Roy Orbison facts: Singer’s wife, children, songs and why he always wore glasses explained

Roy Orbison was one of the rock and roll’s most popular and successful artists ever.

Thanks to his trademark passionate vocal style, dark ballads and distinctive sunglasses, he was a hugely influential singer and composer.

Roy Orbison’s music has been described as operatic, giving him the nicknames ‘the Caruso of Rock’ and ‘the Big O’.

He was one of the first male rock and roll stars to show vulnerability at a time when it was the norm to project strong masculinity. He was also known for his shyness and stage fright, which he attempted to battle by wearing dark sunglasses.

Roy started out as a rockabilly and country-and-western singer, and he soon found success in the early 1960s with hits including ‘Only the Lonely’, ‘Running Scared’, ‘Crying’, ‘In Dreams’ and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’.

Due to a number of personal tragedies, his career nosedived. However, he found new popularity in the 1980s thanks to successful cover versions of his songs.

In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne, and a new album of songs – such as 1989’s ‘You Got It’ – proved to be very successful, even after his death.

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1990’s hit romcom Pretty Woman also helped cement his popularity when the film was named after and used his famous song.

1. Where was Roy Orbison from and when he was born?

   1. Roy Orbison was born on April 23, 1936 in Vernon, Texas.

      He was the middle son of parents Orbie Lee Orbison (1913–1984), an oil well driller and car mechanic, and nurse Nadine Vesta Shults (1913-1992).

   2. Why did Roy Orbison wear dark sunglasses?

   3. It was said that all the Orbison children had poor eyesight growing up.

      Roy used thick corrective lenses from an early age, and was self-conscious about his appearance. He began dyeing his almost-white hair black when he was still a young boy.

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      He was known to be quiet, self-effacing, and was also very polite.

      After leaving his normal thick eyeglasses on an aeroplane in 1963, while on tour with the Beatles, Roy was forced to wear his prescription Wayfarer sunglasses on stage, and found that he actually preferred them.

      He wore sunglasses to help him hide to an extent, according to his biographers. The sunglasses led some people to assume he was blind.