Lill-Babs (born Barbro Margareta Svensson on 9 March 1938) is a Swedish singer and actress. 　　Lill-Babs was born in Jarvso, Gavleborg County, as the first daughter of Britta and Ragnar Svensson. At age 15 she sang on the radio show Morgonkvisten as a "young talent." Swedish bandleader and talent scout Simon Brehm heard the show and contacted her that evening, inviting her to audition in his Stockholm studio. The audition went well and she moved to Stockholm to begin her showbusiness career. 　　In 1954, she recorded her first record "Min mammas boogie" under the name "Lill-Babs", a combination of the Swedish word 'little' and the Anglicized nickname for Barbro/Barbara. Just as her fame was beginning to grow, the unmarried Lill-Babs became pregnant - a potential public scandal in mid-1950s Sweden. She continued to work as long as she was able to hide her pregnancy, then went home to Jarvso to give birth to daughter Monica. 　　After some time at home she returned to focus on her career, but by then Simon Brehm had found a new vocalist to replace her. She received an offer to tour with Brehm's competing bandleader, Kettil Olsson. After the tour and a couple of concerts at jazz club Nalen in Stockholm, she received a call from Simon asking for her to return to work for him. She accepted his offer and went on to perform many concerts at dance palace Bal Palais and other tours. 　　In 1958 she went on her first self-produced tour and was cast in the movie Fly mig en greve with comedian Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt. She made many recordings, such as the novelty song "Ar du kar i mej annu Klas-Goran?", "Leva Livet" and "En tuff brud i lyxforpackning", all of which became big sellers, Svensktoppen entries and schlager standards in Sweden. "ar Du Kär I Mig Annu Klas-Goran" was composed by the then relatively unknown Stig Anderson. Anderson would go on to write several of Lill-Babs' hits in the 1960s and in the early 1970s he would gain international fame and success as the manager of ABBA. 　　In the 1960s, Barbro's own fan-club Splorr was created and became the largest in Sweden with 17,000 members. The number of members soon became too cumbersome to handle and the growing costs forced the club to go into bankruptcy. 　　During this time Lill-Babs did much of her work in West Germany, where many of her records, television shows, and movies were produced. As a result of this she became a big star in Germany, considered as popular as TV-artist Caterina Valente. In 1961 she represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest with "April, April" in Cannes and she would go on to participate several times in the national preselections for the contest both in Sweden and Norway.