in Hamburg. Since 2009, shortly after his wife's death, he has largely withdrawn from the public eye. He no longer appears and, with a few exceptions, does not give any interviews.

Private life

Quinn lives in Hamburg and feels a special bond with this city, as he was not only discovered as a singer here, but - according to his own statements - was also conceived. He speaks seven languages ​​and has sung in twelve. In the 1950s he met Lilli Blessmann, with whom he was together until her death at the age of 89 in January 2008. After her death, he retired and is now in a new relationship with his girlfriend Rosi.

In public, Blessmann only appeared as his manager; the marriage had only become known through a court case in 2004: Quinn hit the public headlines between 1998 and 2002 on charges of tax evasion over 900,000 euros. In his tax return to the Hamburg tax office, he had stated Switzerland as his main residence, where he temporarily used an apartment in a two-family house in Tenero-Contra on the north bank of Lake Maggiore , but was actually mostly in Hamburg during the period in question and was therefore in become taxable in the Federal Republic. He confessed in court and had previously paid all tax debts. The Hamburg district court sentenced him in November 2004 to a two-year prison sentence, which was suspended, and a fine of 150,000 euros.

Discography

Note

In Germany, the single charts were determined monthly until 1964, bi-monthly until 1970 and then weekly. In Austria the single charts were determined monthly until 1979, bi-monthly until 1989 and then weekly.

Number one hits

" Homesick " shellac record
year title
 Top ranking, total weeks / months, awardChart placementsChart placementsTemplate: chart table / maintenance / monthly data
(Year, title, , Placements, weeks / months, awards, comments) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH
1956 Homesickness (where the flowers bloom) DE1 (13 months)
DE 		- -
First published: February 1956
Sales: + 8,000,000
1959 The guitar and the sea DE1 (11 months)
DE 		- -
First published: January 1959
Sales: + 1,000,000
Under strange stars (a white ship goes to Hong Kong) DE1 (9 months)
DE 		- -
First published: October 1959
Sales: + 1,000,000
1961 La Paloma DE1 (7 months)
DE 		- -
First published: June 1961
Sales: + 1,000,000
1963 Come back soon, boy DE1 (6 months)
DE 		- -
First published: November 1962
Sales: + 2,100,000
1964 Forgotten bygone past /
Such a day, as beautiful as today 		DE4 (4½ months)
DE 		AT1 (2 months)
AT 		-
First published: October 1964
Sales: + 1,800,000
1966 A hundred men and an order DE1 (5 months)
DE 		AT3 (3 months)
AT 		-
First published: March 1966

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

Awards

The film The Guitar and the Sea won a Bambi for the most successful film of the year in 1959 . In 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963 he received the gold, 1964 the silver and 1965 the bronze Bravo Otto . In 1984, Freddy Quinn received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany from Federal President Karl Carstens for his services to spreading German songs around the world . In 1992 he was awarded the Great Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria . On the occasion of his 65th birthday in 1996 he was honored by the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg with the Biermann-Ratjen Medal for his artistic services to the city of Hamburg.

As a thank you for his honorary appearance as a moderator with the children of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) Coburg and their project “Circus-Circus” in the Kongresshaus Coburg, an as yet nameless place in front of the AWO Coburg was named “Freddy-Quinn-Platz " named. In June 2006, on his second visit to Coburg, Freddy Quinn was made a friend and honorary member of the AWO Coburg. He was also officially received in the town hall of Coburg and entered the city's golden book. In 2006 he also received the Golden City Hall Man of the City of Vienna.

Others

The Swedish singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad (later member of ABBA ) covered the song Junge, komm soon again in 1967 and released it under the title Peter, kom tillbaka (Eng .: Peter, come back) as the B-side of her debut single En single dag .

In 1968 Quinn made a guest appearance in the Ohnsorg Theater in Hamburg in the comedy Die Kartenlegerin by Wilfried Wroost, directed by Hans Mahler . His acting colleagues included Heidi Kabel , Edgar Bessen , Otto Lüthje , Jochen Schenck , Erna Raupach-Petersen and, as a further guest, Willy Millowitsch .

The foundations of the Freddy Quinn Archive in Vienna were laid as early as 1956, today an extensive collection of “almost all” of the artist's sound carriers and videos, as well as photos, posters, programs and press reports, etc., which can be visited after registration. In 2006, part of the collection was shown in the District Museum Vienna-Josefstadt as part of a Freddy Quinn anniversary exhibition on his 75th birthday and his half-century career . Quinn was present at the opening.

