Susan Boyle

by Alice Montgomery

  There was certainly no shortage of neighbours willing to speak up on her behalf. One such was Brian Smith, who had known her for years and was extremely keen to refute the notion that Susan had never been kissed.

  ‘She’s been through difficult and very low times in the past few years. She’s a lovely lady, really kind and generous. She would make a great catch for any man,’ he told the Mirror, and it was testament to Susan’s kind heart that she provoked such effusive outbursts. ‘It’s not true Susan’s never been kissed,’ he went on. ‘I’ve given her many a peck on the cheek to say, “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.” She comes to me when she needs help or a shoulder to cry on.’

  It turned out that Susan, like so many single women, had become the primary carer for her mother Bridget, and Bridget’s death three years earlier had left a terrible gap in her life. It was doubtless difficult while Bridget was alive, but times became even harder after she died. In short, Susan hadn’t really had a lot of fun in her life.

  ‘I never knew her to have a birthday party because she was busy caring for her mother,’ Brian continued. ‘When she was left alone in that house she went through extremely down times. She wouldn’t come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone.’

  Nor were matters helped by local youths. ‘They would call her names, throw snowballs at her door and dare each other to knock and run away,’ said Brian. ‘She would confront them and get really angry, which made them ridicule her more. We’d often chase them away.’

  With a background like that, Susan’s bravery about facing the Glasgow audience on Britain’s Got Talent was becoming more understandable by the day. She had been taunted, bullied and humiliated in the past, and had she not carried off such a spectacular performance, there was a very good chance it would have happened again, except this time on national television. While much was made of Susan’s learning difficulties, you couldn’t fault her ambition. She’d seen that this was one way of achieving her dream and she’d gone for it. And so far it was working out spectacularly well.

  You couldn’t have a voice like Susan’s without somebody noticing, and so it proved to be. It turned out that Susan was a regular at karaoke contests held at the local Happy Valley Hotel, where her talent hadn’t gone unobserved. ‘Susan comes here three or four times a week, although you wouldn’t notice her,’ the hotel’s owner Jackie Russell told the Mirror. ‘She sits by herself with a glass of lemonade. Then she sees the microphone and you definitely notice her.’

  In the meantime, public concern at the patronizing way this gentle woman had been treated by the Britain’s Got Talent judges had filtered through to the hard-boiled trio, and Piers and Amanda apologized for the way they’d been on the show (and for those remarks about making up for her lack of male attention - Piers really should have said sorry for a great deal more).

  ‘I would just like to apologize to Susan, it’s long overdue,’ he said. ‘Simon Cowell and I don’t have the best reputations, I think, for courtesy. We were all laughing at her when she started, but she had the last laugh. It was an amazing performance.’

  Amanda hadn’t been much better: ‘It’s a very shallow thing to say, but obviously the minute she walked on we and the audience completely judged her on her appearance,’ she said, ‘and I hate saying that. The audience was jeering and booing and it was really uncomfortable. And we were, “Oh, just please be good or just get off.” We were so dying for her.’ But then, as Amanda put it, everyone cottoned on to the fact that they’d ‘found gold’.

  If truth be told, this was a bit rich coming from Piers and Amanda, especially Amanda, who had repeatedly told Susan not to change, not to smarten up and not to go to Simon Cowell’s dentist . . . The observant among us will have noted that Amanda isn’t exactly a stranger to the beauty salon herself. Although Susan was, perhaps for the first time in her life, being taken seriously in some quarters, there were still a great number of patronizing comments coming her way simply because she wasn’t a city-dwelling sophisticate. The bullies in the village may have been silenced, but the cattiness in the media would linger for some time yet.

  Given the level of interest Susan’s appearance had provoked, when the next episode of Britain’s Got Talent aired the following week, expectation was huge. In the end, nothing particularly dramatic happened: a twelve-year-old called Shaheen Jafargholi got the Cowell treatment when Simon stopped him halfway through Amy Winehouse’s ‘Valerie’ and got him to perform another number, Michael Jackson’s ‘Who’s Loving You’, which turned out to be a huge triumph and caused the other judges to give him a pat on the back.

  Then Amanda was reduced to tears (again) by a saxophonist called Julian Smith . . . and so it went on. There was talent there, certainly, but nothing to produce a show-stopping moment à la Susan. How could there have been? What had happened to Susan was a one-in-a-million TV moment, and even though she was physically absent from the show, her presence hung over it. For Susan, who had been ritually ignored for years when she was around, the fact that she could cast a spell in her absence was as thrilling as being finally accepted as a singer.

  Still no one knew quite where Susan was - not that it stopped various lurid reports from surfacing. That never-been-kissed tag was still there (a peck on the cheek wasn’t really deemed sufficient) and so a friend, William McDonald, stepped forward to do the honours. ‘If there’s a lady to be kissed, I’m your man,’ he explained, adding, ‘She’d be looking for a younger fellow now she’s world famous.’ Perhaps, but she wasn’t going to have time. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of Susan, and remaining in the shadows just made everyone want her all the more.

