The Stage

Stephen Gately

Published Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 12:20 by Michael Quinn

An embarrassing debut on Ireland’s most popular television programme in 1993 was not the most auspicious start for a group of five would-be pop stars, but Boyzone went on to have a record-breaking 16 consecutive top five hits in the British charts and made Stephen Gately a star for half of his young life.

Born in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1976, Gately became a model at 14 and later won the all-Ireland disco-dancing championships. Aged 23, he found himself in Boyzone, the second boy band (following Westlife) masterminded by X Factor judge Louis Walsh. International success followed, with album sales of more than 10 million before the band split in 2000.

After a brief solo recording career, Gately turned to acting, appearing in a tour and West End run of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz at Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre. He made his pantomime debut at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley in 2006 and starred in one film, a low-budget horror movie, Credo, two years later.

Despite the outward success, Gately’s private life was troubled. His first boyfriend was a heroin addict who hanged himself in 1995, two years after the couple separated. In 1999 he publicly revealed his homosexuality to prevent a newspaper outing him, a move that caused friction within Boyzone, the eventual split provoking an addiction to prescription drugs. In 2003 he entered into a stable civil partnership with businessman Andrew Coles.

A Boyzone reunion in 2008 met with a lukewarm critical and commercial response, but Better, their comeback single, courted controversy by depicting the first gay couple in a pop video.

Gately died in his sleep from a cardiogenic pulmonary oedema on holiday in Mallorca on October 10, aged 33. A novel for children remains unpublished.