Saturday 21 July 2012

Das Freizeit-Magazin, 1978: Agnetha: this is my life

Blonde, blue-eyed, long-legged: Agnetha embodies the typical Swedish girl. Music is in her blood. After school she earned her living as a singer with a dance band. And when she was only eighteen she recorded her first solo single. The song 'Jag Var Så Kär' became a hit, at least in Sweden. "All of a sudden I was well-known and I appeared in TV shows," remembers Anna, that's how Agnetha likes to be called nowadays. "I also met the Hootenanny Singers there." She was especially smitten with one of the boys from the group: Björn Ulvaeus. "It was love at first sight," both of them affirm these days. After a joint holiday they started living together and a couple of months later - in 1971 - they got married. Their joint success with ABBA has only brought Anna and Björn closer together. But the most important thing to the both of them remains their family, to which - after daughter Linda - a little son was added.

Pictures from top left to bottom right.
The typical Swedish girl: long blonde hair, blue eyes and a lot of naturalness. You wouldn't guess that she is 28 years old and has two children. Up till now she has always had good luck on her side. Her first solo single, that she recorded when she was eighteen, became a big hit in Sweden. When she was twenty, she married the man of her dreams: Björn Ulvaeus. Little daughter Linda (meanwhile five years old) is growing into a lively girl and up till now Anna doesn't have any worries about her now four months old son either.

At the end of November 1967 Agnetha had all the reason in the world to smile. After she had toured through Sweden and Europe for two years with a dance band, she finally achieved her breakthrough as a solo singer with a self written song. Swedish TV shows were tripping over each other for the blonde singer. "I even received offers from Germany," Anna remembers from her first success.

The blonde girl from ABBA was born on April 5, 1950 in Jönköping. Agnetha's father, an organizer of amateur revues, introduced her to the stage when she was still a child. She learned how to play the piano and the organ and she started to write her own lyrics.

Anna always maintained a good relationship with her parents, Ingvar and Birgit Fältskog. Mona is very attached to her older sister as well and she often pays her a visit in her Stockholm home. This family picture was taken in 1968.

In one of these TV shows Anna met Björn, in those days the star of the Hootenanny Singers. The both of them got along right away, they went on a holiday together and got married in July 1971.

Björn and Anna prefer to spend the little spare time they have between their tours, recording sessions and TV shows with their little daughter in their cottage on one of the Swedish isles. This year, their little son Christian will join them as well.

Anna and Benny are getting their make-up done for a TV show. Last year, the Swedish broadcasting company has persuaded the four superstars to chronicle their lives in a TV show. Obviously the ABBA hit 'Waterloo' was featured as well in the big television extravaganza, the song that won the group the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974.

Anna feared that her voice would suffer from a tonsillectomy in 1976. But she recovered from the surgery without scratches and little daughter Linda was enjoying her mother's compulsory break.

The Swedish quartet ABBA was presented to the world for the first time in November 1970 in Göteborg. Years later, the four of them returned to leave their hand prints for the Liseberg park.

Björn and Anna in Germany during the ABBA tour last year. After that, the group took a baby break for the sake of Anna. The family takes precedence for Björn and Anna in 1978 as well.

Already in her childhood, Agnetha took ballet classes. These days, the ABBA girls keep in shape for their tours and TV performances with morning gymnastics.

Last December, ABBA enjoyed a glittering movie premiere in Stockholm. Manager Stikkan Anderson and director Lasse Hallström were congratulating.

Anna's son weighed exactly 3.920 grams. He was born in December after a difficult childbirth. Obviously, Björn was present during the delivery in Stockholm.

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