  The second episode of the show only served to crank up the dramatic tension. Despite the strength of Susan’s performance, and the sensation it had provoked, it was by no means a given that Susan would win, and it appeared she had serious competition in the form of Shaheen. Their rivalry was being billed as the Hairy Angel versus the Little Angel, with even Michael Jackson expressing an interest in meeting the youngster when he visited London to perform that summer (poignantly, Shaheen later ended up performing at Jackson’s memorial service).

  Shaheen, to put it bluntly, also had a good back story: the son of a single mother, he was a little lad with a big voice that he used to full effect. He was also only twelve, and thus as ill-equipped to deal with the pressures of televisual fame as Susan, not least because the media were keen to set them up against one another.

  ‘Susan has an amazing voice,’ said Shaheen, who was nothing if not diplomatic. ‘I don’t want to be a rival, but if I won I wouldn’t be complaining. I know I am a good singer and I think I can sing as well as anyone else in the competition. I enjoy doing it so much.’

  ‘Susan and Shaheen are very different singers,’ his mother Karen chipped in. ‘If it comes down to it, may the best person win on the night.’

  Unlike Susan, Shaheen already had some professional experience. He had appeared in Torchwood and Casualty, and had toured with the musical Thriller, in which he played the young Michael Jackson. But it seemed that Susan’s amateurishness didn’t matter: it was all part of her charm.

  Even without the discovery of Susan and the rivalry between her and Shaheen, this series of Britain’s Got Talent was getting a lot of attention. Simon Cowell made headlines when he appointed a fourth judge, the actress Kelly Brook, and then made even more headlines when he dispensed with her services just two days into filming. Cowell said her presence upset the dynamic of the show, while Kelly herself claimed that Ant and Dec had been behind it, partly because they were angry not to have been consulted and partly because she unwisely asked them what they did!

  All the while, though, Susan’s story continued to fascinate. The next snippet about her life that came to light was that shortly before she appeared on television, Susan applied to join the Cantilena Choir in Livingston, West Lothian, but had been turned down. ‘She made an enquiry to join our choir, but we had no vacanci
es,’ explained Shirley Ullman, the choir secretary. ‘When she spoke to me she had just done the audition for Britain’s Got Talent. It was a shock when I saw her on the television. We are a very small choir so we didn’t want to be top heavy. There are only eighteen of us and we are more of a chamber choir rather than there being fifty to sixty people, so we just couldn’t have too many singers.’ On this occasion, however, they would seem to have been the ones missing out.

  Talk continued about a record deal, and as fans and journalists began visiting Blackburn to get a glimpse of the unlikely new star, Susan, who had resurfaced, was forced to put a wall up at her house to shield herself from the curious gaze of the public.

  Meanwhile, Boyle-mania continued to grow. It emerged that as far back as 1999, Susan had sung ‘Cry Me A River’ on a record made for charity - a very rare disc, as only 1,000 had ever been made - and one had now surfaced on eBay, attracting bids reaching as high as £1,000.

  Hugh Jackman, star of the X-Men film series, became the latest Hollywood star to declare himself a fan. ‘Where is Susan Boyle?’ he tweeted. ‘I am ready for a duet.’ This wasn’t as outlandish a request as it seemed since Hugh is in fact a musical talent in his own right, having starred in a concert version of Carousel at New York’s Carnegie Hall. And while Alain Boublil might not be as well known as some of the other names speaking about Susan, he certainly knows a thing or two about music, having written the lyrics for ‘I Dreamed A Dream’. ‘I think of Edith Piaf,’ he said. ‘Piaf was a small woman who looked like nothing, and then she opened her mouth and this beautiful sound came out. Even the most cynical people I know have been moved.’ Elaine Paige and now Edith Piaf - high praise indeed.

  Meanwhile, Susan’s audition continued to become one of the most viewed in the history of the internet, with over 100 million hits: ‘There have been moments in the history of viral video when it seems as if the whole world unites around one phenomenon, ’ declared Matt Cutler, a spokesman for the American video tracking company Visible Measures. ‘The latest star is the unassuming, unexpectedly talented Susan Boyle. The humble and previously unknown Susan Boyle in less than one week has trumped everyone.’

  Shortly afterwards the number rose to 116 million. ‘She is very close to becoming the most popular internet hit in history,’ Cutler said. ‘We are watching closely and counting how many people are logging in on over 150 websites, not just YouTube.’

  Susan had started to appear in public again, and for the first time there was the hint of a change in her appearance. Her hair, although still grey, had been trimmed, and her clothes were starting to appear a little smarter. Susan had been adamant that there would be no Hollywood-style makeover, but anyone who appears regularly on television is aware of their appearance, and Susan, while not yet a regular performer, had attracted more attention than almost anyone else on the planet. It was hardly surprising that, despite Amanda’s rather patronizing plea that Susan stay the way she was, a slight change began to occur.

  Susan even acknowledged as much. ‘I will need to sort out my dress sense and my weight,’ she told one of the numerous journalists who hung on her every word. ‘It wasn’t until I saw myself on TV that I realized how frumpy I was. It’s not a big thing, it doesn’t worry me too much, but I will be doing a bit more exercise to help me sort it out.

