Jake Canuso (Carmine Canuso) was born in Switzerland to Italian descendants. In his late teens he trained as a professional dancer in London.

Canuso has worked with Elton John, Annie Lennox, featured in Take That's "Sure" video and was a backing dancer for the Spice Girls SpiceWorld 1998 tour, where he befriended Louie Spence and Emma Bunton. He is best known for his role in the ITV series Benidorm as the barman Mateo. Canuso can speak six languages fluently including English, Spanish and Italian.Jake Canuso, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.