Name Gunvor Guggisberg | Role Singer | |
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Albums Gunvor That's Life, Best of Gunvor 15 Years from A to Z Similar People Egon Egemann, Jane Bogaert, Mikel Herzog, Lars A Fredriksen, six4one | ||
Gunvor Guggisberg from Zimmerwald (born August 23, 1974, Bern), known professionally simply as Gunvor, is a Swiss singer and dancer. She is from Bern and owes her name to her Swedish grandfather. She represented Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 with the song "Lass ihn" but came last, failing to score any points.
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Overview
Learning the piano and singing from a young age, Gunvor Guggisberg actually made her name at the age of 13 for her skills as a tap dancer. She won the Swiss championships and went on to take the title six more times. In her early twenties she began to emerge as a singer, winning two of Switzerland's biggest talent shows.
Following this, she was picked as a contestant for the Swiss heats for the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest. She co-wrote the song "Lass ihn" ("Let him") with Egon Egemann and achieved an easy victory becoming a clear winner in the contest held in Zürich on December 18, 1997. Guggisberg was at the time working as a secretary at the Air Force's ministry as well as a part-time singer in a cocktail bar. Following her win, she quit her job at the ministry and details began to emerge of her past; posing topless for a photographer and working in a brothel 18 months previously. Swiss tabloid Blick reported numerous stories about her in the lead-up to Eurovision, including claims that she was in trouble financially having racked up large bills in clothes stores.
On May 9, 1998 Guggisberg performed "Lass ihn" in Birmingham, England at the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, despite being one of the favorites to win, she failed to score a single point, finishing last in the contest. Determined to continue, she released a follow-up single but it failed to reach the Swiss charts. By the end of the year she became the subject of a documentary entitled Gunvor - A Media History, which concluded with a newly filmed sequence of her weeping on the Eurovision stage. She continued through 1999 working as a tap dance instructor but admitted in an interview that the negative press towards her was causing her depression. By Christmas she was singing and dancing in Zurich's Conelli Circus and had released a third single. The following year, she released her debut album, From A to Z, but this too failed to find success.
Guggisberg returned to day work while occasionally singing in hotels and in 2004 she filed for bankruptcy. In 2014 she was arrested for theft and insurance fraud. In February 2014 she married business consultant Roland Meyer.