Lys Assia

Rosa Mina Schärer was born in Rupperswil, Aargau, in 1924 and started out as a dancer before switching to singing in 1940. Her first major hit came a decade later with "O mein Papa" in 1950, which set her up for the moment that would define her career: winning the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 under her stage name, Lys Assia. She died in March 2018, having outlived nearly every other contestant from that first awkward, earnest contest by decades.