Tó Cruz is a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 singer of Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

an descent, best known for his participation in the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest

Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...

.

Cruz started out as a studio backing singer and voiceover

VoiceOver

VoiceOver is a screen reader built into Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, iOS and iPod operating systems. By using VoiceOver, the user can access their Macintosh or iOS device based on spoken descriptions and, in the case of the Mac, the keyboard. The feature is designed to increase accessibility for blind...

 performer for television and radio commercials. In 1995, he entered the Portuguese Eurovision selection, Festival da Canção, with the song '"Baunilha e chocolate

Baunilha E Chocolate

"Baunilha e chocolate" was the Portuguese entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995, performed in Portuguese by Tó Cruz....

" ("Vanilla and Chocolate"), and was the clear winner with the regional juries. "Baunilha e chocolate" went forward to the 40th Eurovision Song Contest

Eurovision Song Contest 1995

The Eurovision Song Contest 1995 was the 40th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 13 May 1995 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. The presenter was Mary Kennedy. This contest broke the chain of victories that Ireland enjoyed in 1992, 1993, and 1994...

, held on 13 May in Dublin. Cruz's performance was professional, but the song itself did not prove popular with the juries, finishing in 21st place of the 23 entries after receiving points only from France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. This was Portugal's lowest Eurovision placement at the time.

Cruz went on to be the voice of Quasimodo in the Portuguese version of Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 American animated drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released to theaters on June 21, 1996 by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is inspired by Victor Hugo's novel of...

, and Garrett in Quest for Camelot

Quest for Camelot

Quest for Camelot is a 1998 animated feature film from Warner Bros. Animation, based on the novel The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman, starring the voices of Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Jane Seymour, Pierce Brosnan, Bronson Pinchot, Jaleel White, Gabriel Byrne,...

. His first album, Alma nua, was released in 1998, followed two years later by Camaleão, but neither sold well. In 2001, Cruz moved to the USA, where he recorded an English-language album under the name of António TC Cruz.

Returning to Portugal, Cruz provided more voiceover work for Disney's 2007 film Enchanted and has sung with artists such as Laura Pausini

Laura Pausini

Laura Pausini, is a Grammy Award-winning Italian soul singer-songwriter. She debuted in 1993, winning the newcomer artists' section of the 43rd Sanremo Music Festival with the song "La solitudine", which became an Italian standard and an international hit, reaching the top spot on the Italian...

, Paulo de Carvalho and Rão Kyao.

External links

• MySpace page
• Festival da Canção 1995 (Portuguese - includes audio)