Web Page 3012 26th October 2022 Ruby Murray First Picture: Ruby Murray

Second Picture: Publicity Photograph

Third Picture: Sheet Music Softly, Softly

Forth Picture: A Ruby Murray

Ruby Murray was a Northern Irish singer and actress. One of the most popular singers in the British Isles in the 1950s, she scored ten hits in the UK Singles Chart between 1954 and 1959 and made pop chart history in March 1955 by having five hits in the Top Twenty in a single week. Ruby Florence Murray was born near the Donegall Road in south Belfast the youngest child in a Protestant family. She had surgery at six weeks of age due to swollen glands, and as a result, had a very husky voice. Entering a public speaking contest run by Eglinton Young Farmers Club, Londonderry in March 1947, she won a special prize for the youngest competitor under 18. A performance at the Ballymena Variety Theatre in February 1948 received a wonderful reception[ and she then toured in Northern Ireland as a child singer. Murray first appeared on television at the age of 12. Owing to laws governing children performing, she had to delay her start in the entertainment industry. She returned to Belfast and full-time education until she was 14. She was kept busy on the variety stage in Northern Ireland and in 1954 she joined a touring revue called "Yankee Doodle Blarney" which gave her very useful exposure on the English variety stages. Richard Afton offered her the position of resident singer on the BBC's Quite Contrary television show, to replace Joan Regan. After being again spotted by Ray Martin she was signed to Columbia and her first single, "Heartbeat", reaching No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1954. " The 1950s was a busy period for Ruby, during which she had her own television show, starred at the London Palladium with Norman Wisdom, appeared in a Royal Command Performance (1955) and toured the world. In a period of 52 weeks, she constantly had at least one single in the UK charts – this at a time when only a Top 20 was listed. Her only film role was, as Ruby, in A Touch of the Sun, a 1956 farce with Frankie Howerd and Dennis Price. A couple of hits followed later in the decade; "Goodbye Jimmy, Goodbye", a No. 10 hit in 1959, was her final appearance in the charts. Her popularity led to her name being adopted in Cockney rhyming slang as a rhyme for "curry". In 1957, while working in Blackpool, she met Bernie Burgess, a member of a successful television and recording vocal quartet, the Four Jones Boys. Shortly afterwards she left Northern Ireland to marry him and live with him in Northampton. Burgess, contrary to press reports, did not become her manager, but rather his role was that of a supporting husband. The couple included a song-and-dance segment in her act during the 1960s. She struggled with alcoholism for most of her life and this contributed to the breakdown of her marriage in 1974. The divorce was finalised in 1976 and she moved to Torquay to live with an old friend, Ray Lamar, a former stage dancer and theatre impresario, who was 18 years her senior. They married in 1991 and spent the evening with a small party of friends and family at an Italian restaurant in Babbacombe. She had two children from her marriage to Burgess, Julie (b. 1960) and Tim (b. 1965). Tim died unexpectedly from a heart condition in July 2020, aged 55. Although her days as a major star were long over, she continued performing until close to the end of her life. Spending her last couple of years in Asprey's Nursing Home, she often delighted her carers with a song, and was visited by her friend Max Bygraves. She died of liver cancer on 17 December 1996, aged 61. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com