Life

Rainhard, called "Raini" by his friends, attended a Catholic boarding school. By his own admission he was a lazy pupil, and shy. He got his first guitar on his 15th birthday, and taught himself how to play it and started writing songs. He later began to study law, but soon gave up and took several jobs in order to finance his education as a professional actor and singer.

He has acted in the musicals Die Gräfin vom Naschmarkt (1980), Jesus Christ Superstar (Judas, 1982), Chicago (Billy Flynn, 1998), and he played Jeff Zodiak in the musical Wake Up, which he co-wrote with Harold Faltermeyer (and which failed) in 2002 (all of those in Vienna, Austria). He has also appeared in numerous Austrian and German movies.

As an entertainer, he followed Rudi Carrell in the ARD TV show Herzblatt, was the first host of Die Millionenshow (the Austrian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) and for a while had his own TV comedy show, Nix Is Fix, produced by ORF and ARD.

Fendrich received the Austrian Golden Romy award for TV entertainment. In 1994, 1995 and 2000, he was nominated for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award four times before winning it in 2002. Austrian NEWS magazine readers voted him "Best Entertainer of the Decade" in same year.

Besides working as a solo artist, he gathered, in 1997, the Austrian singer-guitarists (also his friends) Georg Danzer and Wolfgang Ambros for one single beneficial concert in favour of homeless people. Their success was overwhelming, and the three individualists showed up on stage as Austria3 from that day, until they decided to stop that project in 2006. However, at Georg Danzer's comeback concert in Vienna on 16 April 2007, they met again for a few songs, and even "thought" in public about re-uniting in 2008. This can not happen, as Danzer died of lung cancer on 21 June 2007.

The concert on Donauinselfest which Fendrich gave "instead and for Georg Danzer" who a few weeks before the event had to refuse because of his rapidly progressing disease, attracted 200.000 fans on 23 June 2007.

Discography

Studio albums

Date	Title	Chart-Position
		DE	AT	CH
1980	Ich wollte nie einer von denen sein	-	16	-
1981	Und alles is ganz anders word'n	-	1	-
1982	Zwischen eins und vier	-	1	-
1983	Open Air	-	4	-
1983	Auf und davon	-	2	-
1985	Wien bei Nacht	-	1	16
1985	Kein schöner Land	-	3	-
1988	Voller Mond	-	12	-
1989	Von Zeit zu Zeit	-	3	-
1991	Nix is fix	44	1	-
1993	Brüder	64	1	-
1997	Blond	51	1	21
2001	Männersache	30	1	62
2002	Ein Saitensprung	-	6	-
2002	Wake Up Cast Album	-	-	-
2004	aufLeben	43	1	-
2006	hier+jetzt	43	1	-

Live albums

Date	Title	Chart-Position
		DE	AT	CH
1985	Alle Zeit der Welt	-	9	-
1989	Das Konzert	-	5	21
1998	Schwerelos	-	36	-

Best-Ofs and compilations

Date	Title	Chart-Position
		DE	AT	CH
1994	Lieder mit Gefühl	70	7	-
1995	Recycled	-	2	-
2001	Raritäten	-	4	-
2005	So weit, so gut ... Die größten Hits aus 25 Jahren	83	2	-
2006	So ein Theater - Die schönsten Balladen und Liebeslieder	-	51

Austria 3

• 1998: Austria3 - Live (with Wolfgang Ambros and Georg Danzer)
• 1998: Austria3 - Live Vol. 2 (with Wolfgang Ambros and Georg Danzer)
• 2000: Austria3 - Die Dritte (with Wolfgang Ambros and Georg Danzer)

DVDs

• 2002: Ein Saitensprung
• 2004: Jetzt

Singles

Name	Year	Austria
Zweierbeziehung	1981	16
Strada del Sole	1981	1
Schickeria	1982	1
Razzia	1982	9
Oben ohne	1982	1
Es lebe der Sport	1982	7
Erobict, sierobict	1983	9
Ich bin ein Negerant, Madame	1984	10
Weus'd a Herz hast wia a Bergwerk	1984	3
Wien bei Nacht	1985	19
Heimatlied	1985	16
Vü schöner is des G'fühl	1985	-
Tränen trocknen schnell	1987	15
Der Wind	1988	24
Macho, Macho	1988	1
Tango Korrupti	1988	5
Von Zeit zu Zeit	1990	17
I am from Austria	1990	6
Blond	1997	1
*Little Drummer Boy, Stille Nacht	1997	16
Entsetzlich hetero	2001	47

• "Little Drummer Boy" with Eric Minsk, and "Stille Nacht" with Andrew Edge.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]