Anni-Frid Lyngstad

Born: November 15, 1945 in Narvik, Norway
Birth Name: Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad
Nickname: Frida
Height: 5’7¾” (1.72 m)

During World War II, a German officer had an affair with young Norwegian Synni Lyngstad. Once the war ended, he returned to his home country, unaware of the fact that Synni was pregnant with his child. Anni-Frid Lyngstad (or Frida, as she later became known) was born on November 15th, 1945 in the small town of Narvik in Norway. To escape post-war retributions dished out to “collaborators” and their children her mother took her to Sweden, Torshälla. When she was only two, Anni-Frid’s mother died. Her grandmother (who had always encouraged her to sing) became responsible for raising her.

According to Lyngstad, her father, Alfred Haase, had died while returning to Germany from the war, as his ship was reported to have been sunk. However, in 1977, the German teen magazine Bravo published a poster and a complete biography with details of Lyngstad’s background, including the names of her mother and father. It was seen by Lyngstad’s half-brother, Peter Haase, who went to his father and asked him if he had been in Ballangen during the war. A few months later, Lyngstad met Haase in Stockholm for the first time.

At the age of 13, Lyngstad gained her first job as a dance band and schlager singer in 1958, with the Evald Ek’s Orchestra. Evald Ek himself remembers: “It was hard to believe, such a young person could sing that well. She was so easy to rehearse with and she was never shy onstage. The only thing I taught her was to sing out. In those days, she had a tendency of holding back her voice a little.” With the Evald Eks Orchestra, the 13-year-old Lyngstad, performed every weekend in front of a dancing audience. The sets often lasted up to five hours. The songs she liked most to sing were the evergreens; “All of Me”, “Night and Day” and “Begin the Beguine”. To advance and develop, she also started to take singing lessons with opera tenor, Folke Andersson. Later, she teamed up with a 15-piece ‘Bengt Sandlunds Bigband’, who performed a jazz repertoire covering Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie; her vocal idols being Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee.

On 3 September 1967, Lyngstad won the Swedish national talent competition, “New Faces”, arranged by record company EMI Svenska, and held at Skansen, Stockholm. The song she chose to sing was “En Ledig Dag” (“A Day Off”, original title: “Week-End in Portofino”). The first prize in this contest was a recording contract with EMI’s Swedish subsidiary. Unbeknownst to Lyngstad, the winner of the contest was also expected to appear the same evening in the country’s most popular TV show at that time, Hylands Hörna. This happened on the same day Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right-hand side. Driving on that day was discouraged, so most of the nation was watching TV that night. Lyngstad performed her winning song live. The performance can be seen on Frida – The DVD.

Despite this promising start to her career, it took several years for Lyngstad to achieve commercial success. She recorded seven solo singles for EMI over the next two years, but none of them achieved much airplay. Lyngstad spent most of her time performing in cabaret shows across Sweden. Then, in 1969, she met and fell in love with Benny Andersson, keyboardist of The Hep Stars, a popular Swedish pop group in the 1960s. Andersson had recently been working with Björn Ulvaeus, another Swedish pop star who was also happened to date a singer named Agnetha Fältskog.

In 1970, the quartet performed together for the first time in a cabaret act called Festfolk. Two years later, they released a single called “People Need Love” that became a minor hit in Sweden. Renaming themselves ABBA, an acronym of the first letters of each of their first names (Anni-Frid, Benny, Björn, Agnetha) and also the name of a popular Swedish canned fish company, the group achieved its big break in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. ABBA entered a new single called “Waterloo,” an upbeat, disco-influenced pop track. They won first place, and the contest catapulted “Waterloo” to No. 1 on the UK pop charts and to No. 6 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100. ABBA was on its way to becoming one of world’s biggest pop groups.

Over the next seven years, ABBA enjoyed widespread international popularity. Their self-titled 1975 album spawned such hits as “SOS,” “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” and “Mamma Mia,” all of which became immensely popular in Europe, Australia, and the United States.

The two couples that comprised ABBA, Ulvaeus and Fältskog and Andersson and Lyngstad, married in 1971 and 1978 respectively. But when Lyngstad and Andersson announced their divorce in 1981, their strained relationship started to affect their music. They stopped performing together entirely by the end of 1982.

