Are there any foreign celebrities in your country that are unknown/not famous in their own country?

19 comments

1. Not a celebrity in the traditional sense but in Switzerland we’ve got a very famous forensic psychiatrist called Frank Urbaniok. From 1997-2018, he was the chief physician of the psychological-psychiatric service of the Canton of Zurich (an important medical, public institution). Before his recent retirement due to cancer, Urbaniok used to be one of Switzerland’s most important criminologists and forensic psychiatrists. During the past 25 years, he has had a tremendous amount of influence on the country’s justice system.

   Urbaniok is a naturalized Swiss citizen but originally he comes from Cologne. He grew up in Germany and also undertook his studies in medicine and forensic psychiatry there. But I don’t think many Germans know him because his career only took really off once he came to Switzerland. That’s when he became known to a wider population.

2. We have [Neil Hardwick](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Hardwick), a British-born director who’s famous here for his tv series that very authentically depict Finnish life.

3. I’m not 100% sure how well known they are in their country of origin but these come to mind:

   [Dirk Stermann](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Stermann): comedian from Germany

   [Anna Netrebko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Netrebko): opera singer from Russia, now an Austrian citizen

   [Paul Lendvai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lendvai): author, journalist from Hungary

4. There is this pop band named [Puggy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puggy) (not superstars, but their songs can be heard on mainstream radios, and popular enough for their singer to be in the jury of the local version of “The Voice”). The 3 members are British, French and Swedish, and they are unknown in these countries, and more generally outside of (French-speaking) Belgium. Funnily enough, they consider themselves as a Belgian band despite none of their members being Belgian.

5. I guess Cooky (he’s an anchorman in radio, he’s french), and Fekete Pákó (he’s a musician who is from Nigeria).

6. Paul Taylor is an English comedian who seems to be reasonably well-known in France, most of his routines involve the French language or French customs or contrasting England with France etc. I personally don’t find him that funny (the content isn’t bad but I don’t think his delivery and the way he sets up his jokes is great), but he is lightly entertaining I guess.

   Jane Birkin married Serge Gainsbourg and had a singing (and I think acting?) career in her own right in the 60s/70s. She sang in French but in the most painfully strong English accent possible.

   In the UK I guess you could have also mentioned Matt Frei (journalist) or Henning Wehn (comedian). We also like going for walking talking Italian stereotypes like Gino d’Acampo and Bruno Tonioli.

7. I guess there are some in Italy,depending on what you count as a ‘celebrity’!

   There is a tv chef from Germany called Ernst Knam.He is pretty famous in tv cooking show circles,also for the way he speaks Italian.He is German but afaik he is unknown in Germany.

   There is a tv showgirl called Belen Rodriguez,who has been a ‘celebrity’ for many years.I don’t think they know who she is in Argentina,but I have never asked anyone there..as far as I know,all her ‘career’ has been in Italy.

8. The typical example in France is for sure [Dave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_%28singer%29?wprov=sfla1). He is Dutch but totally unknown in the Netherlands. He sings in French and had its fame in the 60s/70s. Nowadays he is just the type of celebrity you see in every TV show that is kinda just there because they keep inviting him around.

9. There was a Belgian singer Kate Ryan, she was quite popular in PL many years after she lost her appeal in Europe, also Canadian singer Garou was really big in here for quite some time.

10. Drs. P (artist name of Heinz Polzer) was from Switzerland an became, not necessarily a celebrity, but a musician with a cult following in the Netherlands. He was born in Thun, died in 2015 and had some hits with comedic light verse songs in the 70’s and 80’s, like [Dodenrit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eu5dOydkyc&ab_channel=TopPop), [Veerpont](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8_kFhxfoFw&ab_channel=MEGATOPPERS) and [Het Trapportaal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtqYY12SxQQ&ab_channel=Drs.P-Topic). He was a rhyming genius, master of the Dutch language and had the oddest, archaic, beautiful way of speaking.

11. I’m not sure how famous she is in her own country now, Australia, but [Tina Arena](https://youtu.be/_Lk_qfB3ooI) was definitely much more famous here than over there in the early 2000s. She’s an Australian singer who sung in French a lot and had a solid career in France.

12. Polish guys named Darek who introduce themselves to Spaniards have the wonderful experience of being compared to some TV gossip guy who got famous in Spain for hooking up with some decrepit celebrity. None in Poland has ever heard of the guy, while in Spain I’ve had friends using “Darek” as a catch-all term to call attractive men.

13. Colin Nutley is a british film director and producer working in Sweden and have made some very successfull movies. He usually casts his wife in the lead role where she has relationships with other men.

    Tony Irving is a british dancer famous for being a judge on Swedish Dancing with the stars.

    Dermot Clemenger, Irish dancer and co-judge with Tony.

14. There are a few. For example Emmanuel Peterfalvi, a french comedian, who – as far as I am able to gleam – has never worked in France. In Germany, he is quite well known, though under his TV persona “Alfons”, a somewhat goofy TV reporter collecting insane vox pops while speaking with an exaggerated french accent.

15. In 2000s, time when Poland joined UE, there was popular tv program about European countries Europa Da Się Lubić (Europe Can Be Liked), guests were foreigners living in Poland and few of them like German Stephen Mueller (played also in popular soap opera), Italian Paolo Cozza, Spanish Conrado Moreno ([famous incident during program entry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxxGMmWWKqE)) became quite famous.

16. We had one in norway as well way back in time (90ies/00ies) called [Gino Valente](https://victoria.mediaplanet.com/app/uploads/sites/15/2019/06/Gino_Valenti-888×500.jpg). Made programs on tv about food long before everyone did it (2500 episodes !) . With his italian accent he became the role for parody with such as herodes falsk portraying “him” as Ante Valente (chef from the samic parts of norway) . Gino was very famous in norway, but guess hardly anyone in italy know who he is (haven’t got a wikipedia on italian indeed).

17. Best example would be [Ibrahim Maiga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Maiga) from Mali, who came here to study tech but stayed and became an actor/singer in the 80s/90s.

    Otherwise there are not many foreigners here in general.

18. Leo Bianchi, popular for being an Italian singer/pizzeria owner and before that a Big Brother contestant. In Italy he’d be dime a dozen. Famous for being an Italian speaking Bulgarian and appearing in BB basically. 🙂

19. Alborosie is a very populare reggae artist but here in Italy you dont hear that much of him and some dont even know he is Italian