  ‘When there is this much attention on you, you have to plan what you wear every day and look your best. I just want to look nice and smart.’ It was a typically modest assertion and didn’t suggest anything too extreme.

  By now, Susan was beginning to get offers to make a record, which she duly turned down. Under the terms of Britain’s Got Talent, she was not allowed to sign up with anyone else, but she was also aware that it was too soon. The video clip of her audition might have been a sensation, but the fact remained that she had been on the show only once. She had to go back, prove it wasn’t a one-off and that she could take the pace. She was also going to need professional help. No industry has more sharks than the music industry, and Susan had become a highly marketable commodity. As such she was going to need people around to protect her from making a bad deal.

  Susan certainly hadn’t seen a penny yet. By this stage in any series of Britain’s Got Talent, none of the contestants would have earned a thing, but Susan found herself in that odd space between the very famous and the very rich. While she was certainly becoming the former, she was nowhere near the latter. She had the Britain’s Got Talent team to look after her - although it wasn’t yet clear quite how much she was going to need it - but she had no money to lavish on makeovers and security. She was already in an extremely pressurized position and this just added to everything she had to worry about.

  The internet hits reached 130 million, at least 80 million more than the viewings for President Obama’s inauguration speech. ‘I am truly gobsmacked,’ said Susan. ‘This is unbelievable. The reaction has been amazing.’ She celebrated by having a slight eyebrow trim - an altogether sleeker Susan was beginning to emerge.

  And still the celebrity endorsements continued. It seemed as though the most famous and blessed people on the planet wanted to be sprinkled with the gold dust that had transformed Susan’s life.

  ‘She gave me the chill bumps when I heard her,’ said Sheryl Crow.

  ‘I got emailed the link and was most impressed,’ said Billy Zane. ‘I enjoyed the comeuppance the audience got. It was a milestone in compassion.’

  ‘My fifteen-year-old son said, “That makes me so happy,”’ said Anthony Edwards.

  The performance was ‘warm and friendly’, said Sidney Poitier.

  Even Tony Blair got in on the act: ‘Susan is certainly unofficially probably doing more good than most of the official channels of diplomacy,’ he said. And where Blair was to be found, so was his erstwhile spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, who thought politicians could take a leaf out of Susan’s book: it was her authenticity, he said, that made her such a success.

  Someone else touched by Susan’s gold dust was Amanda Holden. She was, of course, on the audition clip that had been beamed all over the world, and in the wake of that, Amanda had been interviewed innumerable times about Susan, not least on American television. It seemed the Americans liked what they saw, and why not? Simon and Piers were stars in the States, so why not Amanda?

  She had certainly been keen on the idea in the past, saying, ‘I want that for myself. I bloody well would like to go over there.’ And now it seemed she was going to get the chance. CBS offered her a job co-anchoring The Early Show after Britain’s Got Talent finished on 30 May - and all because of the worldwide interested generated by Susan. It all served to enhance the fairytale quality of the story - not only had Susan’s life changed, everyone around her was experiencing good fortune too.

  Amanda continued to emphasize that Susan shouldn’t change, however. ‘Everyone was against Susan when she walked on that stage,’ she told the American audience. ‘We all were. We were all too cynical. It was a complete privilege to listen to Susan, but she needs to stay exactly as she is, because that’s the reason we love her. A makeover can perhaps come later, when she’s signed the album deal and conquered America.’ In actual fact, the makeover had already begun.

  Susan’s changing appearance was, in reality, a physical manifestation of her change in status. No one had taken her seriously before, but they were now, and as her popularity grew, so she came closer to the commonly held ideal of what makes a woman attractive. However much Amanda and co. might have wanted Susan to stay the same, the fact remained that Susan wanted to change.

  She had never been allowed to feel that she could compete with the rest of the world on any basis, be it as a sexually attractive woman or a person who could have an interesting life in her own right. Until now she had been daughter, sister, aunt, carer, and not a great deal more. Cinderella, to whom she was increasingly compared, rose from the ashes to don her finery, and metaphorically, Susan was doing exactly the same.

  Meanwhile Su
san’s makeover was gradually taking place. Her eyebrows were noticeably slimmer, her hair had been trimmed and now it went from grey to auburn. Susan’s wardrobe underwent a similar metamorphosis when she was pictured wearing smart trousers and a light brown jacket, an outfit that was a world away from her appearance a week earlier.

  All this time, it was increasingly apparent that in private her voice had been stunning family and friends for years.

  The Mirror unearthed an old family video of Susan singing ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’ from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar when she was just twenty-five. ‘It was a very emotional night,’ her brother Gerry told the paper. ‘It goes quiet when Susan sings; it always does. She always has that effect. The week before she went on Britain’s Got Talent she sang “Ave Maria” at my mother-in-law’s funeral and stunned the church.’

  Extraordinary aspects of Susan’s story just kept emerging. It turned out the Boyle family, or at least some elements of it, were moving in rather higher echelons than had been previously suspected, as none other than Sir David Frost was a friend. He had met Gerry, and another brother John, twenty years previously, when the brothers suggested setting up a property firm based on Sir David’s television show Through The Keyhole.