Mišo Kovač: key obituary facts
Is Mišo Kovač dead? Yes. Mišo Kovač died on October 31, 2026, at age 85.
Cause of death: Mišo Kovač's cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.
What was Mišo Kovač known for?
He was a Croatian pop singer.
More about Mišo Kovač
Mišo Kovač, a Croatian recording artist, died on October 31, 2026, aged 85.
Born Mate Kovač in Šibenik on July 16, 1941, during the Italian occupation of Dalmatia, he was the second child of Zrinka and Jakov Kovač. As a teenager, he began turning from football toward music after hearing Šibenik singer Ljubo Lučev.
He listened to Italian performers including Luciano Tajoli, Adriano Celentano and Johnnie Ray, and completed industrial high school, training as an upholsterer. Kovač began his music career in 1964. A vocalist who also played trumpet, he performed country pop, pop-folk and schlager. He became the best-selling artist from Croatia and the former Yugoslavia, with well over 20 million records, cassettes and compact discs sold. His success across those formats made him one of the most widely heard Croatian performers, and he was often regarded as one of the most popular musical artists in Southeastern Europe. The scale of his sales and the range of formats in which his music circulated placed him among the region’s most prominent recording artists.