Lys Assia (born Rosa Mina Schärer; 3 March 1924 – 24 March 2018) was a Swiss singer who won the first

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim ...

. Assia was born in

Rupperswil Rupperswil is a municipality in the district of Lenzburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. History A partially preserved Roman era tile kiln from the 2nd Century was discovered in 1911. There is also evidence of the emergence of a late ...

Aargau Aargau, more formally the Canton of Aargau (german: Kanton Aargau; rm, Chantun Argovia; french: Canton d'Argovie; it, Canton Argovia), is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of eleven districts and its capita ...

, and began her stage career as a dancer, but changed to singing in 1940 after successfully standing in for a female singer.

Eurovision Song Contest

she was the winner of the first

, in which she sang for Switzerland. She had also been in the German national final of that year and returned to the contest again for Switzerland in

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...

and

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

. Her Eurovision success was followed by success in Germany with "

O mein Papa "" is a nostalgic German song, originally as related by a young woman remembering her beloved, once-famous clown father. It was written by Swiss composer Paul Burkhard in 1939 for the musical ' (''The Black Pike''), reproduced in 1950 as '' Das Feue ...

". In

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, Assia performed at the '' Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest'' event. In

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, together with

Dima Bilan Dima Nikolayevich Bilan (russian: Ди́ма Никола́евич Била́н; born Viktor Nikolayevich Belan, russian: Ви́ктор Никола́евич Бела́н, links=no; 24 December 1981) is a Russian singer, songwriter and acto ...

(

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

winner), Assia presented the Eurovision trophy to that year's winner

Alexander Rybak Alexander Igorevich Rybak (russian: Александр Игоревич Рыбак) or Alyaxandr Iharavich Rybak ( be, Аляксандр Ігаравіч Рыбак; born 13 May 1986) is a Belarusian-Norwegian singer-composer, violinist, pian ...

In September 2011, Assia entered her song "C'était ma vie", written by

Ralph Siegel Ralph Siegel (born 30 September 1945) is a German record producer and songwriter. Siegel is one of the most notable figures at the Eurovision Song Contest, in which he has participated with 24 songs so far, among them the 1982 winner song Ein bi ...

and Jean Paul Cara, into the Swiss national selection for the

Eurovision Song Contest 2012 The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, following the country's victory at the with the song " Running Scared" by the duo Ell & Nikki. It was the first time Azerb ...

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

, Azerbaijan. The song came eighth in a closely fought national selection. She attended the event in Baku as a guest of honour. In 2012, Assia again entered the Swiss national selection ''Die grosse Entscheidungs Show'' to represent Switzerland in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

at the

Eurovision Song Contest 2013 The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 was the 58th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Malmö, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "Euphoria" by Loreen. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EB ...

with the song "All in Your Head" featuring the hip-hop band New Jack. There were rumours of Assia representing

San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...

, but it was announced on 30 January 2013 that

Valentina Monetta Valentina Monetta (born 1 March 1975) is a Sammarinese singer. She is best known for representing in the , , , and Eurovision Song Contests. She also announced the Sammarinese points at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. In the 2014 contest, M ...

would do so. She later made a guest appearance during the contest's second semi-final. In 2015, at age 91, Assia was in the audience in London for the special ''

Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits ''Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits'' (also known as ''Eurovision's Greatest Hits'') was a live television concert programme organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to ...

'' concert celebrating the Contest's 60th anniversary. This was her last public appearance.

Personal life

Assia married Johann Heinrich Kunz on 11 January 1957 in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

. Kunz died just nine months later after battling a serious illness. In 1963, she married

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

businessman Oscar Pedersen, who died in 1995. She died on 24 March 2018 in Zürich.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Assia, Lys 1924 births 2018 deaths People from Lenzburg District Eurovision Song Contest winners Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Switzerland Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1956 Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1957 Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1958 Schlager musicians French-language singers of Switzerland German-language singers of Switzerland Italian-language singers of Switzerland 20th-century Swiss women singers