Biography
Wencke Myhre is a Norwegian singer who is also famous in other Scandinavian and German speaking countries. Wencke Myhre made her first public appearance in Oslo in 1954 with her father Kjell and brother Reidar. In 1960, she won first prize in the talent competition Chat Noir in Oslo. She signed a record dealon her thirteenth birthday. She had her television debut a year later in the NRK tv-show “En runde på Rondo”. In 1963 her film debut followed. Since then she was almost constantly represented in the Norwegian charts.
For her song “Gi meg en Cowboy til mann” , she received her first Golden Record. She participated in the Norsk Melodi Grand Prix 1964 with the song “La meg værre ung”, which became a huge hit. In 1965 she won the International Schlager Festival of the Baltic Countries in Rostock and finished second at the renowned Schlager Festival in Baden-Baden. At the German Schlager Festival in 1966, Myhre was not the winner but it was her final breakthrough on the German hit market. In the same year, she did another attempt to represent Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest.
In 1968 she represented Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Ein hoch der Liebe”. In the late 1960s, she was one of the absolute top stars and teenage idols in Germany. She has been a regular guest at the music shows of German television and has performed with Peter Alexander, Udo Jürgens and many other show greats. In 1970, she received the lead role in her only feature film “Unsere Pauker gehen in die Luft”. She also had her own television show on German television. In 1977 she received the Golden Camera as the most popular female show star.
In 1983, Wencke and her son Danny took part in the German national final for Eurovision with the song “Wir beiden gegen den wind”. That was the reason she withdrew from participation in the Norwegian final, leaving the song “Do re mi” to Jahn Teigen and Anita Skorgan. She made the wrong choice: the German song did not win, the Norwegian did.
In 1992, she took part in the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix again with the song “Du skal få din dag i morgen”. From 2004 to the end of 2007 she performed with the two other Scandinavian hit stars Gitte Hænning and Siw Malmkvist with the program “Gitte, Wencke, Siw – Die Show”. In 2009, she participated in the semifinals of the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix. She did not reach the final with the song “Alt har en mening nå”. In March 2010, Myhre released her first studio album in eight years .
On June 1, 2011, ane exhibition entitled “Wencke’s World” was opened in Rockheim, the Norwegian National Museum of Rock and Pop in Trondheim. This makes her the first artist to have her own exhibition dedicated to this museum.
Wencke Myhre was married three times. Three of her children are from her first marriage to the Danish dentist Torben Friis-Møller: Kim, Dan and Fam. From 1980 she was married to the director Michael Pfleghar. Their son Michael, born in 1982, also works in show business. From 1995 to 1999 she was finally married to the hotelier Arthur Buchardt.
