April 01

Susan Magdalane Boyle's Birthday
 

In 2011, NBC-TV debuted a new talent show, "The Voice" based on a Dutch TV show of the same name. The twist was in the opening round when the judges turn their backs to  performers they can't see. The initial prejudice against unattractive performers was indelibly imprinted on millions of minds when they saw a video of  Susan Boyle when she appeared as a contestant on Britain's Got Talent on April 11, 2009, singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. When she first appeared, the audience snickered at the overweight, somewhat  blowsy, 40sh woman with bushy eyebrows. Even Simon Cowell smirked. But when Susan sang, everyone's attitude changed and there was unbridled acclaim for her unique talent. Within nine days, her audition video had been viewed on the internet several hundred million times.

The Herald described Boyle's story as a modern parable and a rebuke to people's tendency to judge others based on their physical appearance Entertainment Weekly said that Boyle's performance was a victory for talent and artistry in a culture obsessed with physical attractiveness and presentation So she was appearing on every major British and US talk show.  In September 2010, Boyle was officially recognized by Guinness World Records as having had the fastest selling debut album by a female artist in the UK.

Now after a spectacular recording career, some forget that Susan Boyle didn't win Britain's Got Talent and.  after weeks of increasingly erratic behaviour, suffered a nervous breakdown. But she recovered, signed a recording contract, and thirteen months after her initial Britain's Got Talent appearance, was voted by Time magazine as the seventh most influential person in the world, fourteen places above US President Barack Obama. Although not eligible for the 2010 Grammy Awards, its host Stephen Colbert told  its audience "you may be the coolest people in the world, but this year your industry was saved by a 48-year-old Scottish cat lady in sensible shoes."

So to celebrate Susan's birthday, watch her Britain's Got Talent audition video singing "I Dreamed a Dream" while sipping down a passionate dream cocktail and wearing sensible shoes.