Author - Chas Newkey-Burden

Simon Cowell first showed his ability to deliver a shapely put- down at an early age.

One Christmas Day, his mother Julie had spent special time and care getting herself ready for lunch. With her extravagant clothes, neatly styled hair and carefully applied make-up all complete, she donned a large white fur hat and strode down the stairs of the family home. She asked her son what he thought of her outfit.

‘Mum,’ replied Simon, ‘you look like a poodle.’ He was four years of age.

Cowell was born in Brighton, Sussex, on 7 October 1959, but soon afterwards his family moved to Elstree in Hertfordshire. His father, Eric Cowell, was a successful estate agent and quantity surveyor, while his mother, Julie Dalglish, was a glamorous socialite with a background in theatre.

Between them they already had four children from previous relationships, three boys – Tony, John and Michael – and a girl called June. They were keen to have a child together, but following complications their first son, Stephen, died a week after his birth. Julie then suffered further heartbreak with two miscarriages, Finally, she fell pregnant again, this time, though, everything was fine and she gave birth to a baby boy called Simon. Eric and Julie brought up Simon alongside his three half brothers, his half sister and his brother Nicholas, who was born two years after Simon.

Both Cowell’s birthplace and childhood stomping ground are entirely fitting surroundings for the man that he became.

Brighton is a city synonymous with thrills, entertainment and the pursuit of unashamed pleasure, while Elstree was a Hertfordshire village steeped in showbusiness during the Swinging Sixties when Cowell was growing up.

The Cowell family moved into a nineteenth-century, eight- bedroom home in Barnet Lane called Abbots Mead, which was one of the best homes in the area. The family’s nearest neighbour was Gerry Blatner, who was the head of Warner Brothers Films in the United Kingdom and outrageously well-connected in the world of cinema.

When Hollywood’s great and good were in town, they all visited Blatner’s home, guaranteeing excitement in the Cowell household as the stars pulled up to party next door.

He sat on Bette Davis’s knee as she learned her script; watched Roger Moore recording The Saint and hitched a ride round the studios.

It wasn’t just the Fab Fours’ music that captured young Cowell’s attention. He also admired their rock and roll lifestyle of fast cars, champagne, parties and doting young women. One day, he thought.

Another favourite pastime of Cowell’s was to cause mischief for his younger sibling Nicholas, which mostly consisted of blaming Nicholas for the naughty things he had done himself.

Other cheeky tricks he played on Nicholas included tormenting him with the upsetting news that Father Christmas was not real ‘and the quicker you come to terms with it, the better’, and inflicting a distinctly average haircut on him.

When Julie spotted Nicholas with his disastrous crop, she was in no doubt at all as to who was responsible, and her scream could be heard all round the large house: ‘Where’s Simon?’

Nicholas admits, however, that he was hardly an angel himself. As he later recalled during an interview on CNN: ‘I guess we were the two brats of the family.’

Just as Cowell’s imagination was fired up by the showbiz parties his parents and neighbours threw, so he began to develop a taste for the thrill of making money.

He and his siblings weren’t simply handed pocket money by their parents – they had to earn it. ‘We might not have had money worries, but I was concerned about the boys growing up thinking everything would come to them on a plate,’ recalled Julie in an interview with the Daily Mail

I felt it was important that they get out there and learn that money doesn’t grow on trees. No child of mine was going to be spoiled.’ It’s tough lessons like these that helped mould Cowell into the astonishingly driven man he has become.

Above all Cowell was happy. ‘I loved having my own money,’ he told The Observer. ‘In school holidays I would apply for jobs in warehouses, petrol stations or on a farm – I was always happier working than just mucking around.’

With the extra funds came all manner of benefits, including increased independence and more success with girls.

‘We were the sort of boys who were always making things happen, coming up with schemes to make a bit of cash, or to get girls,’ recalled his brother Nicholas in the Scotsman.

Simon attended Radlett Prep School, an independent day school in Hertfordshire. He resented the disciplined air of school and was terribly bored by most lessons, though he did enjoy English and art classes, and sports like athletics and football.

Within a few months of joining the school, Cowell’s parents received a warning from the headmaster that he was planning to expel their son. His mother recalls Cowell becoming an increased handful at home around this time, too, and in the end he was sent away to board at Dover College.

Cowell had yet to decide what he wanted to be successful at. Previously he had dreamed of being a train or racing driver, as many boys his age would, but he felt increasingly drawn to working in the entertainment field.

It was clear that his parents hoped he would use his three O Levels and his ambition to make money to pursue a nice safe career in a trade such as retail or property. Cowell, however, had other ideas.

Believing that his dream of working in entertainment was misguided, Simon tried his hand at a series of jobs that his father helped him find.

The results were almost comically disastrous. First, his father drove him to Birmingham to take a two-day course in labouring. It was a rainy day, and on arrival Cowell managed 120 minutes of crunching and sloshing around a rubble-strewn building site before he threw in the towel. It was a tense drive home for both father and son.

His father then arranged for him to be interviewed for a vacancy at the Civil Service. There he faced a somber three- person panel who quickly announced that Cowell was the most unsuitable candidate they had ever interviewed. Three decades later he would be the man sitting on a panel and delivering similarly direct verdicts – with the whole country watching.

Although his father’s attempts to set Cowell on a career path had not borne fruit, he had instilled in his son the key qualities that would see him rise to the top of the entertainment industry: determination and focus. Cowell was soon oozing both qualities.

Speaking on the This is Your Life episode devoted to Cowell, music producer Pete Waterman recalled of the young Cowell, ‘His determination was phenomenal.’

It was another relative who first steered Cowell through the gates of the entertainment industry. His cousin Malcolm Christopher worked at Elstree Studios and gave Cowell a three-month position there as a runner. I

It’s the classic entry job for the film and television industry, and is a lowly role that involves helping everything run smoothly and doing all the tasks nobody else wants to do. In a high-pressure environment, much of this involves running, hence the name. It isn’t a glamorous role and Cowell worked 14-hour days for just £15 a week.

After three months the job ended and Simon received word that legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was embarking on a new film at Elstree. He applied for a job as a runner and was taken on. However, just two days into his new role, Cowell was told that Kubrick didn’t want any runners on the project after all, so he went home and the legendary film The Shining was made without his assistance.

By this time Cowell had received what he considered a much a better offer, and was ready to leave behind his dreams of working in the movies for a job in another sector of the entertainment industry.