About Susan

Susan Boyle on 'talent'

Susan Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who came to public attention when she appeared as a contestant on the third series of Britain's Got Talent. Boyle became known when she sang "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables in the competition's first round, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on 11 April 2009.

Boyle has always enjoyed singing; she attended Edinburgh Acting School, and took part in the Edinburgh Fringe. Prior to her appearance on Britain's Got Talent, her main experience had come from singing in church and karaoke in the local pubs in her village. She had also tried out several times for My Kind of People.

When she appeared on the Britain's Got Talent stage, the audience and the judges appeared apprehensive and judgmental of her unpolished appearance. Upon finishing her song, she received a standing ovation from the live audience and unanimous praise from the judges. She has been dubbed "The Woman Who Shut Up Simon Cowell".

The contrast between the audience's first impression of her when she appeared on stage compared to the ovation she received afterwards triggered global interest. Articles about her appeared in newspapers worldwide, while the numbers who watched videos of her audition have set an online record. Within nine days of her televised debut, videos of her audition, subsequent interviews of her, and her 1999 rendition of "Cry Me a River" had been viewed a combined total of over 100 million times on You Tube. Simon Cowell is reported to be setting up a contract with Boyle with his Syco Music company label, a subsidiary of Sony Music.

Personal life

Susan Boyle was born 1 April 1961 in Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland, to Patrick Boyle, a storeman at the British Leyland factory in Bathgate, and Bridget, a shorthand typist, who were both Irish immigrants.She was the youngest of four brothers and six sisters. Born when her mother was 47, Boyle was briefly deprived of oxygen during the difficult birth; she was diagnosed as having learning difficulties.She says she was bullied as a child, and was nicknamed "Susie Simple" at school.

After leaving school with few qualifications, she was employed for the only time in her life as a trainee cook in the kitchen of West Lothian College for six months, and took part in government training schemes. She visited the theatre from time to time to listen to professional singers, and performed at a number of local venues. Boyle remained active as a volunteer with the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Blackburn.

Boyle still lives in the family home, a four-bedroom council house, with her ten-year-old cat, Pebbles. Her father died in the 1990s, and her siblings had left home. As she never married, Boyle was devoted to looking after her ageing mother until she died in 2007 at the age of 91. She said during an interview just before she sang on the talent show that she had "never been kissed" but later said "It was just banter and it has been blown way out of proportion."

Boyle's devotion to her mother meant that she did not have any time for herself. A neighbour reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter "wouldn't come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone."

Early singing

Boyle took singing lessons from voice coach Fred O'Neil. She attended Edinburgh Acting School, and took part in the Edinburgh Fringe. Some early video clips of her performances came to light: in 1984, Boyle stood in with "The Way We Were" at Motherwell FC Social Club; at 25 years of age, Boyle was filmed singing "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar at her parents' golden wedding party. In 1995, she sang the same song in an audition for Michael Barrymore's My Kind of People at the Olympia Shopping Centre in Glasgow. She said she was too nervous to make a good impression, but her brother Gerald believes they rejected her due to her image. An amateur video shows Barrymore was apparently more interested in mocking her.

In 1999 she recorded "Cry Me a River" for a charity CD funded by the local council to commemorate the Millennium and produced at a school in Whitburn, West Lothian. Only 1,000 copies of the CD, entitled Music for a Millennium Celebration, Sounds of West Lothian, were pressed. In what is the first known review of Boyle's singing ability, a reviewer for the West Lothian Herald & Post said that Boyle's rendition of "Cry Me a River" was "heartbreaking", and "had been on repeat in my CD player ever since I got this CD..."

This recording was released onto the web in the week after 11 April 2009, and gained immediate acclaim: the New York Post writing that this showed that Boyle was not a "one trick pony" and predicted the original compilation would be a valuable collector's item. Hello! stated that the recording "cement[ed] her status" as a singing star.

In 1999, Boyle used "all her savings" to pay for a professionally cut demo tape, which she later sent to record companies, radio talent competitions, local and national TV; Boyle gave away a few copies to her close friends. The demo tape consisted of her versions of "Cry Me a River" and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and was released onto the Internet after her audition.

Boyle won several local singing competitions, and her mother tried to persuade her daughter to enter Britain's Got Talent, urging her to take the risk of singing in front of an audience larger than her parish church. Former coach O'Neil has said Boyle abandoned an audition for The X Factor because she believed people were being chosen for their looks, and that she almost abandoned her plan to enter Britain's Got Talent. O'Neil persuaded her to go to the audition despite her telling him "...she was too old and that it was a young person's game".

Boyle said that it was her mother's death which motivated her to go on Britain's Got Talent and seek a musical career to pay tribute to her mother. Her performance on the show was the first time she had sung in public since then.