German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf, no. 829. Photo: Arca / Cinepress / Constantin. Publicity still for Mandolinen und Mondschein/Mandolins and moonlight (Hans Deppe, 1959).
The Danish couple Frederik (1932-1994) and Nina van Pallandt (1932) was as Nina & Frederik a famous singing duo in the late 1950s and the 1960s. They had many international hits and also acted in several films together. After the couple split up in 1969, Nina went on to a solo career as a singer and Hollywood actress.
Frederik, Baron van Pallandt was born in 1932 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the son of the Dutch ambassador in Denmark at the time. He met Nina Magdalene Möller (born in Hellerup, Copenhagen in 1932) already in 1938, while their families were friends. Frederik studied agriculture at the University of Trinidad. When he met Nina again in 1957 in Copenhagen they started a duo, singing easy listening songs in cabarets. They performed with growing success in Scandinavia, Western Europe and America. In 1958 they appeared together in a beer commercial, named on IMDb Nina & Frederik Western (Erik Dibbern, 1958), and they made their feature debut in Verdens rigeste pige/The Richest Girl in the World (Lau Lauritzen, Alice O'Fredericks, 1958). Soon followed by Kærlighedens melodi/ (Bent Christensen, 1959) and the German schlager film Mandolinen und Mondschein/Mandolins and Moonlight (Hans Deppe, 1959), starring Christine Görner and Claus Biederstaedt. In 1959 Nina & Frederik issued their first record, and in 1960 they married. In those years they achieved worldwide popularity with songs like Listen to the Ocean, Mango buy me Mango, Sucu, Sucu, and Little Donkey. They moved effortlessly from folk to calypso to pop to protest songs like Bob Dylan’s Blowin' in the Wind. They played in famous concert halls, like the London Palladium in 1966.In 1969 Nina & Frederik separated and in 1975 they divorced.
After their divorce, Nina van Pallandt kept working in show business. In 1969, she contributed the song Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown? to the James Bond-film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter R. Hunt, 1969) starring George Lazenby. Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) is another 1969 song by Peter Sarstedt. It was a #1 hit in the UK-charts for six weeks in 1969. One theory is that Nina was the mysterious Marie-Claire in the song about a young jet-setter who moved in high circles but was from a lowly origin. In 1972 Nina became famous in the US as the mistress of hoaxer Clifford Irving, who went to jail when his biography of Howard Hughes, allegedly written with Hughes' co-operation, proved to be a fake. Hughes himself came out of seclusion to repudiate the work. Van Pallandt helped expose Irving's fraud by revealing that he was vacationing with her in Mexico at the time he was allegedly interviewing Hughes. She appeared, as herself, in Orson Welles' non-fiction film Vérités et mensonges/F For Fake (1974). The height of Van Pallandt's film career was her appearance in four films directed by Robert Altman: The Long Goodbye (1973), A Wedding (1978), Quintet (1979), and O.C. and Stiggs (1985). She also appeared in supporting parts in Cloud Dancer (Barry Brown, 1980) with David Carradine, Cutter's Way (Ivan Passer, 1981) with Jeff Bridges, the fantasy adventure The Sword and the Sorcerer (Albert Pyun, 1982), the German exploitation film Euer Weg führt durch die Hölle/Jungle Warriors (Ernst R. von Theumer, 1984), the Spanish drama Así como habían sido/The Way They Were (Andrés Linares, 1987) with Antonio Banderas, and the Danish road movie Time Out (Jon Bang Carlsen, 1988) with Patricia Arquette. In American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980), she worked with Richard Gere, who would later play Clifford Irving in The Hoax (Lasse Hallström, 2006), about Irving's fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. In the film Nina is portrayed by Julie Delpy.
After his divorce from Nina, Frederik van Pallandt devoted himself to durable agriculture. He settled in the Philippines in the 1990s. He joined a major Australian crime syndicate, for which he provided transportation for drug trafficking. Frederik was tragically killed in 1994 along with his second wife, Maria-Jesus de Los Rios Coello de Portugal. They were shot to death, supposedly by river pirates, while aboard his yacht in the Phillipines. Rumours say his drug dealings with cartels may have actually precipitated his death. Frederik and Nina had three children. Floris (1961-2006), Kirsa (1963), and Ana (1965). Nina married for a second time, to Hugo Wessel.
Sources: Guy Lazarus (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.