In the run-up to Christmas, Susan returned home, having decided that she would after all keep Blackburn as her base. As her global fame continued to spread and she travelled more and more, she needed a base where she felt entirely at home, near the friends and family who were helping her cope. Her new-found status continued to provoke changes: Susan was forced to beef up security at her home, although she continued to be as friendly as ever to fans and reporters. She willingly posed for photographs, signed autographs and waved cheerily to passers-by - there was no sign whatsoever of any diva-like behaviour. There was also no sign of a return of the tensions that beset her during the competition. Now she appeared to be taking it all in her stride.
Plans for the television special, I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story, were progressing, with yet another of Susan’s dreams about to come true. This was kept from her until the last minute, but it had been arranged that she would finally sing a duet with her great idol, Elaine Paige. The two of them performed Elaine’s hit ‘I Know Him So Well’, an experience that Susan clearly found overwhelming: ‘I never thought I would see myself standing on the same stage with such an icon from West End theatre, let alone singing with her,’ she said.
Elaine was as warm as ever: ‘It was a pleasure to finally sing with Susan; she was a delight to work with and I think we did more than justice to one of my favourite songs,’ she said.
The duet went down a treat in the United States. One of the many fan sites that had been set up in the wake of the audition was www.susan-boyle.co.uk, and a typical posting from a US fan was as follows: ‘Everyone here is so excited and thrilled about Susan’s duet with Elaine and wanting more!’ said Misti in Seattle. ‘In fact we are very happy for Elaine as most of us had not even heard of her before and now she is also going to have a wonderful career here in the USA, as well as her British one. She was so sweet to Susan at the beginning when others were making fun of her and she has been so gracious about being the “guest” and giving Susan her “star” time. They both just sparkle together and sound wonderful. I am so hoping they do an album together and bet they will as the producers will not let this money maker slide through their hands.’
Would Susan be responsible for giving Elaine Paige’s career a boost in the United States? What a turnaround that would be.
Susan couldn’t resist having a little fun while filming the show. She also performed ‘Who I Was Born To Be’, but alarmed production staff when she did a little dance during a piano solo, possibly as a way of releasing the tension she was feeling. The programme was, naturally, presented by Piers Morgan, and there was a highly emotional moment when he presented her with a gold disc and Susan broke down in tears. ‘It feels bloody fantastic,’ she said. ‘I think my mum would be proud. She was quite a lady, y’know.’
The programme attracted over 10 million viewers when it was aired - twice the number that had tuned in the previous evening to see Cheryl Cole’s Night In.
Susan retained her hold on the top of the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic and explained to Piers how she drew strength from her religious faith: ‘On a personal level, church is very important to me; it’s the central part of my faith and I recognize that God gives you gifts that you have to use to the best of your ability,’ she said. She was therefore doubly delighted when, on a promotional visit to France, she was surrounded by a gaggle of fans who just happened to be Parisian nuns. It seemed the French loved her as much as everyone else, and she caused a sensation whenever she appeared on French talk shows. The same was also true in Germany, where she performed in Das Supertalent in Cologne. Her appeal was truly global and her story seemed to resonate with people all over the world.
Despite all this success, Susan remained as modest as ever. In an interview with People magazine, she claimed that her life had hardly changed: ‘I still have my former life,’ she said. ‘I still live in the same house. My life hasn’t changed. I travel more. I see places I never thought I would see. There is nothing I miss, because I have everything I had before - it’s just a little more interesting now. I met Donny Osmond. He was very nice. We talked about how important it was to stay grounded. He bought me some purple roses, and they were very beautiful.’ As for the most important individual in the proceedings . . . ‘Pebbles is blissfully unaware of everything that is going on,’ said Susan - the little cat must have been the only individual in Susan’s life who was. ‘She lives with a very lovely lady while I am away working, and she is thriving. I visit her when I can, and I can travel knowing that she is in safe hands and being pampered.’
It wasn’t easy nowadays for Susan to go anywhere unnoticed. On her return to Scotland, she turned up unannounced at Princes Mall in Edinburgh and caused a sensation, singing part of ‘Wild Horses’ and signing autographs.
Meanwhile, Susan’s gold dust continued to work its magic. No one could claim she had brought fame and fortune to Simon Cowell, who had been at the top of the celebrity tree for some time, but she certainly hadn’t done him any harm. It emerged in December that Cowell was set to become the first-ever reality television billionaire, and though that can’t be attributed specifically to Susan, she had helped him on his way.
No one was surprised when Susan’s ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ audition turned out to be the most watched clip of the year on YouTube, with 120 million hits on that site alone. Was there no end to Susan’s success? But there was a serious side to it all, too. Susan had done it all for her mother, Bridget, but Bridget was no longer there to see her famous, talented daughter, the one she’d fretted over for so many years. ‘She’s not alive to see how proud I could have made her,’ said Susan sadly to one interviewer - it was the one rather poignant note at a time of great triumph.
