Quiz

One of his first loves was French Star Martine Carol.

René Carol had one sister called Hilde. Also one daughter Renate, she now lives in Hamburg, Germany.

At the end of 1946 he managed to return from France to Germany and initially settled in Hamburg. He soon appeared all over Germany as "Karol with the 30 Variations".

He began an apprenticeship as a mechanic at Telefunken in Berlin and was noticed as a singer at a company party at the age of 14.

Carol had records pressed with homesickness for Germany themes especially for his American fans, but they met with little response.

René Carol was married three times.

After undergoing surgery at the Minden Clinic for colorectal carcinoma (cancer), he died in Haselhorn two days before his 58th birthday.

At the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the French, from which he was able to escape to Paris in April 1946. There he performed in bars and nightclubs, and when he needed a passport, a French underworld agent got him a fake one in the name René Carol.

His last chart entry in Germany was "Bianca Rosa" in 1963 at number 44. Thanks to a tour of the Netherlands, the title even made it into the top ten there.

At the beginning of the 1960s, René Carol spent a long time in North America, where he found an audience at concerts for Americans and Canadians of German descent. Since he had a permanent residence in Chicago through his cousin, he managed to join the US singers' union, which made these performances possible in the first place.

In 1953, René Carol sold the record " Rote Rosen, rote Lippen, roter Wein" over 750,000 times. With over 750,000 copies sold, it was the first post-war single to receive a gold record in 1954. On June 19, 1954, Lale Andersen recorded an English-language version written by Doreas Cochran under the title "Tender And True" with Luczkowski's orchestra in the Cologne Messestudio, which only came onto the market in 1994.

In the 1950s, Carol attracted attention for several traffic offenses. In 1955 he had to go to prison for six weeks for hit-and-run and negligent bodily harm. Carol later said of herself: "I was completely crazy about cars, alcohol and women!".

When a big tour with stars of the 1950s was organized in Germany in 1975, he told journalists on the tour bus about his old successes: "The opera house in Chicago was sold out, with one name: René Carol!" Having squandered his fortune, he appeared at company parties and shooting festivals almost until his death on April 9, 1978.

During one of his appearances in April 1949, Kurt Feltz, the discoverer of many German pop stars in the 1950s, became aware of him. With the Kurt Feltz production Maria from Bahia in 1950, he began a long-lasting singing career, whose success only ended in the 1960s.

After the outbreak of the Second World War he was called up to the air force. During this time he made his first appearances: as a parodist of actors Theo Lingen and Hans Moser.