Cornelia Froboess

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Cornelia Froboess (born 28 October 1943, Wriezen) is a German[clarification needed] actress and a teen idol of the 1950s and early 1960s. During that time, Froboess appeared in many West German and Austrian musical films, especially after the rock and roll wave had hit Germany. In those comedy films, she would often portray the typical Berliner Göre (brat from [West] Berlin) who craves independence from her strict parents.

Biography
As Die Kleine Cornelia she had her first hit record in 1951, aged eight, with a song written by her father. "Pack die Badehose ein" (Pack your swimsuit") is a cheery tune about a group of children going swimming on a hot summer's day at Wannsee. The title of the song has become a set phrase and synonym for going swimming easily recognized even by speakers of German who have never heard of the song. As she grew she recorded as Conny then Conny Froboess

In 1962, Froboess finished in sixth place at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she sang "Zwei kleine Italiener" (Two little Italians) for Germany. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc.  The same year she appeared as herself in Jean Renoir's comedy film The Elusive Corporal.

Later, Froboess became a theatre and movie actress. In 1982, she appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film Veronika Voss. In 1988 she played Marthe Schwerdtlein in Goethe's Faust I, a performance that was also released as a film: Faust – Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur Hölle. In 1997 Froboess played the mother of the protagonist Martin Brest (Til Schweiger) in the film Knockin' on Heaven's Door. On stage, she appeared in Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm in 1976, staged by Dieter Dorn,  and played Ellida in Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea in 1990.  At the Salzburg Festival 2004, she played Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night.  The same year she played the title role in Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRj07BD4Jo0


Zwei kleine Italiener" ("Two little Italians") was the German entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962, performed in German by Conny Froboess.

The song was performed seventh on the night, following Sweden's Inger Berggren with "Sol och vår" and preceding the Netherlands' De Spelbrekers with "Katinka". At the close of voting, it had received 9 points, placing 6th in a field of 16.

The song (with lyrics by Georg Buschor and music by Christian Bruhn (de)) is a moderately up-tempo number in the schlager genre, with Froboess describing the plight of two gastarbeiter from Italy who wish to return to their homeland to be with their girlfriends, Tina and Marina. She contrasts this situation with that of the rest of German society (at the time undergoing the Wirtschaftswunder largely as a result of immigrant labour), for whom "a journey to the South is something chic and fine". The two Italians, it seems, despair of ever returning to Naples. This unusual subject matter marks the first time that a social issue was described in a Contest entry.

Despite its middle-of-the-table finish, the song has become a minor favourite among Contest fans. Froboess herself recorded versions of the song in English (as "Gino"), Dutch ("Twee kleine Italianen") and Italian ("Un bacio all'italiana"). Of these, only the Dutch version relates to the same topic. The English version is a love song to a man named Gino, while the Italian version describes her preference for lovers from that country.

The song was also widely covered throughout Europe and the rest of the world in a number of other languages; in Spanish as "Los dos italianitos", in the francophone countries as "Cheveux fous et lèvres roses", in Scandinavia in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish under the title "Tina & Marina" (in Sweden with lyrics by future ABBA manager Stig Anderson), in Finland as "Tina ja Marina" and in the United States Connie Francis subsequently covered Froboess' Italian version of the song, "Un bacio all'italiana".