A TALENTED grandfather has set his sights on stardom after narrowly losing a national talent contest.

Singer Eugene Levine from Bramhope beat off thousands of other singers, comedians and musicians from all over the country to get into the final of the over-60s talent contest.

But at last week's Your Silver Stars grand final in front of 2,000 people at the Southport Theatre, he was beaten into third place by singing Liverpudlians, The Tant Sisters.

Mr Levine, 62, who is married with two sons and five grandchildren, said: "I was disappointed to get third place, I had such wonderful feedback from the audience and I really wanted to win it for Leeds."

But now, after receiving such support from the enthusiastic crowd, including 16 of his friends and family and the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Neil Taggart, Mr Levine is determined to break into showbiz.

"I'm just looking for that little opening in a door somewhere. I've lots of life experience and everyone who hears me sing thinks I'm fantastic, people say I've got to keep trying, but the openings are so small," he said.

Mr Levine, who has been compared to Frankie Vaughan, started singing at 15 years old, but gave up, taking it up again in his 50s.

Since then, he has taken part in many competitions, has played bit parts in television series, such as Emmerdale and Heartbeat, and has just finished filming a new project with actor David Jason.

He even narrowly missed out getting into an all man band billed as a more mature version of a boy band.

More than 200 hopefuls responded to the advert in The Stage magazine for singers over 50 years old. Mr Levine managed to get into the final ten and narrowly missed out after two of the judges disagreed.

His favourite song, which he performed at Southport Theatre, is I Who Have Nothing, the Shirley Bassey/Tom Jones, number, and he also favours tunes by Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and even Lionel Ritchie.

Now, he believes there is a place for older entertainers to appeal to the more mature market.

"What we need is a Fame Academy for older people, there are a lot of older people who are fed up with the way things are at the moment.

"I was a late starter, but I'm very confident on the stage and don't have any fear. I just need the right opening."

Following last week's final he was approached by an agent who claimed to have worked with Beatles manger Brian Epstein.

"He said to me I was absolutely fantastic and would I be interested in doing a Frankie Vaughan tribute, so who knows."