Born Franz Eugen Helmuth Manfred Nidl in Vienna on September 27, 1931, the singer and actor is better known by his stage name Freddy Quinn. As a child, he lived with his father in Morgantown, West Virginia, 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 single "Schön war die Zeit" from 1956 - 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 Jede Nacht". He did not win the contest and the full results were never published, so his final placing is unknown. Freddy Quinn released his first solo album, One in a Million, in 1958. This album was followed by Freddy (1958) and This Is Freddy (1961). After a series of hits, he turned to acting and appeared in a number of films, including Freddy, the Guitar and the Sea (1959), Freddy under Foreign Stars (1959), Freddy and the Song of the South Seas (1962) and Homesick for St. Pauli (1963). The album Auf Hoher See, released in 1961, was his first hit and reached number 2 in the album charts. A year later, his album Heimweh nach St. Pauli built on the success of its predecessor and also reached number 2. All these early successes paved the way for a successful career that spanned 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 fewer than 45 compilations, including "Electrola... That's music!" in 2019 or Freddy Quinn: The ultimate best-of collection (2023). He retired from the music business in 2009.
