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  • Biography - Extracts from Wikipedia

    Hi everyone

    The following Biography of Susan is an extract from the famed Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Boyle

    I have chosen Wikipedia to be our first source of information about Susan, as I believe they are reliable and trustworthy. I didn't remove their reference numbers that are distributed across their article.

    Biography

    Early life

    Susan Boyle was born 1 April 1961 in Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland,[10] to Patrick Boyle, a miner, World War II veteran and singer at the Bishop's Blaize, and Bridget, a shorthand typist,[11] who were both immigrants from County Donegal, Ireland.[12] She was the youngest of four brothers and six sisters.[10]

    Born when her mother was 47,[10][13][14] Boyle was briefly deprived of oxygen during the difficult birth; she was diagnosed as having learning difficulties.[2] She says she was bullied as a child,[10][15] and was nicknamed "Susie Simple" at school.[16]

    After leaving school with few qualifications,[10] she was employed for the only time in her life as a trainee cook in the kitchen of West Lothian College for six months,[16] and took part in government training schemes.[11] She visited the theatre from time to time to listen to professional singers,[11] and performed at a number of local venues.[2]

    Early singing

    Boyle took singing lessons from voice coach Fred O'Neil.[10] She attended Edinburgh Acting School, and took part in the Edinburgh Fringe.[2] Prior to 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.[17] She also has long participated in her parish church's pilgrimages to the Knock Shrine, County Mayo, Ireland, where she has sung at the Marian basilica.[18]

    Her repertoire through the years has included songs such as "The Way We Were" and "I Don't Know How to Love Him". British tabloids claimed "exclusives" of video clips of some early performances.[19][20] In 1995, her audition for Michael Barrymore's My Kind of People[2] at the Olympia Shopping Centre in Glasgow was filmed. The amateur video shows Barrymore was apparently more interested in mocking her.[21]

    In 1999 she recorded a track for a charity CD to commemorate the Millennium[10][22] produced at a West Lothian school. Only 1,000 copies of the CD, entitled Music for a Millennium Celebration, Sounds of West Lothian, were pressed.[23] An early review in 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..."[24][25] The recording found its way onto the internet following her first televised appearance, and the New York Post said it showed that Boyle was "not a one trick pony".[26] Hello! stated that the recording "cement[ed] her status" as a singing star.[27]

    In 1999, Boyle paid for a professional demo tape to be made. She sent copies to record companies, radio talent competitions, local and national TV, and gave copies to close friends. The demo consisted of versions of "Cry Me a River" and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" which were uploaded onto the Internet after her audition.[28]

    Boyle won several local singing competitions, and her mother urged her to enter Britain's Got Talent, and to take the risk of singing in front of an audience larger than her parish church.[4] 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 audition despite her believing "...she was too old and that it was a young person's game".[29] Boyle said that her mother's death motivated her to go on Britain's Got Talent and seek a musical career to pay tribute to her mother.[10] Her performance on the show was the first time she had sung in public since then.[30][31]

    Personal life

    Boyle still lives in the family home, a four-bedroom council house, with her ten-year-old cat, Pebbles.[10]

    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,[13] which meant that she never had any time for herself.[13] 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."[13]

    Boyle remains active as a volunteer at Our Lady of Lourdes church in Blackburn, Scotland, and visits elderly members of the congregation in their homes.[15]

    Britain's Got Talent
    Main article: Britain's Got Talent (series 3)

    In August 2008, Boyle applied for an audition for the third series of Britain's Got Talent, and was accepted after a preliminary audition. Boyle auditioned in Glasgow, Scotland. When Boyle first appeared on Britain's Got Talent, she said that she aspired to become a musical theatre singer "as successful as" Elaine Paige.[32] Boyle performed a rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables in the first round of the third series of Britain's Got Talent, which was watched by over 10 million viewers when it aired on 11 April 2009.[33] Amanda Holden remarked upon the audience's initially cynical attitude, and the subsequent "biggest wake-up call ever" upon hearing her performance.[34]
    “ I know what they were thinking, but why should it matter as long as I can sing? It's not a beauty contest. ”
    – Susan Boyle, The Sunday Times[10]


