Milo Hrnić

Milo Hrnić was a Croatian pop singer from Dubrovnik, born Božo Hrnić into a musical family; Milo was the nickname his mother gave him, and it became his official name. His half-brother, Antun Simatović, founded the gospel pop band Poklisari, and Hrnić called him his greatest model in music and in life.

After secondary school he went to sea. During a storm in the Indian Ocean he helped rescue twenty local fishermen and was later made an honorary citizen of the port of Bombay. He then gave up sailing for music, and his first album, Milo, came out in 1980.

He called the Split Festival the mother of his career, and he won it three times: in 1982 with "Vrati se", in 1983 with "Dalmacijo, ljubav si vječna" and in 1987 with "Dobra večer prijatelji". Albums came almost every year, among them Samo ti (1981), Lutaj pjesmo moja (1982), Potraži me (1983), Zagrli me jače (1984), S tobom sam jači (1985), Pozovi me (1987), Tvoja mati je legla da spava (1989), Biser Hrvatski (1992) and Na kominu moga ćaće (1994). In all he released some twenty albums and more than 200 songs and sold over a million records. He never liked singing to playback, saying that without live performance there is no art.

During the war he left the stage for family reasons and spent about ten years working in tourism, at a hotel in Cavtat. In 2004 the people of Dubrovnik named him and Tereza Kesovija the city's singers of the century, and he came back with a well-received concert in Split. Later records include Sve za ljubav (2011), and he played himself in Nad lipom 35 (2009).

Milo Hrnić also served on the Dubrovnik city council, first as head of the HNS and later as an independent. He died in hospital in Dubrovnik on 16 September 2023 after a long illness, survived by his wife Dubravka and his son Ante.