Mišo Kovač

Mišo Kovač died in Split on 31 October 2026, aged 85. Slobodna Dalmacija reported, citing unofficial sources, that he died in a Split hospital, and sources close to the singer confirmed the death to Index.hr. No cause of death had been made public at the time of the first reports.

The news was announced over the public address at Stadion Poljud near the end of a Hajduk Split match against Gorica, and fans in the stadium responded by singing his songs together. HRT, Večernji list, Jutarnji list and media across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider region carried tributes within the hour, describing him as a legend of Croatian popular music. Funeral arrangements had not been announced when the first reports appeared.

Mate Kovač was born on 16 July 1941 in Šibenik, then under Italian occupation during the Second World War, the second child of Zrinka (born Jurišić) and Jakov Kovač. His mother came from the island of Vrgada and his father from the Škopinac district of Šibenik. He grew up with his brother Ratko and sister Blanka in Šibenik's Varoš quarter, on the same street as two other future stars, Vice Vukov and Arsen Dedić.

As a boy he was a goalkeeper in the junior team of HNK Šibenik and hoped to play professionally for Hajduk Split, the club he supported all his life, often taking the boat to Split for matches. Inspired by the Šibenik singer Ljubo Lučev and by Italian and American performers such as Luciano Tajoli, Adriano Celentano and Johnnie Ray, he gave up football for music at about sixteen. He finished an industrial high school, training as an upholsterer, and in 1961 shared first place at the First Voice of Šibenik competition. During his service in the Yugoslav People's Army in Belgrade he sang for fellow conscripts on Saturday nights, and afterwards moved to Zagreb, where he sang for students in cafes and the student centre.

A performance of Ray Charles's "I Can't Stop Loving You" at a talent contest in Karlovac brought him to the attention of producers. In autumn 1964 he made his first appearance with the Alfons Vučer ensemble in Zagreb and won a contract with Jugoton, for whom he recorded that song in Croatian. Further singles reached silver sales of fifty thousand copies.

His breakthrough came in 1969 with "Više se nećeš vratiti", written by the young composer Đorđe Novković, which won the Sarajevo festival Vaš šlager sezone and sold almost 184,000 copies. That year he became Jugoton's best selling singer, and his partnership with Novković shaped most of his work until the composer's death in 2007. In 1971 "Proplakat će zora" won the Split Festival and sold more than 300,000 copies. He later won Split again with "Noćas ćemo zemlji ko materi reći" (1977) and "Dobra ti večer, mati moja" (1980). A serious car crash near Zadar in 1971 left a scar on his lip, and the moustache he grew to hide it became his trademark.

The years from 1985 to 1988 brought many of his best known songs, including "Ostala si uvijek ista", "Ako me ostaviš", "Jedan dan života", "Sutra mi sude" and "Ti si pjesma moje duše". He was named Singer of the Year five times and Yugoslavia's Person of the Year in 1989. He also acted alongside Rade Šerbedžija in the 1972 film One Pheasant in the Afternoon.

After the personal losses of the 1990s he announced his retirement more than once but kept performing. His 1999 album Budi čovjek dobre volje was followed by a Split Festival win and the hit "Dalmatino" in 2000, and by albums including Mir u srce (2004), Ja sam kovač svoje sreće (2006) and Ne tražim istinu (2010). He filled Split's Arena Gripe 28 times, played the Pula Arena, and in 2009 became the first Croatian singer to headline Arena Zagreb, before 20,000 people. He received the Porin award for lifetime achievement in 2012, and the box set 100 originalnih hitova reached diamond sales. In 2005 the Croatian Music Institute honoured him for the largest number of records sold in the history of Croatian recording.

Kovač's first marriage, to Ljubica Komadina, ended after four years. In 1973 he married Anita Baturina, a former Miss Yugoslavia from Split, and they had a son, Edi, born in 1975, and a daughter, Ivana, born two years later. In 1992 Edi, then 16 and a member of the Croatian Army special unit known as the Scorpions, died in Zagreb in suspicious circumstances. Kovač said he never fully recovered from the loss, recorded "Pjesma za Edija" in his memory, and his marriage to Anita ended. He also lost his mother and his brother Ratko during the 1990s.

After years of depression and heavy drinking, he survived a suicide attempt in Zagreb on 14 January 1999 and later spoke about his recovery. He met Lidija Pintarić in 1998 and married her in 2002, often crediting her and his daughter Ivana, herself a singer who recorded duets with him, with helping him return to life and to the stage.

He was outspoken in politics. He said he had repeatedly refused to sing for Tito, donated proceeds from records and concerts to the building of the Zagreb to Split motorway, and after 1991 refused to perform in Serbia or Montenegro. He later supported the Croatian Democratic Union and befriended President Franjo Tuđman. He was a lifelong Hajduk Split supporter, and the club's Torcida fans adopted his songs as their own.

Kovač is regarded as the best selling recording artist from Croatia and the former Yugoslavia, with sales well above 20 million. Songs such as "Proplakat će zora", which an RTL survey in 2021 ranked as the second greatest Croatian song of all time, "Ostala si uvijek ista" and "Dalmacija u mom oku" became part of the national songbook, and "Poljubi zemlju" became an unofficial anthem of the Croatian men's water polo team after their 2012 Olympic gold in London.

He remains a symbol of Dalmatia and of Hajduk Split, whose supporters built chants and choreography around his lyrics. His image in sunglasses and a sailor's shirt appears on T-shirts and souvenirs along the Adriatic coast, his songs have been used in the television series The Walking Dead: Dead City, and a question about him once appeared in the Croatian citizenship knowledge test.