Lado Leskovar

Lado Leskovar, born Vladimir Leskovar on 23 March 1942 in Ljubljana, is a Slovenian singer of popular music and chansons, as well as an actor, journalist and editor. Over his career he has recorded more than 300 popevke and chansons.

After lower secondary school he went to the maritime secondary school in Piran and finished it in 1961. Only two years later, in 1963, he won his first music award at Slovenska popevka in Bled with "Malokdaj se srečava". He kept coming back to that festival until 1976, winning awards among others for "Poraz" in 1971 and "Zakaj" in 1973.

He took part in the Yugoslav Eurovision selection in 1965 and 1966, and on 19 February 1967, at the RTV Ljubljana studios, he won it with "Vse rože sveta", music by Urban Koder and lyrics by Milan Lindič, which the expert jury placed first of fifteen songs. At the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna that year Lado Leskovar sang fifteenth in the running order, between Monaco and Italy, and finished eighth of seventeen with seven points.

He also had success at festivals of dialect songs and by the sea. At Vesela jesen he won the golden klopotec in 1971 with "Še en gvažek", and in 1991 the first prize of the expert jury with "Glažek vinčka". At Melodije morja in sonca in 1978 the expert jury gave him the award for the best interpretation for "Svetilnik". His recordings also include songs in Serbo-Croatian such as "Potraži me u predgrađu", "Anela" and "Tanja".

Beside singing he worked as a journalist and editor at RTV Slovenija and acted in Slovenian and foreign films and in theatre productions. Since 1998 he has been a Slovenian ambassador for Unicef, and in 2009 he received the Ježek award.