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She enjoys her life after her show career: Paola Felix. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
A performance at the Eurovision Song Contest as a birthday present, 33 years of happiness in love and a fall on the plastic palm island - why Paola Felix sees herself on the sunny side of life.
If Paola Felix wasn't a singer and presenter, she would certainly have something to offer as a life coach. The Swiss woman describes herself as happy all round and her recipe: "Look on the bright side, maintain good contacts and talk to each other - but not on social media," says the former presenter of "Verstehen Sie Spass?" and singer of hits such as "Blue Bayou" shortly before her 75th birthday on October 5.
But wait, "look on the bright side" - at some point this "clean lady of entertainment", as she was once called, who has been in the public eye for more than 50 years without scandals, arguments or controversies, has to get angry, get upset, fly off the handle? Show her rough edges? "You won't find anything," she tells the German Press Agency. "Others may always look for the problem, but I always look for the good way."
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Her birthday wish is correspondingly modest: "I wish that I can continue to lead this happy life," says Paola, who, like many singers at the time, only performed under her first name for a long time. Her surname was del Medico and her father was an Italian master tailor. Since her marriage to Swiss presenter Kurt Felix in 1980, she has even had luck in her name: felix is Latin and means "favored by luck".
"I was born on the sunny side of the world," she says. "I can look back on a happy childhood, my professional dream became my dream job, I had 33 years of happiness in love with Kurt at my side - and that is the best present life has given me."
She has already received the best birthday present, she says: The appearance in spring 2025 at the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Basel, after she was there twice as a participant decades ago. "My first participation in 1969 was the beginning of my dream job," she says. "I was overjoyed to be on this stage with 170 million viewers once again - it almost brought everything full circle."
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In 1969, Paola achieved the second-highest score for Switzerland with the song "Bonjour, Bonjour". She came 4th in 1980 with "Cinéma". She was a permanent guest on the ZDF hit parade.
What made Paola really famous in Germany, however, was hosting "Verstehen Sie Spass?" together with Kurt Felix as an ARD Saturday evening show from 1983 to 1990. She was also once on the show as a decoy in disguise. The show is now hosted by Barbara Schöneberger.
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Paola and Kurt Felix were voted among the most popular presenter couples on television several times. Kurt Felix died in 2012 at the age of 71 after a serious illness. The fact that she is often asked about Kurt Felix rather than her own career does not bother her, says Paola: "That is a great joy for me. He will always be present in my life, and the fact that people remember him is wonderful."
She retired from the entertainment business in 1990 at the age of 40. The two wanted to have more of a private life. She only appeared rarely after that, on special occasions.
Their appearance on a television show for Karl Dall's 60th birthday was legendary. The two were singing Paola's hit "Blue Bayou" in 2001, sitting on a plastic island with palm trees and bananas, when she suddenly lost her footing and slid down a flight of stairs on her backside. "Keep singing," Dall said, and they both did, interspersed with laughter. Paola suffered a few bruises, but, keeping a positive attitude, she says: "It's a funny blip in my life".
Anyone waiting for anecdotes from her life in the form of a memoir will wait in vain. She promised Kurt that there would never be such a thing, she says. During appearances or interviews, however, she sometimes tells stories from the sewing box, such as how she and her husband were often fooled in private later on in memory of "Verstehen Sie Spass? For example, in a pizzeria when they were both served a miniature pizza after ordering - to see how they would react. Of course, they took it with humor.
05.10.2025, 12:25