Susan was having to learn to pace herself, though. A publicity trip to Canada that was supposed to have taken place in November was postponed to December and then postponed again due to renewed fears about her health. In fact, all Susan needed was another rest, and her fans seemed to know and understand this. A typical posting on Susan’s official website from someone called Shirleyio said, ‘Susan’s management team has had her hopping back and forth across the Atlantic three times in a short period of time. That much travel is excruciating. She wants to spend time with her family at Christmas. When she needs a break, she should take it. Her team knows that.’
Susan was also taking care of her voice. She was working with another voice coach, Yvie Burnett, who taught her that if her career was to be a long-term one, it was essential that she get the training in. It wasn’t just a case of dealing with physical exhaustion; Susan had to treat her voice like an instrument. She was beginning to learn what was good for it and how long it would have to rest.
Meanwhile, people started to make a fortune out of Susan Boyle-related memorabilia on eBay, a great deal of which was unauthorized.
It was ‘despicable profiteering making unscrupulous people millions of pounds’, said Max Clifford, a spokesperson for Simon Cowell. ‘Susan has had a wonderful year and I know she’ll be upset about some of this stuff, especially as it may be fooling fans into thinking it has something to do with her. It’s a sad fact of life that there are always people who don’t care how low they sink to profit from others, and some of this is really cheap and nasty. I can assure you that Simon Cowell’s lawyers are taking a very close look at every single item using Susan.’
One person who was hoping to benefit was school janitor Thomas Crawford, who had a copy of the Whitburn Community Council charity CD, which had been made ten years earlier and included a track featuring Susan singing. As a bona fide piece of memorabilia, he was entitled to sell it.
‘I played the drums with a band playing one of the tracks on the CD and my dad kept it,’ he related. ‘When we heard that someone got $2,000 in America for one of the CDs, we decided to put it up for sale on eBay and see what happens and we’ll share the money. The bidding starts at £500 and the buy-it-now price is £2,500. Our band, The Fines, used to play at m
any of the venues Susan used to sing in and she’s a lovely lady.’
On this occasion the merchandise was totally above board, but fake memorabilia was something else. ‘She’s very upset about it all,’ said a friend of the family who didn’t wish to be named. ‘Susan has always been in this for the singing, not the money, but now people are jumping on the bandwagon to make cash for themselves. It’s sickening really. Susan’s done a lot for charity, and the only thing she’s endorsed is the eBay sale of a singing trophy she won last year at Blackburn Bowling Club. The money is going to raise cash for the CHAS appeal, which is close to Susan’s heart. The bidding starts this weekend. There’s nothing else she endorses on eBay, and I hope people don’t waste their money on any of it.’
Susan certainly wasn’t motivated by the money herself. Having been brought up in modest circumstances, she’d retained modest tastes, and wasn’t planning on a big splurge any time soon. ‘I will probably be able to buy the house I live in, which was my family home, which is fantastic. I don’t have any other big ambitions really. I have bought some new furniture. You’ve got to keep your house looking nice, haven’t you? I would like to do something good with the money - be useful to other people, help them. I have a few ideas in mind.’ The new furniture turned out to be a sofa and a fridge. Is it any wonder she was universally adored?
Talk of a film about Susan’s life continued, with more actresses being suggested to portray her. Catherine Zeta-Jones was certainly the most glamorous option, but Susan’s brother Gerry was more pragmatic. ‘There have been scripts made from a lot less than Susan’s story, which by any standards is remarkable,’ he said. ‘I would not be surprised in the least if there was a film made of her life and I would personally like to see Kathy Bates play my sister. Other British actresses like Brenda Blethyn would also be great and I just hope they get Brad Pitt to play me! Susan is planning to be with her family over Christmas and New Year and it will be great to have her home with us over the holidays. If an unknown woman from a small town in Scotland can go on to become the biggest-selling artist in America then anything is possible. We are all very proud of Susan and her dream really has come true with these fantastic CD sales. I’ve seen a tremendous change in my sister over the last year and she really has a strong team of people surrounding her now. I think that the sales of her CD will also be strong in other markets around the world because Susan’s story is so unique and it gives a lot of people hope.’
Gerry was being called in to act as his sister’s representative and spokesman from time to time. In December Susan won the Top Scot award at the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland awards, but it was Gerry who collected the prize on her behalf. ‘It’s amazing that she’s won this,’ he said. ‘She still thinks she’s the little lady from Blackburn. It’s a tremendous achievement in what has been a tremendous year and she is delighted and thrilled.’
Scot of the year! Susan’s story got more extraordinary by the day, but what was particularly heartening was the happy note on which she ended the year. Despite all the dire warnings about the dangers of putting a vulnerable woman in the media spotlight, Susan had gone from strength to strength. She had found the right balance in her life. The family home in Blackburn provided the safe haven, while visiting the rest of the world allowed her to spread her wings and fly. Her stamina was impressive, too: there might have been the odd postponement, such as the Canadian tour, but she still managed to pack a huge amount into her life, particularly now that she had proper back-up and moral support.
Her brothers Gerry and John gave an interview to Hello! magazine, in which they talked at length about their pride at what Susan had done. ‘They’d sold out in my local store, but as I stood there looking at the empty CD case, sitting alongside the albums of all those established worldwide stars, I felt like I could burst with pride,’ said John. ‘There she was, my baby sister! Her dream had come true and, like the rest of the family, I couldn’t have been more delighted for her. Susan is fine. I gave her a wee ring earlier, because obviously I do worry about her - she’ll always be my baby sister.’
