Ray Quinn

Raymond Arthur Quinn (born 25 August 1988) is an English actor, singer, and dancer.

Raymond Arthur Quinn was born on 25 August 1988 in Childwall, Merseyside.

Later he attended the Merseyside Dance and Drama College, where he had singing lessons from the age of nine.

He cites his vocal coach, Suzanne Taylor, as a major influence in his career.

He is best known for his role as Anthony Murray in Brookside from 2000 to 2003.

From 2000 to 2003, Quinn portrayed the victimised and tormented child Anthony Murray in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside.

He performed and was credited as Raymond Quinn.

Murray's featured storylines on the programme included bullying and murder.

After his appearance on Brookside ended he guest starred in an episode of Merseybeat in which he played criminal Leon Marsh.

He also appeared in the episode "The Singing Cactus" for the BBC series, The Afternoon Play as John Reilly, who Grieves after his mother's death and flees into his own world with his "singing cactus".

Quinn rose to further prominence when he auditioned for the third series of The X Factor, singing a medley of "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" and "Devil in Disguise".

Prior to appearing on the show, he was a performing arts student at the Merseyside Dance and Drama College, where he previously received some vocal training.

He received three yeses from the judges, and progressed through to bootcamp.

Quinn was placed in the 16-24s category, with Simon Cowell as his mentor.

However, whilst singing in front of Cowell and Sinitta, he partially stumbled and forgot the lyrics to "Easy" by Lionel Richie.

Initially, he was told he wasn't progressing through to judges' houses, but a change within the series format allowed him to successfully continue with the competition.

He later sang "Smile" for his judges' houses performance, and afterwards was granted a place as one of the four acts through to the live shows.

During the live shows, many of Quinn's song choices and performances were old-fashioned and swing-based.

Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne, in the earlier stages of the competition, queried him over his ability as a pure singer rather than a 'song-and-dance' man.

However, in the later stages, he widened the range of his performances more into singing pop songs, and to which the judges were satisfied with Quinn's ability to do so.

In week five, he was placed in the bottom two against Nikitta Angus, but survived elimination.

He managed to progress through the competition up to week 10, where he was the series runner-up, losing to eventual winner Leona Lewis.

He achieved more public recognition when he auditioned for the third series of The X Factor in 2006, finishing in second place behind Leona Lewis.

In December 2006, two days after finishing on The X Factor, Quinn signed a record deal with Cowell's label SYCO to release a debut swing album.

Recording process for the album began through January 2007 at the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles, where he was accompanied by a 48-piece orchestra.

His debut album, Doing It My Way was released on 12 March 2007.

Coincidentally, another X Factor finalist Ben Mills released his album on the same day.

The album became a critical and commercial success.

It entered the UK Album Chart at number one, and sold 127,000 copies in its first week of release, before being certified platinum.

The album also featured covers of old swing and vocal jazz classics, some of which were recorded by Frank Sinatra himself.

Quinn made British music history as he was the youngest male solo artist and the first person ever, to have a number one album without releasing a single.

During the summer of that year, he was a judge on the ITV dance competition show Baby Ballroom, alongside Bonnie Langford and Pierre Dulaine.

The programme centered on finding the best junior ballroom dancers.

Quinn embarked on his own solo tour from September to November 2007, where he performed within 30 cities across the UK.

However, on 6 November 2007, it was announced that he had been subsequently dropped by Sony BMG.

Quinn participated as a contestant on the fourth series of Dancing on Ice.

He paired with professional skater Maria Filippov.

Throughout the series, the couple earned high scores and praise from the ice panel each week.

Quinn won the fourth series of Dancing on Ice in 2009 and the 'All Stars' series in 2014.

On 22 February 2015, he was the winner of the first series of Get Your Act Together.