    This performance was widely reported, and tens of millions of people viewed the video on YouTube.[33] Boyle was "absolutely gobsmacked" by the strength of this reaction.[35] Boyle is well aware that the audience on Britain's Got Talent was initially hostile to her because of her appearance, but she has refused to change her image.[10] Since the appearance, Paige has expressed interest in singing a duet with Boyle,[32] and has called her "a role model for everyone who has a dream".[36] Cameron Mackintosh, the producer of the Les Misérables musical, also praised the performance, as "heart-touching, thrilling and uplifting".[33]

    She was one of 40 acts that were put through to the semi-finals.[37] She appeared last on the first semi-final on 24 May 2009, performing "Memory" from the musical Cats.[38] In the public vote she was the act to receive the highest number of votes and go through to the final.[39][40] She was the clear favourite to win the final,[41] but ended up in second place to Diversity; the UK TV audience was a record of 17.3 million viewers.

  • #2
    Wikipedia's page on Susan, apart from what's copied onto my post, includes further topics such as: Stay at Priory, BGT Tour, Upcoming Recording, Media Impact, Social Analyses, and Cultural References.

    Acknowledgment of Wikipedia is once again expressed here.

    Comment


    • #3
      Elmie, thanks for the excerpt from Susan's Wikipedia entry. As someone living outside the UK, what is the legal situation re posting articles. I posted a few complete articles to the old forum and was asked by members not to continue because it left Paul open to prosecution. I didn't want to do that! I know in the US you must be able to post whole articles or the Huffington Post would be much smaller! Oh, one thing Wikipedia doesn't give is Susan's birth time which was 9.50am for those of an astrological inclination. That info was provided to the UK Astrology site Canier.com.

      Comment


      • #4
        Unfortunately Wikipedia relies on readers, what is written in the media and some other hearsay contributed to their listings to supply the information found on their site and sometimes it is not correct.

        For example... Susan had four sisters and four brothers, not as reported above: "four brothers and six sisters.[10]". One sister, Patricia died at two months old but they always considered her one of the family....

        Mary 75
        Bridie 72
        (Patricia d. at 2 months old)
        (Kathleen d. 2000 @ 53 years)
        Joe 62
        John 59
        James 58
        Gerry 55
        Susan 48

        ___________________________________________
        “Níl aon suáilce gan a duáilce féin."

        "There are no unmixed blessings in life."

        Comment


        • #5
          I may have been wrong about the numbers of sisters and brothers Susan has.... I do wish there was some real way of checking but I guess until there is an official biography no one will know for sure... Sorry for any inconvenience my earlier post caused.............

          ___________________________________________
          “Níl aon suáilce gan a duáilce féin."

          "There are no unmixed blessings in life."

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by outtawestie View Post
            Elmie, thanks for the excerpt from Susan's Wikipedia entry. As someone living outside the UK, what is the legal situation re posting articles. I posted a few complete articles to the old forum and was asked by members not to continue because it left Paul open to prosecution. I didn't want to do that! I know in the US you must be able to post whole articles or the Huffington Post would be much smaller! Oh, one thing Wikipedia doesn't give is Susan's birth time which was 9.50am for those of an astrological inclination. That info was provided to the UK Astrology site Canier.com.
            Hi Outtawestie,

            Thanks for your good message! Yes, I agree with you in regard to concerns on legalities of things. As for Wikipedia, they refer their readers to read about Terms of Use http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use .


            Here are some extracts from the above link :

            Information for re-users

            You can re-use content from Wikimedia projects freely, with the exception of content that is used under "fair use" exemptions, or similar exemptions of copyright law. Please follow the guidelines below:

            Re-use of text:

            * Attribution: To re-distribute a text page in any form, provide credit to the authors either by including a) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages you are re-using, b) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.) This applies to text developed by the Wikimedia community. Text from external sources may attach additional attribution requirements to the work, which we will strive to indicate clearly to you. For example, a page may have a banner or other notation indicating that some or all of its content was originally published somewhere else. Where such notations are visible in the page itself, they should generally be preserved by re-users.

            * Copyleft/Share Alike: If you make modifications or additions to the page you re-use, you must license them under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 or later.

            * Indicate changes: If you make modifications or additions, you must indicate in a reasonable fashion that the original work has been modified. If you are re-using the page in a wiki, for example, indicating this in the page history is sufficient.

