Freddy Quinn

Freddy Quinn is an Austrian singer and actor whose popularity within the Germanspeaking world soared in the late 1950s and 1960s. Similar to Hans Albers two generations before him, Quinn adopted the persona of the rootless wanderer who goes to sea but longs for a home, family and friends. Quinns 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.

Quinn was born in 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 mothers second marriage to Rudolf Anatol Freiherr von Petz, Quinn adopted the name NidlPetz. At the end of World War II, as part of a refugee group, Freddy encountered American troops in Bohemia. Due to his fluent English, the 14yearold 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 childrens home, where he learned to speak French and Dutch. However, having left the landlocked country of Austria in favor of adventurous journeys through Southern Europe and Northern Africa, he eventually headed for Germany

Source: Wikipedia