In the early 90s I remember a lady who frequented the bars around the harbourside. Someone told me at the time that she used to be a well-known singer, but I didn’t know how famous she actually was in her day .
This was Ruby Murray, one of the biggest-selling female stars of the 1950s, who set a chart record in 1955 for having five recordings in the top 20 simultaneously, a feat equalled only by Elvis and Madonna.
During the mid-50s, she had her own television show, starred at the London Palladium in Painting The Town with Norman Wisdom, appeared in a Royal Command Performance, and toured the USA, Malta and North Africa. Apparently, Frank Sinatra once told her: “You’re a hell of a great singer and I am your greatest fan.” She now has a plaque in her home town of Belfast.
Ruby lived in Torquay with her second husband, impresario Ray Lamar. She was still performing in cabaret and in nostalgia shows with other stars of the 50s right up to her death in 1996, aged 61. This is Ruby in 1955:
Come and enjoy Devon – book a hotel and get away!
