David Archuleta

Gifted with a voice that was too big to be ignored, Season 7 "American Idol" runner-up David Archuleta was always meant to become a star. Born on Dec. 28, 1990 in Miami, FL to a jazz musician father and a singer mother, Archuleta started singing when he was just seven years old. At age 12, he competed on the long-running talent show "Star Search" (CBS, 1983-1995; 2002-04) and won the title of Junior Singer Star with his rendition of "You're All I Need to Get By" (1968), and a grand prize of $100,000. A few years later, he was put under vocal rest so he could recover from partial vocal paralysis, a condition that likely gave his voice a unique, airy quality to it, according to his former singing coach. In late 2007, Archuleta beat out millions of singing hopefuls in San Diego, CA and nabbed an opportunity to audition for the popular reality competition series "American Idol" (Fox, 2002-16) during its seventh season. In front of "Idol" judges Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell, Archuleta belted John Mayer's hit song "Waiting on the World to Change" (2006), and in spite of forgetting some of the lyrics, the judges deemed his voice strong enough to send to the semi-final rounds in Hollywood.