She dreamed a dream, and it came true. But what happened next for Susan
Boyle?
The middle-aged church volunteer from a small town in Scotland became an
instant global celebrity in 2009 with her heart-stopping rendition of the “Les
Miserables” number “I Dreamed a Dream” on a TV talent show. A week is a long
time in showbiz — and in our hyper-speed online age three and a half years is
an eternity — but Boyle is still going strong. She has sold millions of
records, received an honorary doctorate, sung for Pope Benedict XVI and
performed in Las Vegas. A stage musical about her life has played to
enthusiastic crowds across Britain and is headed for Australia, and next month
she releases her fourth album, “Standing Ovation.”
But the 51-year-old singer who entered the TV talent contest to make her
late mother proud is remarkably unchanged. She’s still a bit frumpy, though
she’s acquired a new hairdo, more expensive clothes and a makeover. She still
lives in her down-at-heel home town, has outbursts of anger and struggles to
overcome her nerves before live performances.
It’s a fairy tale, yes, but with dark shadows lurking in the corners. “People
can’t accept that you can dream a dream, but part of the dream is also a
nightmare,” said Elaine C. Smith, a Scottish actress who knows Boyle and plays
her in the biographical stage show “I Dreamed a Dream.” “Fairy dust comes out,
but shrapnel comes out as well.”
Boyle now has a car and chauffeur to take her to appointments, but she
sticks close to familiar places and routines. She has bought a new house, a
modern four-bedroom two-story in Blackburn that cost 300,000 pounds ($480,000),
but locals say she often stays in the modest row house she grew up in. And she
still shows up occasionally to sing karaoke at The Crown pub. “She belts them
out like she used to and is not averse to a duet,” said 20-year-old local Helen
Cameron. “It’s nice that this has not changed her. I think she’s under a lot of
pressure normally. Here she can be herself.”
As well as having the support of her community, Boyle is well protected
by her manager, Andy Stephens, and a close circle of friends and family — a
factor that helps act as a “psychological vaccine” against the pressures of
sudden fame, according to Cary Cooper, professor of psychology and health at
Lancaster University. “If you don’t have the proper social support system to
protect you, your celebrity status can cause you enormous stress,” said Cooper,
who has studied the relationship between celebrity and stress. “She is still
rooted in her friends and people who know her. Most celebrities aren’t.”
Boyle’s life changed in a few minutes when her first appearance on
“Britain’s Got Talent” was broadcast in April 2009. The soaring voice emerging
from the dowdy, frizzy-haired figure; the audience titters turning to gasps;
the shocked faces of Simon Cowell and the other judges — it was artfully staged
television, but also a moment of genuine emotion. “We judged her. Anybody who
says they didn’t is telling lies,” Smith said. “She walked on and opened her
mouth, and within minutes everybody watching was in tears.”
The Internet clip went around the world, and keeps on going. On YouTube
alone it has been viewed more than 106 million times. Boyle’s first album, “I
Dreamed a Dream,” topped both the U.K. and U.S. charts. So did her second, “The
Gift.”
Although Boyle’s covers of pop classics and musical theatre standards
rarely make critics swoon, her three albums collectively have sold more than 14
million copies. This month she’s sung on “Dancing With the Stars” in the U.S.
and performed in Las Vegas with Donny Osmond, a childhood idol. It’s a long way
from Boyle’s home town of Blackburn, a community of about 5,000 people 20 miles
(32 kilometres) west of Edinburgh that lies in one of Britain’s most deprived
areas.
The youngest of nine children of a devout Roman Catholic family, Boyle
had learning difficulties as a child, the result of oxygen deprivation at
birth. She struggled in school and was bullied by other children. She left
school with few qualifications, never married — though she later said she’d
exaggerated in telling the “Britain’s Got Talent” judges she’d “never been
kissed” — and spent years caring for her widowed mother, Bridget, who died in
2007.
The thing that gave her the greatest pleasure was singing, in church or
during karaoke nights at the pub. She has said she entered “Britain’s Got
Talent” in memory of her late mother, “to show her I could do something with my
life.” All did not all go smoothly after her astonishing debut. During the
final stages of the competition she got into a dustup with two reporters.
Although she was widely expected to win the 100,000 pound ($160,000)
prize, she ended up coming second to dance troupe Diversity. After the series
ended, she checked into the Priory, rehab clinic to the stars, to be treated
for nervous exhaustion. She still has outbursts of temper, and has said she
still suffers anxiety when singing live before audiences. “When I first went
for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ I had such a feeling of failure and that’s still
part of me,” Boyle said in an interview last year with the Daily Mail
newspaper. “It’s hard when that’s been the pattern of your life. It’s hard to
believe those patterns have been broken.”
Smith said Boyle’s struggles — reflected in the bittersweet tone of the
stage show — disappoint some of the singer’s fans. “They want the dream to come
true and her life to be perfect,” she said. But Smith said Boyle’s flaws are
part of what makes her a star. After all, “you didn’t love Judy Garland because
she was perfect.” “This is a woman who is conquering the real fears she has,”
Smith said.
Metro News Canada
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