13 Facts About Ruby Murray

Ruby Florence Murray was a Northern Irish singer.

Ruby Murray 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.

Ruby Murray underwent surgery at six weeks of age due to swollen glands and, as a result, had a very husky voice.

Ruby Murray returned to Belfast and full-time education until she was 14.

Ruby Murray kept busy on the variety stage in Northern Ireland in the early 1950s and in 1954 she joined a touring revue called "Yankee Doodle Blarney" which gave her very useful exposure on the English variety stages.

That year Ruby Murray set a pop chart record by having five hits in the Top Twenty in one week, a feat unmatched for many years.

Ruby Murray's popularity led to her name being adopted in Cockney rhyming slang as a rhyme for "curry".

In 1957, while working in Blackpool, Ruby Murray met Bernie Burgess, a member of a successful television and recording vocal quartet, the Four Jones Boys.

The couple included a song-and-dance segment in Ruby Murray's act during the 1960s.

Ruby Murray 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 Ruby Murray moved to Torquay to live with an old friend, Ray Lamar, a former stage dancer and theatre impresario, who was 18 years her senior.

Ruby Murray died of liver cancer on 17 December 1996, aged 61.