Freddy Quinn: Seemanns image was like a cage for him

Singer Freddy Quinn (93) was written to the image of the lonely seaman. In his new autobiography “How it really was” (from May 22nd, Hannibal Verlag), the legendary pop star describes that he was definitely struggling with it – as with his success hit “Junge, come back soon”.

“The sailor was put on like a costume that didn’t fit really,” Freddy Quinn looks back. But he also found it great and did not understand what was happening to him at the beginning. “I was successful. It felt good. A little sailor yarn, a little wanderlust, a bit of melancholy – that seemed to be the recipe.” He also did not want to complain. “The image opened me doors, it gave me success, it made it possible for me to live from which I would not even have dared to dream of as a young boy in Vienna.” But it was “also a cage”.

So he had to keep hidden for a long time that he has a relationship. Because to get better with female fans, he should not officially have a partner at his side. So there were even rumors about his sexuality. “But what else should people have thought? There was this mysterious sailor, of whom there were even photos with a naked upper body. Who had some muscles. Yes, and where was the woman at his side? It was therefore not surprising that it was speculated. “I even think it was quite right for the record bosses that there was such a puzzle rates around me. This caused excitement. And if you are exciting, the device was not forgotten.”

Quinn became particularly famous with the song “Boy, come back soon”. He had “naturally” phases in which he “could hardly endure it,” he confesses in the book. “But at the same time I loved the song. I knew what I owed to him, and I liked it. If they sang thousands of times for a song, it might get out of their ears at some point.” In the meantime, however, he had “really” struggled with this piece. Because it tied him to his image.

But for the sake of his fans, he still sang his big hits regularly: “People paid money for doing my best and presenting them to them, which is why they had come to my concert that evening.” So he almost avoided not to sing “boy, come back soon”. “It belongs to me. It is an important song. It gave me grief – and at the same time I love it with all my heart.”

However, he would be happy if he was not only seen as the man with a sailor’s hat, with whom he used to often posed – “if people in me also see something different than the lonely sailor. A little more”.

In his autobiography “How it really was”, which was created in collaboration with journalist Daniel Böcking, Freddy Quinn looks back on his life, his childhood without a father, the jump into the spotlight, his great career and his two great ones. At the age of 91 he married a second time in 2023 and now enjoys retirement with his rosi near Hamburg.