Pop singer Michael Hansen is dead. The 82-year-old died on Saturday after weeks of illness, as wife Petra Kurucz-Schibilsky told the German Press Agency on Sunday. Several media had previously reported about it. Hansen was considered the sunny boy of GDR entertainment. Born in Güstrower, he and his three singers, the Nancies, celebrated great success on television and on show stages – for example with the songs “Regen in der Nacht” and “Wer hat sie sien”. He lived in Wandlitz in Brandenburg.
According to his widow, Hansen fell ill with Corona after Easter and was in the hospital in Berlin-Buch several times. “I had to take care of my husband at home,” she said. Most recently he was in a rehabilitation clinic in Wandlitz.
Music was in Hansen’s blood, alias Schibilsky, from an early age. He sang in the school choir, later at the University of Rostock, where he studied mechanical engineering and played in a band. “Music was just a hobby at first, after graduation I decided to do my job and became a pop singer,” he said on the occasion of his 75th birthday in 2015.
Hansen’s great success came in the 1970s. Three dancers came to him, who also sang. The group Michael Hansen and the Nancies was often seen on television or on stages. “We were mostly a household name: we sang and danced,” Hansen said in 2015.
He ended his career with the nancies one day before monetary union on June 30, 1990. After that, he was not only musically active and wrote children’s musicals. Hansen was also involved in tourism, for example. He was also honorary president of the Elbland Festival in Wittenberge for many years, most recently as honorary president.
The black curly long hair used to be his trademark. In 2015 he stopped coloring his hair. Shortly before his 75th birthday, the sideburns had gone gray.
