by Steve LeggettBorn as Gerhard Hollerich on January 25, 1943, German romantic ballad singer Roy Black started in the pop music business as a rock & roll artist, forming the group Roy Black & His Cannons in 1963 at the age of 20, taking the stage name Roy Black from his dark hair color and a lifelong fascination with the American singer and songwriter Roy Orbison. The group signed a contract with Polydor Records, but the label increasingly pushed Black as a solo artist, and by the late '60s Black had been entirely recast as a singer of lushly orchestrated romantic pop ballads, becoming one of Germany's most successful recording artists through the early '70s. Beginning in 1967 Black began appearing in a string of German movies and television shows, usually always musical comedies. His career as a pop singer faded, but he was on the verge of a comeback when he died on October 9, 1991, reportedly of heart failure, although his history of alcoho...