In 1982, during ABBA’s last year as a working band, Frida recorded and released her first post-ABBA solo album. This was also her first solo album in English. The Phil Collins-produced album called Something’s Going On became a big success for Frida worldwide. A much rockier sound was found on many of the songs and Phil Collins’ drum sound had a major contribution, particularly on the lead single, “I Know There’s Something Going On”, which topped the charts in Belgium and Switzerland, and was a top 5 hit in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa and Sweden amongst others. With the song and video being heavily promoted and played on MTV, the single also proved successful in the United States, reaching No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and No. 9 on Radio & Records) in March 1983, and was the 20th biggest selling single in the US that year. In the UK, the track was not a successful hit, only reaching No. 43.

Lyngstad’s next album was Shine (1984). This album was recorded at Studios De La Grande Armée in Paris, France and produced by Steve Lillywhite, known for his work with artists like Peter Gabriel, U2, the Rolling Stones, Morrissey and Kirsty MacColl amongst others. Lillywhite was only 29 when this album was recorded and he gave Frida a very experimental sound and managed to create a relaxed atmosphere in the studio. The album had much less success than hoped, though it reached the Top 20 in many European countries, No. 6 in Sweden being its highest position.

In 1987, Frida was in the choir for the recording of her former husband Benny Andersson’s song “Klinga Mina Klockor”. Also in 1987, Lyngstad recorded the single “Så Länge Vi Har Varann” (“As Long As We Have Each Other”) with the Swedish pop group Ratata, one of Lyngstad’s favourites. She was contacted by singer Mauro Scocco, who mentioned that he had a song suitable for a duet. After hearing it, Lyngstad accepted immediately. The song achieved great success in Sweden, and was also recorded in English under the title of “As long as I have you”. An English-language video of the song was produced, although an Australian release of this song on Festival Records in January 1998 was eventually shelved.

Personal life

• On 3 April 1964, 18-year-old Lyngstad married salesman and fellow musician Ragnar Fredriksson. They had two children: Hans Ragnar (born 26 January 1963) and Ann Lise-Lotte (25 February 1967 – 13 January 1998). They separated in 1968 and were officially divorced on 19 May 1970, the same day that her 71-year-old grandmother Arntine died.
• In 1969, Lyngstad met Benny Andersson. By 1971, they were living together, but did not marry until 6 October 1978, during the height of ABBA’s success. However, after only two years of marriage, they separated on 26 November 1980, and were divorced in 1981.
• In 1982, Lyngstad left Sweden and moved to London. In 1986, she relocated to Switzerland, and lived with her boyfriend, landscape architect Prince Heinrich Ruzzo of Reuss, Count of Plauen (1950–1999), member of the ancient House of Reuss, in his family castle in Fribourg. The couple married on August 26, 1992, granting Lyngstad the title of Princess within Switzerland. Prince Heinrich Ruzzo died from lymphoma in 1999.
• In 1988, Lyngstad became a grandmother when her daughter Ann Lise-Lotte and her American husband Charles Geritt Casper, welcomed their son Jonathan Casper.
• Through her marriage to Prince Reuss of Plauen, who had been a student at the same boarding school as Crown Prince Carl Gustaf, who later became the King of Sweden, Lyngstad became acquainted with the Swedish royal family and eventually became close friends with Sweden’s Queen Silvia.
• On 13 January 1998, Lyngstad’s 30-year-old daughter Ann Lise-Lotte Fredriksson Casper died of injuries sustained in a car accident in Livonia, New York, a town 20 miles south of Rochester.
• Since 2007 she has been in a relationship with British peer Henry Smith, 5th Viscount Hambleden, with whom she resides in Genolier, Switzerland.
• Her full name with all the names she aquired from husbands is Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad-Fredricksson-Andersson-Reuss, although musically she is known better as Frida.
• She is “Norway’s gift to Sweden”
• The name ABBA was comprised of the first letters of the first names of the group’s members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
• Ranked #70 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll
• Her late husband, Ruzzo, was a scion of Germany’s Princely House of Reuss. His full name was Heinrich Ruzzo, Prinz Reuss.
• Her official name is Her Serene Highness Princess Anni-Frid Von Plauen.
• Was the only non-Swedish member of pop group ABBA.
• ABBA’s only appearance on Saturday Night Live (1975) occurred on her thirtieth birthday.
• Close friend of Silvia Bernadotte, the queen of Sweden.
• Her second child, a 30-year-old daughter Ann Lise-Lotte Fredriksson, died in a car crash in state Detroit, USA on Janaury 13, 1998, a 13 days before her brother’s 35th birthday.
• Gave birth her second child at age 21, a daughter Ann Lise-Lotte Fredriksson on February 25, 1967. Child’s father is her first husband, Ragnar Fredriksson.
• Released a song “the sun will shine again” with Jon Lord. [May 2005]