Dieter Bohlen

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

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