Ruby Murray - Chart Success

Chart Success

Again spotted by Afton, she was signed to Columbia and her first single, "Heartbeat", reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1954. Afton had offered her the position of resident singer on the BBC's Quite Contrary television show, to replace Joan Regan. "Softly, Softly", her second single, reached number one in early 1955. That same year Murray set a pop-chart record by having five hits in the Top Twenty in one week, a feat unmatched for many years.

The 1950s was a busy period for Murray, 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, starting in 1955, Murray constantly had at least one single in the UK charts - this at a time when only a Top 20 was listed.

She starred with Frankie Howerd and Dennis Price in her only film role as Ruby, in the 1956 farce, A Touch of the Sun. A couple of hits followed later in the decade; "Goodbye Jimmy, Goodbye", a #10 hit in 1959, was her final appearance in the charts. EMI put together a compilation album of her hits on CD in 1989, including songs that regularly featured in her act; "Mr. Wonderful", "Scarlet Ribbons" and "It's the Irish in Me". They updated this with the release of EMI Presents The Magic Of Ruby Murray in 1997, and a triple album, Anthology - The Golden Anniversary Collection in 2005, the 50th anniversary of her peak successes on the charts.

Ruby Murray's name lives on in rhyming slang as the rhyme for curry.

A play about Murray's life, Ruby, written by the Belfast playwright, Marie Jones, opened at the Group Theatre in Belfast in April 2000.