Filmography

movie theater

Television (selection)

  • 1958: Stahlnetz - The dead in the harbor basin (TV series)
  • 1967: Homesickness for St. Pauli (stage version for TV)
  • 1968: The card reader (TV)
  • 1971: The boy from St. Pauli (TV)
  • 1987: Großstadtrevier - Robin Hood (TV series)
  • 1990: Heidi and Erni - Zirkusluft (TV series)
  • 1991: Großstadtrevier - Fährmann, hol 'röver (TV series)
  • 2004: Heiress with a Heart (TV)
  • 2004: In all friendship - The power of love (244) (TV series)

literature

Web links

Commons : Freddy Quinn  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quinn's place of birth is not certain. In addition to Vienna, Niederfladnitz in Lower Austria and Pula in Istria were also mentioned. See, for example, Elmar Kraushaar: Freddy Quinn - An improbable life , pp. 14-18, excerpt from these pages ( memento of August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF) accessed on October 23, 2018.
  2. ↑ Carl Dahlhaus, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, Oehl Kurt (ed.): Brockhaus Riemann Musiklexikon. Brockhaus-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1978, ISBN 3-7653-0303-8 , p. 353.
  3. ↑ a b DNB entry on Freddy Quinn accessed on September 25, 2010.
  4. ↑ Biography at Steffi-Line.de
  5. ↑ Freddy is the most successful pop singer. Hamburger Abendblatt, March 11, 2017, accessed on March 15, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Michael Petzel, Jürgen Wehnert: The new lexicon around Karl May . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-89602-509-0 , p. 347.
  7. ↑ a b Christian Ankowitsch: "My life sounds like an invention": A conversation with the singer and actor ... In: Die Zeit , No. 37/1999
  8. ↑ Interview with Heiner Link in September 1999
  9. ↑ When Freddy Quinn came to Fürth , nordbayern.de, September 20, 2011, accessed on October 5, 2011.
  10. ↑ Klaus Fricke: Oldenburgerin taught stars the right tones. Nordwest-Zeitung, October 13, 2011, accessed on February 17, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Port Bard . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 25, 2006, accessed on September 27, 2011
  12. ↑ Eugen Kogon and Walter Dirks (eds.): Frankfurter Hefte . Neue Verlagsgesellschaft der Frankfurter Hefte, Frankfurt 1962, p. 196
  13. ↑ a b Günter Hauswald (ed.): Musica. Monthly for all areas of musical life . Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel / Basel 1963, p. 74
  14. ↑ Stephan Imming: Freddy Quinn - III. Rise to the superstar of hit and cinema. (No longer available online.) In: smago! The online magazine for German music. March 27, 2016, formerly in the original ; accessed on February 17, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.smago.de
  15. ^ Rita Casale, Jürgen Oelkers, Rita Casale, Jürgen Oelkers, Rebekka Horlacher: Education and the public. Verlagsgruppe Belz, Weinheim 2007. More than 1000 other songs have been sung by him (Oliver Armknecht, Centauer 07/2011, p. 39). P. 161
  16. ↑ The Choir of the Decent. To Freddy Quinn's "We" (Text: Fritz Rotter)
  17. ↑ The voice of longing: Freddy Quinn is 85. NDR , September 27, 2016, accessed on June 27, 2017 (Part 3 - “Exciting decades: the 70s and 80s”).
  18. ↑ Freddy Quinn turns 80 - entertainer does not return to the stage. Quinn speaks seven languages. Handelsblatt, September 27, 2011, accessed on October 20, 2015 .
  19. ↑ Boy, Come Back Soon: The Freddy Quinn Biography. schlagerplanet.com, March 12, 2013, accessed October 11, 2018 .
  20. ↑ mdr.de: Schlager legend Freddy Quinn fell in love again at 87 | MDR.DE. Retrieved August 1, 2019 .
  21. ^ Two years probation for Freddy Quinn. In: Spiegel Online . November 22, 2004, accessed September 8, 2016 .
  22. ^ Klaus Miehling: Violent Music - Violent Music . Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3394-9 , p. 306
  23. ^ Catherine C. Fraser, Dierk O. Hoffmann: Pop Culture Germany !: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2006, ISBN 1-85109-733-3 , p. 262.
  24. ↑ a b c d e Joseph Murrells: The Book of Golden Discs , 2, illustrated. Edition, Barrie & Jenkins, 1978, ISBN 0-214-20480-4 .
  25. ↑ Freddy Quinn Archives. Klinger, Vienna, accessed on February 18, 2017 .
  26. ↑ Sabine M. Gruber: 111 places of music in Vienna that you have to experience . Emons Verlag, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-7408-0348-3 .
  27. ↑ Clemens Marschall: In the harbor of longing. In: Die Zeit Online. December 31, 2018, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  28. ^ Large Freddy Quinn exhibition in the District Museum 8. wien.at City of Vienna, September 1, 2006, accessed on February 18, 2017 .
  29. ↑ Note: Freddy Quinn does not appear in this film and does not sing either. However, he can be heard on the guitar in an instrumental piece.
personal data
SURNAME Quinn, Freddy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nidl-Petz, Manfred; Nidl, Franz Eugen Helmuth Manfred (birth name); Quinn, Manfred; Eugen, Franz (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian pop singer
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Niederfladnitz or Pula