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Published on: 8/21/2009
Last Visited: 8/26/2009
Görel Hanser interview in Swedish Press
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Svenska Dagbladet published a long and revealing interview with Görel Hanser "the woman behind the scenes of ABBA and Benny Andersson for decades" on January 11, here is a translation:
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Görel Hanser is the woman behind-the-scenes for decades who worked behind ABBA.
Benny Andersson summarises her role best: "Everything that should have been done was already done," he said about Görel Hanser's organisational skills.
She began as Stikkan Anderson's secretary and was behind ABBA reuniting.
Görel Hanser
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Görel Hanser - Photo: Mike New
Being ABBA's project manager and spokesperson meant that Görel Hanser traveled around the world on tours, promotional trips and took care of the record company contracts and the media.
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asks a surprised Görel Hanser when we meet at a coffee shop in central Stockholm.
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Görel Hanser sees her role on ABBA duties - which are apparently not yet completed - as a integral to the whole operation, to keep everything together and make it work.
She describes herself as a strong and driven person.
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Benny Andersson, who has become good friends with Görel Hanser, agrees with the description of her as the heart of the ABBA machine.
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Görel ensures that things hang-together.
ABBA singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad-Reuss explains Görel Hanser's role by comparing her with Stikkan Anderson, sometimes called the fifth member of ABBA.
Görel was irreplaceable as his right hand woman and shared the position as fifth member of ABBA.
Apart from the fact that she was a quick learner, she also had an unerring sense of timing and a strong sense of the importance of details.
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Görel Hanser grew up in a traditional home in Skultorp outside Skövde with a father who was a mechanic and a mother who was also a housewife.
During the Second World War her father was active in the Norwegian resistance movement, and it may be that she inherited some of his courage, not to worry so much but get things done.
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As the older sister to two brothers, Görel Hanser was in charge from the outset and was, as she puts it, busy and organised.
Just like in her future job.
From her father she inherited the mindset that "it'll work out" and from her mother a more complex viewpoint.
Her homelife wasn't anything unpleasant.
Rather, she was nurtured in a home filled with traditional values and common sense, frankness, a desire to do the right thing and a little dose of "you should not assume that you are something special.
Ironically, given how her future would turn out, the home was significantly devoid of music, except for a radio and gramophone player, of course.
"I'm not musical but enjoy music.
During adolescence, it was Elvis, The Beatles and Tio i topp".
Görel Hanser went to secretarial school in Stockholm and dreamed of becoming a teacher.
Part of her training included work as a secretary in England and Germany.
When she came home, eight words [nine in English - Ice's note!] changed her life forever.
The magic words were in an advert in Sweden Music, they were: "Music company seeks secretary with good knowledge of English.
Stikkan Anderson's daughter Marie Ledin wrote in the book Min pappa heter Stikkan about a funny episode between her father and Görel Hanser, when they worked together:
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Görel Hanser retorted: If I had met you, I would never have taken the job!
Görel Hanser laughs and mutters "maybe it was like that" and notes that she has a very short fuse.
She says it was fortunate that Stikkan's wife Gudrun Anderson originally hired her.
Marie Ledin writes: "At a first glance, Görel could seem small, blond, doe-eyed and weak.
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But Görel Hanser refused to put them through, which provoked the claim that he "had a secretary who obviously misunderstood her position and had become power crazy."
Stikkan Anderson decided quickly to appoint Görel Hanser as Executive Vice President.
He was not afraid to trust me and often said "you can do this.
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Even when Görel Hanser married, it was clear that they would adopt as her husband had had testicular cancer and thus knew from the beginning that they could not have biological children.
"There was no difficult decision.
I wanted to have children together with Anders and we did it this way.
Both come from Bolivia and are of South American Indian origin.
We now have a second homeland and my daughter was there last year and worked at the care centre where she lived when she was little," says Görel Hanser.
Her birthdays over the years have been marked by the odd spectacular event, involving Stikkan and ABBA.
Stikkan Anderson wrote his definitively last schlager song for her 30th birthday exclaiming among other things that he couldn't even write a memo without her.
"That is a funny lyric that described my situation.
- she says.
When she celebrated 50 years in 1999, it became world news.
ABBA, who had been offered one billion kronor for a reunion tour and declined, surprised Görel Hanser by performing together for the first time since they split up.
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Others say about Görel Hanser:
"Görel is a woman with strong passions that she hides behind a diplomatic front.
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Görel is an organisational genius, as well as being kind and thoughtful.
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SvD interview with Görel Hanser
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I've now learnt a lot more about Görel from that text after all these years.
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