‘But we’ve told Susan that if she ever feels like it’s getting too much for her, she only has to say,’ added John. ‘As a family, we’d spot the signs and know when to step in, but sometimes all she needs is a call from one of us.’
As for Simon Cowell, Gerry said, ‘The man’s a legend and has been so supportive. He’s always seemed very sincere and genuinely concerned for Susan’s wellbeing and happiness. I think she’s very lucky to have come to his attention.’
As the year drew to an end, the scale of Susan’s achievements became even clearer. I Dreamed A Dream was in its third week at number one in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Switzerland. It had received RIAA Triple Platinum Certification, meaning that over three million copies had been shipped to retailers in the US. It was the biggest-selling album of 2009, the first album released that year to hold the number one slot for three consecutive weeks and the highest-selling album ever for a début artist. Worldwide, over seven million copies had been shipped and Susan had become the fastest selling global female début artist ever. All told, it had been quite a year.
Susan Boyle had done the unthinkable. She hadn’t only changed the face of reality TV; she had changed the face of showbusiness. She had become an inspiration and a heroine to millions across the globe and become more famous than many long-established showbusiness stars. She had given the lie to the notion that you had to be young and nubile to succeed and, most powerfully of all, she was living proof that you should never give up on your dream. Everything about Susan was likeable. Her straightforward demeanour, her childishly innocent answers to questions and her utterly unspoilt behaviour had set her apart from the divas of this world and made her an icon for our times.
But why? And how? Just what was it that set Susan apart from the scores of other showbusiness wannabes, plenty of whom had genuine talents of their own? Why did this shy little woman from the backwaters of Scotland turn overnight into one of the most famous people in the world? For Susan had become more than an icon, more than a global phenomenon. Something about her reached into the spirit of the listener or the viewer and spoke to something deep in their hearts. But what was it? And how had it come about?
A Very Modern Fairytale
There is no doubting the fact that Susan Boyle is a phenomenon. In the film 42nd Street, one of the most famous instructions ever delivered to a performer is given: ‘And Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star.’ Susan certainly wasn’t a youngster, as the expressions of shock on the faces of the audience at her first audition testified when she confessed to reaching the ripe old age of forty-seven, but in every other way, that was Susan’s story. She went out a Scottish spinster and came back a global superstar.
The effect, as has been described elsewhere in this book, was immediate. The Susan Boyle sensation did not take months to build, nor was it an orchestrated campaign: overnight, the world fell in love. It wasn’t romantic, passionate love, but the love of self-recognition, mixed with admiration for bravery, stoicism, endurance and grace. We all have dreams we’ve never realized, and most of us don’t have the guts to fulfil them either. Susan, who had endured so much in her early life, and more recently at the hands of the press, turned out to have a great deal more courage than many people who would consider themselves stronger than her. It was this that gave her such global appeal and spoke to her many fans throughout the world.
And so inevitably the analysis of Susan’s appeal began. The United States had been particularly swept away by Susan, and a whole host of posts appeared on the influential American website The Huffington Post. Pop critic Mark Blankenship cited two reasons why Susan had captivated the world: ‘She rebukes the bitchy cynicism that often defines reality talent shows,’ was the first, followed by, ‘Susan Boyle isn’t young. The Susan Boyle Story is even more powerful because Boyle isn’t a geeky te
enager,’ he continued. ‘You can look at the most maladjusted adolescent and think, “Well, she’ll grow out of it. There’s still hope.” But when a woman is an outsider at forty-seven, it’s easy to think it’s too late and that she’s doomed to a permanent life on the fringes . . . Watching an older person - especially an older person who doesn’t seem very hip - prove she still has time to emerge from her cocoon is exciting because it reminds us that we can still sort through our own problems.’
Michael Russnow, a professional television screen-writer, wrote about the audience’s perception of Susan as a bit of an oddball who they were preparing to mock. ‘All this foreshadowed the commencement of her singing, which instantaneously evaporated the misperceptions we’d invented, causing most of us to respond with unmitigated shock - including the judges, assuming they, too, were in the dark - morphing instantaneously into collective joy,’ he wrote. ‘Joy’ was certainly one of the sentiments that Susan aroused: the spectacle of the underdog quite stupendously breaking through.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin, founding editor of Ms. magazine, identified three elements that made Susan’s story stand out. ‘Partly, I think it’s the age thing, the fact that a woman closing in on fifty had the courage to compete with the kids - and blew them out of the water,’ she wrote. ‘Then, too, we were weeping for the years of wasted talent, the career that wasn’t, the time lost - both for Susan Boyle and two generations of her putative fans. But I’d wager that most of our joyful tears were fueled by the moral implicit in Susan’s fairy-tale performance: “You can’t tell a book by its cover”. For such extraordinary artistry to emerge from a woman that plain-spoken, unglamorous, and unyoung was an intoxicating reminder of the wisdom in that corny old cliché.’
Susan Boyle Page 16
