As his family announced today, Tuesday, Frank Farian died in his adopted home of Miami. The music producer was 82 years old.
Frank Farian is dead. The successful producer, who became known through groups such as Milli Vanilli, fell asleep peacefully in his apartment in Miami at the age of 82. His family announced this in a message available to t-online.
With more than 800 million records sold worldwide, Frank Farian, who was born Franz Reuther in Kirn an der Nahe on July 18, 1941, is considered the most internationally successful producer from Germany.
Farian founded his first band in 1961: the rock’n’roll group Frankie and the Shadows. He finally signed his first record deal at the end of the sixties – as a solo artist. His first number 1 hit followed in 1976 with “Rocky”. The most successful period of his career began: Farian founded the disco band Boney M., with which he would subsequently sell over 150 million records worldwide, including more than 60 million singles such as “Rasputin”, “Rivers of Babylon”, “Daddy Cool” and “Ma Baker”.
“Mary’s Boychild” entered the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling single of all time. At the end of the eighties there was another huge success – albeit one that would later turn out to be a big deception. The pop duo Milli Vanilli stormed the charts with numbers like “Girl you know it’s true” and was at number one for seven weeks. No other German formation has achieved this before and to this day. Only later did it become public that the entire success was based on playback singing and that the artists Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus only moved their lips in sync with the songs.
Farin’s projects that have already begun will be continued
The story of Milli Vanilli can currently be seen in cinemas. In the film “Girl you know it’s true” Frank Farian is portrayed by Matthias Schweighöfer. During his long career, Frank Farian worked with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Meat Loaf, Terence Trent D’Arby, La Bouche, No Mercy, Far Corporation and many others.
Most recently, Frank Farin was working on new music for No Mercy and Milli Vanilli and was planning to produce a new, major musical. At the same time, he worked on a six-part TV series about his musical work. According to a statement from the family, these projects are now being completed in his spirit by the Frank Farian Foundation.