Cure frontman Robert Smith was born in Blackpool, U.K., on April 21, 1959. Smith, the third of four children, was a good student in his youth and spent most of his spare time playing music. He started the Cure’s first incarnation, then called Easy Cure, in 1977 with friends from Notre Dame Middle School in Crawley, Sussex. Smith, along with founding member Michael Dempsey, had played in a number of local bands with Lol Tolhurst and connected with Porl Thompson for the new group. After signing a short-lived deal with a German label in 1978, Thompson left the group and they recorded new demos. This incarnation, fronted by Smith, was known as the Cure. Their first big break came when those demos were discovered by the newly formed Fiction Records. That label was formed under the Polydor Records umbrella. They broke through to international success in 1979 with their debut LP “Three Imaginary Boys,” which included their signature track “Boys Don’t Cry.”