Gerard Joling celebrates his sixtieth birthday on Wednesday. Where he started his career as a singer and female idol, Joling is now also known as media personality.
Gerard Jan Joling was born on April 29, 1960 as the third and youngest child of a reformed family from Schagen. The singer and presenter calls his upbringing in interviews strict but warm. Birthdays were celebrated in the family, which Joling says she has always continued to do.
Joling has been trying to get his musical career off the ground from an early age. If that does not work immediately, he registers with a modeling agency and figures as a dancer in video clips, including in She’s a Liar from the Dolly Dots.
Breakthrough in the Sound mix show
In 1985 Joling participates in the Sound mix show, presented by Henny Huisman. The singer comes third with the song Crying from Don McLean, which means his breakthrough. In the year of his participation in the talent show he brings Love Is In Your Eyes and the number 1 hit Ticket To The Tropics from.
Jolings album No More Boleros is a commercial success. The album takes first place in the charts in the Netherlands and in Asian countries.
Eurovision participation in 1988
In 1988 Joling participates on behalf of the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. The singer would play the song Shangri-La close on a high note, but decides not to do so because he had had voice problems after a schnabbel for which he had returned to the Netherlands during rehearsals for the international song contest.
After participating in the Eurovision Song Contest, Joling does theater tours in more than twenty countries. The singer also receives his first wax figure in Madame Tussauds.
Homosexual Joling struggles with the attention he receives from female fans in love. However, the singer, who has been with his manager for a long time, says he keeps his love life as private as possible.
Television debut in the 1990s
The 1990s signify Joling’s debut as a television host on the karaoke program Karaoke at 4 at RTL 4. At SBS6 the singer presents The truth and Show news.
in 1994, Joling hit rock bottom when his father died of prostate cancer at the age of seventy. “I might have entertained him,” Joling said in conversation with it AD. Years later, Joling heard that his father had sang in hiding at his hiding place in World War II, something Joling had never heard his father do.
Back in the spotlight with soap and Toppers
After a period of relative absence, Joling returns to the spotlight in 2004 with the real-life soap Only Joling. That same year, the singer gives his first solo concert in a sold out Ahoy Rotterdam.
The following year, after the success of a guest appearance in a concert by René Froger, Joling started the formation De Toppers with Froger and Gordon. Since then, the formation has sold out concerts in the Amsterdam Arena in varying formation. Joling leaves the formation in 2008 after an argument with Gordon.
Hits, soap operas and royal decoration
In later years, Joling scored several hits, including the number one hit Real friends with Jan Smit in 2012. The following year the singer makes real-life soap operas with Gordon. In 2013, Joling was also awarded a Knighthood in the Order of Orange-Nassau for his achievements.
Joling is a coach in the first season of singing competition in 2018 The Voice Senior. He will be a jury member from 2019 The Masked Singer.
‘Party is still coming’
Due to the corona measures, Joling cannot traditionally celebrate his sixtieth birthday but he promises in it AD that there is definitely a party coming. “How and what is a surprise. That will come.”
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