For Frida the career means nothing anymore. Interview/article in the magazine DAM.
- I Enjoy nature, classic music and flying.
- The mountains and this wonderful nature have helped me trough sorrow and joy. It has helped me keeping myself in shape and given me new friends, Frida tells. Frida has just released a DVD – "Frida, the DVD", which is included in her collection with four of her solo-albums. Here she tells about her fantastic musical life, which started when she as a 13 years old started to sing in a dancehall orchestra, and how she was discovered in the TV-show "Hylands Hörna" followed by the ABBA era. But mostly she speaks about her present life together with her good friends in Zermatt by the gigantic mountain Matterhorn.
- The first time I came here was in 1977, at that time together with Benny on Easter holidays.
She remembers being abandoned in the skiing slope because she could not ski. Screaming and crying she finally made it down.
- But the love for these mountains was there. Then it took a couple of years before I came here again.
Ten years ago Frida and her husband Ruzzo Reuss bought an apartment in Zermatt.
- When Ruzzo passed away I moved here. I take long walks and I ski. I have been climbing those mountains, but I don't do that anymore. But the fantastic landscape keeps me in shape.
Frida also tells about her best friends, one of them is Heinz Julen, who is a painter.
- He helped me a lot after the death of my husband, we meet each other as creative people do, and we understood each other very well.
Heinz describes Frida as a very good friend. Another of her friends is Urs Biner, who has a restaurant where he entertains his guests. Biner says:
- We were two souls who met, Frida and I. She and Heinz often came here and dined. I can't say we love each other, but there is an aura I can't describe. She has everything!
Frida in turn speaks warmly about Heinz:
- We often talks about things moving us deeply, he writes poems and little books with food for thoughts. Both Urs and Heinz are among my closest friends.
When Heinz in the spring of 2003 accompanied Frida to the Polar Music Price award gala in Bergvaldhallen in Stockholm he was believed to be the man in her life. Heinz tells about that occasion:
- What happened in Stockholm when I arrived together with Frida on the red carpet was rather funny. The photographers were gathering around us, I wanted to take one step aside but Frida pulled me towards her and said "You are my friend". Later on several medias got in touch with me and wanted to interview me as Frida's new lover. But she is more like my best friend, Heinz says.
When "Mamma Mia" premiered at Circus in Stockholm Frida was there to celebrate. Björn, Benny and Agnetha were there as well.
- It became a farewell for me to the part of my life that was ABBA. I have been having the dream about doing something with ABBA again, but not a tour, Frida says. Benny, Björn, Agnetha and I are in touch, but not that much. When we met at the Mamma Mia! premiere in Stockholm I and Agnetha had a very heartily and sister-like contact. After all we share so many memories from the ABBA era. On the other hand, I've been living abroad for almost twenty-five years. Now I don't feel that much of a motivation when it comes to the musical career.
- I play golf a lot, I learned to like that through Ruzzo. I would also like to learn to fly. I have taken a first lesson. And the beauty of the nature made me shiver. As do classic music, opera or just enjoying a sunset over these mountains.
Frida no longer likes to stay out late and party. But sometimes her friend Heinz drags her out to see people and to have fun. Zermatt has plenty of great restaurants.
Frida has also experienced a life with high tops and deep lows. Her mother took her and fled Norway to be able to escape scorn for having been together with a German soldier.
There's no doubt that Frida, or Anni-Frid as she called herself back then and during the ABBA era, ended up right in her life. Before ABBA she had successes together with colleagues like Björn Skifs and Charlie Norman. She was working at the stage Folkan together with Lasse Berghagen and was doing good. She liked to sing pop and jazz and one of her role models was Monica Zetterlund. But she wasn't that found of rock'n'roll.
- I thought Hepstars were completely terrible! But how could I know that Benny (at that time in Hepstars) would become my husband!
Luck hit her when Frida started to work together with Benny, Agnetha and Björn. We all know that story of success. That constellation lasted up until 1982, when ABBA split up. At that time Frida and Benny had been divorced for a year. The only one who has ever said that she would enjoy doing something with ABBA again is Frida.
She moved to London alone, because her children were grown up and had their own lives.
- Sweden became too small, Frida tells. I couldn't go out on my own and remain private, there were always speculations if I happened to go out together with a man. I had a hard time accepting that people were talking about me as a person I didn't recognise.
- When you move abroad you change as a person. You have to build a whole new life and you develop as a person. In spite of that I didn't feel disconnected from my roots. I have a good root within myself. I have just tried my wings, broken them and started all over several times in my life. To be able to do so you must have an inner strength that protects you.
1984 Frida met love in the architect and prince Ruzzo Reus von Plauen, more Swedish than the German sounding name, since he had Swedish mother and lived in Sweden at that time. Frida and Ruzzo settled down in Freiburg in Switzerland. Together they had fifteen years of mutual happiness before he passed away suffering from cancer in 1999. The year before Frida's daughter Lise Lott had died in a car-crash in USA.
Now Frida was left with a fathomless grief, once again alone and at a crossroad, ready to break up.
- I'm strong in myself. On top of that I have a strong faith in God, she says. Because of that I was able to move on.
On top of that she's engaged both in environmental issues, something dear to her heart, and the international anti-drug foundation Mentor. These things have probably strengthened her in spite of her grief. She is a very good friend to queen Silvia of Sweden, who is also part of the Mentor board. When the queen turned fifty Frida celebrated her with "Dancing Queen" which she sang together with the vocal act "The Real Group". This amazing performance is available on the DVD.
One of the most beautiful songs in the newly released CD-collection is "Även en blomma" (A flower too). That song is close to her heart.
-It's about aging. It's about my relationship with nature and about relations between people. And it's about the urge to grow and develop and to become formed by everything you go through.
By Chris Cederlöf / To English by Linda Granqvist
Thanks to ABBAMAILer Linda Granqvist, Stockholm, Sweden
