Birthday From "Blue Bayou" to "Do you understand fun?": Paola Felix turns 75
Paola Del Medico was already well-known in the world of music as a young woman. Born in St. Gallen, she married Kurt Felix in 1980 and also made a name for herself as a presenter. Paola Felix turns 75 (today) on Sunday.
05.10.2025, 06:30
SDA
Paola was born in St. Gallen on October 5, 1950, the daughter of a Swiss mother and an Italian father. She always sang with her mother, who would have liked to be an opera singer herself, for example when washing up together, Felix recently recalled on a talk show.
Even as a teenager, the convent schoolgirl had her first performances, winning the Disco D'Oro (Golden Record) in her home town of St. Gallen when she was not even 15 years old. She got her first record deal in 1968. Her first appearance at the ESC in Madrid followed in 1969 with her song "Bonjour, Bonjour".
Four female singers took first place at the time, followed by Paola. This led to the rules being changed for future competitions in the event of a tie - and to the fact that there is still confusion today as to whether the singer from Switzerland came second or fifth.
Biggest hit "Blue Bayou"
In the 1970s, the "Swiss woman with Italian blood", as she described herself, made a career as a musician. She went on tour and was a permanent guest on the ZDF hit parade. In 1978, she landed her biggest hit with her version of "Blue Bayou".
In 1980, she took part in the ESC for the second time with her song "Cinéma", reaching fourth place in The Hague. She was already engaged to Kurt Felix at the time. The two had met on one of his programs on Swiss television, where she was a guest. When there were delays during filming, he led her into the unadorned canteen and asked her to marry him in the glaring neon light, she told a talk show. They weren't even on a first-name basis at the time, Felix recalled. But it all happened very quickly - and lasted for decades.
Presenter with Kurt Felix
In 1980, Kurt Felix went to Germany and hosted the new program "Verstehen Sie Spass?", which he had developed for ARD. In 1983, the show moved to ARD's Saturday evening program and Paola Felix joined as co-presenter. For seven years, the two of them hosted the show, in which people were placed in unexpected situations and secretly filmed.
For example, there was the cleaner who was supposed to clean a china store in a 1988 show into which the TV crew had previously led a real elephant. Many years later, Kurt and Paola Felix were still the faces of "Verstehen Sie Spass?" for German-speaking television audiences. "People still talk to me today and tell me that they grew up with my songs and the shows on 'Verstehen Sie Spass?
Life after that
In 1990, the childless couple announced their retirement from show business, which came as a surprise to many. "It was important to us that there was a life afterwards," Paola Felix told Schweizer Illustrierte magazine. In addition to many trips with her husband, she then also devoted herself to her second great passion, fashion, and even developed her own line for a mail-order company. Her father was a tailor and she grew up "between bolts of fabric and sewing machines", she told the Swiss online portal Blue News in 2019.
Kurt Felix died of cancer in 2012 and she has remained single ever since. "The bond is still there," she told Schweizer Illustrierte magazine in May. The loss still seems to hurt her, but she doesn't seem lonely and says she is surrounded by family and friends. When asked by a newspaper a few years ago what she would have done differently in life, she replied: "I've been so lucky in life that I don't even think to ask myself that question."
