Grethe Ingmann


Grethe Ingmann was a Danish singer.
She started her career at 17, when she temporarily performed as a singer of the Malihini Hawaiians pop quartet. Soon after she sang with the Danish guitarist Jørn Grauengaard and his trio.
In 1955 she met her future husband, guitarist Jørgen Ingmann. The couple married in 1956 and performed as the duet Grethe og Jørgen Ingmann. Together they won the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 representing Denmark with the jazz waltz "Dansevise" with music by Otto Francker and lyrics by Sejr Volmer-Sørensen. It was the first entry performed by a duo to win the Contest and also the first Scandinavian winner.
In 1965 she entered the German Schlager Contest with the song "Sommerwind". She dropped out in the preliminaries, but the song's English version, written by Johnny Mercer in 1966 and sung by Frank Sinatra, became an international hit.
Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann continued their musical career until they divorced in 1975. As a solo singer, Grethe participated in several Danish preselections for the Eurovision Song Contest, unsuccessfully. She died of cancer on August 18, 1990, age 52, becoming the first Eurovision winner to pass away.