            * Licensing notice: Each copy or modified version that you distribute must include a licensing notice stating that the work is released under CC-BY-SA and either a) a hyperlink or URL to the text of the license or b) a copy of the license. For this purpose, a suitable URL is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

            * For further information, please refer to the legal code of the CC-BY-SA License.

            Additional availability of text under the GNU Free Documentation License:

            * For compatibility reasons, any page which does not incorporate text that is exclusively available under CC-BY-SA or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license is also available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. In order to determine whether a page is available under the GFDL, review the page footer, page history, and discussion page for attribution of single-licensed content that is not GFDL-compatible. All text published before June 15th, 2009 was released under the GFDL, and you may also use the page history to retrieve content published before that date to ensure GFDL compatibility.

            Re-use of non-text media:

            * Where not otherwise noted, non-text media files are available under various free culture licenses, consistent with the Wikimedia Foundation Licensing Policy. Please view the media description page for details about the license of any specific media file.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Leslie View Post
              I may have been wrong about the numbers of sisters and brothers Susan has.... I do wish there was some real way of checking but I guess until there is an official biography no one will know for sure... Sorry for any inconvenience my earlier post caused.............
              Hi Leslie,

              Thanks so much for your good observation. Yes, although Wikipedia seems to be reliable, there are details on their pages, for various reasons, that may not be all that accurate. The majority of their articles is most probably reliable.

              A plan that we Susanites can set out is to keep on discussing Susan's biography on this forum -- at least we've got our first one from Wikipedia as a starter.... and we can find out more details as we progress, add, subtract ...

              One will never know .... someone in this community may even have the chance to talk personally to Susan.

              When we're confident enough with our materials, someone can write OUR OWN VERSION with a list of acknowledgments/references.

              Thanks once again, Leslie. Wishing you a great weekend!

              Comment


              • #8
                Thanks for posting Susan's biography. I've read it but it's nice having it on the site.
                "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul." Judy Garland

                Comment


                • #9
                  Susan Boyle Biography

                  Elmie,
                  Thank you for posting Susan's Biography. It is very interesting.
                  Thank you also, for taking on the role of Administrator.
                  I appreciate it and I am sure the other members do too.
                  Hugs,
                  Martha Ellen

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Thank you for posting this here. Soo nice to read and re-read again. Isn't it special ?!

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      elmie,

                      thanks for posting this entire life story.......i just thought she NEVER GAVE UP all those years and thats all about, so her dream came true!!
                      "live every day to the fullest it could be the last one"

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        The Susan Boyle Story

                        Deadline Scotland

                        The Susan Boyle Story Trailer


                        The Susan Boyle Story - Part One
                        The Susan Boyle story – Day One Deadline Press & Picture Agency

                        The Susan Boyle Story - Part Two
                        The Susan Boyle Story – Part two Deadline Press & Picture Agency

                        The Susan Boyle Story - Part Three
                        The Susan Boyle story – Day Three Deadline Press & Picture Agency

                        The Susan Boyle Story - Part Four
                        The Susan Boyle Story – Day Four Deadline Press & Picture Agency


                        The Susan Boyle Story - Part Five
                        The Susan Boyle Story – day five Deadline Press & Picture Agency

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Elmie View Post
                          Wikipedia's page on Susan, apart from what's copied onto my post, includes further topics such as: Stay at Priory, BGT Tour, Upcoming Recording, Media Impact, Social Analyses, and Cultural References.

                          Acknowledgment of Wikipedia is once again expressed here.

                          Hi Elmie and thanks for posting this Biography. Hope all is well Down Under.

                          Sometimes, Wikipedia is only as accurate as those posting the info; I had read somewhere that Susan did a stint in a travel agency, but have read nothing about being a cook.

                          Anyone have any futher info on Susan's job?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Susan will not be 'mocked' anymore. 'Revered' is not out of the question..

                            But let's see what happens.. (methinks the latter .. )

                            Originally posted by Elmie View Post
                            Hi everyone

                            The following Biography of Susan is an extract from the famed Wikipedia - Susan Boyle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

                            I have chosen Wikipedia to be our first source of information about Susan, as I believe they are reliable and trustworthy. I didn't remove their reference numbers that are distributed across their article.

                            Comment

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