Stephen Patrick David Gately was an Irish pop singer-songwriter, actor, children's writer and dancer, who, with Ronan Keating, was one of two lead singers of the pop group Boyzone. Gately and Keating originally served as co-frontmen, but Keating gradually became more synonymous with the group as time went on. All of Boyzone's studio albums hit number one in the United Kingdom, their third being their most successful internationally. With Boyzone, Gately had a record-breaking sixteen consecutive singles enter the top five of the UK Singles Chart. He performed for millions of fans globally. He released a solo album in 2000, after the group's initial break-up, which charted in the UK top ten and yielded three UK hit singles, including the top three hit "New Beginning". Gately went on to appear variously in stage productions and on television programmes as well as contributing songs to various projects. In 2008, he rejoined his colleagues as Boyzone reformed for a series of concerts and recordings. Gately wed Andrew Cowles, first in a commitment ceremony in Las Vegas in 2003 and more formally in a civil partnership ceremony in London in 2006. Gately made his sexuality known in 1999 and came out in a blaze of publicity. Upon Boyzone's reformation, Gately featured as part of the first gay couple in the music video for "Better", in what was to be his last with the band. Gately died in a flat that he and Cowles owned in Majorca, Spain, on 10 October 2009. Brian Boyd in The Irish Times stated: "Stephen Gately's death represents the first time that the boyband genre has had to deal with such a tragic situation". Tim Teeman of The Times (UK) heralded Gately as a hero of gay rights for his response to being "smoked out of the closet". Early life and family Gately grew up in relative poverty in the working-class Sheriff Street area of Dublin. He was the fourth of five children; his father Martin is a former decorator and his mother, Margaret (born 1949) a cleaner. His siblings are Michelle, Tony, Alan and Mark. Gately was raised Catholic. He was particularly close to sister Michelle throughout his life. Gately's father had an accident as a result of which he had to be hospitalised for three months from September 2004, and has not returned to work. His mother then took over as full-time carer. Gately attended primary school at St Laurence O'Toole's and secondary school at North Strand Technical College. As a teenager he appeared in various musicals and theatre performances at school, such as Juno and the Paycock. He was estranged from his parents for years, but reconciled with them in 2008, and visited them with Andrew Cowles that year. Career Boyzone Gately joined Boyzone upon their formation in 1993. The group became known in Ireland after an infamous appearance on The Late Late Show that year, which presenter Gay Byrne dismissed—although he later concluded: "They certainly had the last laugh on us". Boyzone's first success outside Ireland was when the song "Love Me for a Reason" reached number two in the UK Singles Chart in 1995. The group split suddenly following a string of performances in Dublin's Point Theatre in 2000. By the time Boyzone originally rested the band, they had achieved six number ones on the UK Singles Chart. They were considered a major pop band of the 1990s and had a much publicised rivalry with UK boy band Take That, even selling more singles than them. Gately shared the majority of lead vocal work with Ronan Keating. A February appearance at the 2008 Meteor Awards relaunched the reformed Boyzone, with touring taking place throughout 2008. After his death, manager Louis Walsh described Gately as "the glue in Boyzone, he kept them all together". Keating informed the congregation at Gately's funeral that he had nicknames for them all; "the campest straight band in the world"—Rosaleen, Michaela, Kitty, Shanice and Stephanie. Solo career After success with Boyzone, the band decided in 2000 to move on to solo projects. Gately was the first, with his debut solo single, "New Beginning", released on 29 May 2000. The single reached number three in the UK charts. Two weeks later the album New Beginning was released and entered the charts. The album included twelve tracks including a version of the classic "Bright Eyes", which he recorded for the soundtrack to the TV version of Watership Down. He also voiced one of the characters in the series, Blackavar, which was created to look like him. His character only spoke for 3 episodes, before becoming a background character. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Creative Commons image source in video

• published: 14 Nov 2013
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