Dieter Bohlen

Bohlen is the eldest son of building contractor Hans Bohlen (born 1928) and his wife Edith (born 1936), and grew up in East Frisia.

His maternal grandmother is originally from Königsberg.

He was named Dieter Günter Bohlen but later expressed dissatisfaction with his second given name and had it officially struck.

He has a younger brother named Uwe.

The family later moved to Eversten (Oldenburg).

In his youth, Bohlen was a member of the Socialist German Workers Youth for a while and shortly of the German Communist Party, though he is not a member of any party nowadays.

After getting his Abitur at the Wirtschaftsgymnasium der Berufsbildenden Schulen in Oldenburg-Haarentor, he moved to Göttingen.

Dieter Bohlen (born Dieter Günter Bohlen, 7 February 1954) is a German songwriter, producer, singer and television personality.

In the late 1970s, he worked as a songwriter at the Hamburg-based label Intersong for numerous Schlager singers.

There, he studied business administration at his parents' request at the Georg-August-Universität, finishing his studies in 1978 with a degree.

Bohlen was still in school when he started writing music.

In 1978, he founded the short-lived duo Monza with Holger Garbode.

Their first single, "Hallo Taxi Nummer 10", written and produced by Tony Hendrik, was Bohlen's first record and was unsuccessful.

Monza released a second single, "Heiße Nacht in der City", a German-language cover of Nick Gilder's "Hot Child in the City", which also was unsuccessful.

He first achieved fame as a member of the pop duo Modern Talking in the 1980s, and has since produced numerous German and international artists.

He is also a judge on casting shows Deutschland sucht den Superstar and Das Supertalent.

In 1980, he began working for the Berlin-based label Hansa.

That same year, under the pseudonym Steve Benson, he released a solo single in English, "Don't Throw My Love Away".

It was followed in 1981 by two other singles under that name, "Love Takes Time" and "(You're A Devil With) Angel Blue Eyes".

None of them reached the top 100, which led to the abandonment of the project in 1981.

Soon after, he joined the band Sunday, with which he appeared on the ZDF-Hitparade in early 1982 with the song "Halé, hey Louise".

The song was covered by artists such as Ricky King.

After Bohlen produced six unsuccessful singles in German for Schlager singer Thomas Anders from 1982 to 1984, they founded the pop duo Modern Talking.

The band topped the German singles chart five times in a row with "You're My Heart, You're My Soul", "You Can Win If You Want", "Cheri, Cheri Lady", "Brother Louie", and "Atlantis Is Calling (S.O.S. For Love)", and were also successful in other European countries as well as in Asia and Africa.

In 1983, Bohlen wrote the song "Mit 17" for Bernd Clüver, which reached the third place of the German pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest.

In 1986, Bohlen wrote the title song "Midnight Lady" of Tatort episode , which was performed by former Smokie singer Chris Norman and was major hit in Central Europe, topping several charts.

The song appeared on Norman's second solo album Some Hearts Are Diamonds, which was produced by Bohlen.

In 1987, the band split up and Bohlen founded his solo project Blue System, which he ended ten years later.

He also continued writing and producing for other artists, including C. C. Catch (whom he discovered), Sheree (whom he signed when she was fifteen years old), and boy band Touché.

In 1988, he wrote the title song of Tatort episode , "Silent Water", which he performed himself as Blue System.

In 1989, two songs written and produced by him were sent to the Eurovision Song Contest: Nino de Angelo represented Germany with the song "Flieger" and reached place 14, while Thomas Forstner represented Austria with the song "Nur ein Lied" and reached place 5.

Also in 1989, Bohlen wrote the soundtrack to the ZDF series Rivalen der Rennbahn, which was certified platinum in Germany that same year and reached the top 5 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

In 1991, Bohlen produced Roy Black's final album Rosenzeit.

From 1991 to 1993, he worked with Bonnie Tyler on the albums Bitterblue, Angel Heart, and Silhouette in Red.

The collaboration spawned a number of successful singles, such as "Bitterblue", "Against the Wind" (which was used as the title song of Tatort episode ), and "Fools Lullaby".

In 1992, another Bohlen composition represented Austria at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Titled "Zusammen geh'n", it was performed by Tony Wegas and reached place 10.

In 1998, Modern Talking made a successful comeback, releasing singles such as "You're My Heart, You're My Soul '98, "You Are Not Alone", or Formula One songs "Win the Race" and "Ready for the Victory", but split up again in 2003. In 2002, Deutschland sucht den Superstar (often shortened as DSDS), the German version of Pop Idol and American Idol, was launched with Bohlen as one of the judges. While the other judges are changed regularly, he has been a judge each season. He has produced most of the winners, yielding several hits such as "We Have a Dream". That same year, he published his first book, an autobiography titled Nichts als die Wahrheit, written in collaboration with Bild journalist Katja Kessler, which sold over a million copies in Germany and got a Goldene Feder.

A second autobiography written with Kessler, Hinter den Kulissen, was published the next year.

It was criticised for its unfairness and charges were pressed by his former bandmate Thomas Anders.