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Jon Culshaw
Born	(1968-06-02) 2 June 1968 (age 44) Ormskirk, Lancashire, England
Nationality	British
Years active	1980s-present
Genres	Impressions, sketch comedy
Notable works and roles	Dead Ringers (2000–2007) 2DTV (2001–2004) The Impressionable Jon Culshaw (2004) Headcases (2008–present) The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson (2009-present)

Jonathan Peter Culshaw (born 2 June 1968 in Ormskirk, Lancashire) is an English impressionist and comedian. He was educated at St Bede's RC High School, Ormskirk^[1] and St John Rigby College, in Orrell, Wigan.

He is famous for his work on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Two's Dead Ringers, ITV's 2DTV, BBC One's The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson and his contributions to BBC Radio 1, particularly on The Chris Moyles Show. He also appeared in ITV's Heartbeat on 26 November 2006.

Early career[link]

His radio career began in hospital radio in Ormskirk. His first job was at Red Rose Radio (now Rock FM) in Preston in 1987, where even then he used to occasionally read the weather in the voice of Frank Bruno. He did voice-over work then was catapulted to prominence with Spitting Image, where he voiced around forty characters, including John Major, the then Prime Minister.

For around four years in the late 1980s, he was a DJ on the commercial radio station Viking FM,^[2] based in Hull, and also had a breakfast show on Pennine Radio (now The Pulse of West Yorkshire) and Radio Wave in Blackpool. It was a receptionist at Viking FM who persuaded Culshaw he should go onstage with his impressions and make it his living. He later appeared on BBC Radio 2's It's Been a Bad Week, appeared as a guest on the BBC2 Star Trek Night Quiz in August 1996, and was also a regular guest on the Chris Moyles afternoon show on BBC Radio 1 from 1998–2002, where he would phone up commercial organisations such as a Kwik-Fit garage in the voice of Patrick Moore or Obi-Wan Kenobi, politely requesting whether they could service his X-wing fighter, and how much time it would take.

Later career[link]

He rose to fame in January 1998 by impersonating William Hague while working for Capital Radio, and succeeding in contacting Number 10 Downing Street. He was put through to Tony Blair who, despite instantly discovering the ruse, had a lengthy conversation with him until a member of Blair's staff ended the call.^[3]

Culshaw was one of the stars of the BBC Radio 4 comedy impression series Dead Ringers, which ran from 2000 to 2007, and the BBC Two television series of the same name, from 2002 to 2007.

Between 2001 and 2002 he had a programme on ITV called Alter Ego where he interviewed male celebrities in their own style of speaking, a form of simultaneous translation. On ITV he also appeared on 2DTV, a cartoon version of what Dead Ringers would do when transposed to TV. Using the same production team, in early 2004, he had his own programme, The Impressionable Jon Culshaw which was commissioned for ITV1.

His most famous impressions are ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Obi-Wan Kenobi (in the Alec Guinness persona), Russell Crowe, President George W. Bush, Ozzy Osbourne, Dale Winton, the newsreader Brian Perkins, Sir Patrick Moore and Tom Baker (who played the fourth incarnation of The Doctor in Doctor Who).

He also appeared in the Doctor Who webcast "Death Comes to Time" and audio drama The Kingmaker. In the latter, he got to perform his Tom Baker impression "for real" (voicing tape recordings of the fourth Doctor), although his nominal part was that of Earl Rivers.

In 2005, Culshaw was a celebrity contestant on Comic Relief does Fame Academy.

In January 2006, he began presenting the BBC show Jon Culshaw's Commercial Breakdown shown on Friday Nights. In 2006, he received an honorary fellowship from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston.

Culshaw was one of the final judges in Let's Dance for Comic Relief.

In August 2007, he appeared on a celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with John Thomson.

In January 2008, he appeared on Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, as part of a pub-quiz team, with Chris Moyles. In May 2008 he appeared in the BBC documentary series Comedy Map of Britain.

He is also voicing Piston Pete in the upcoming film Agent Crush.

On 29 December 2008, Culshaw appeared on Celebrity Mastermind. His specialist subject was British Pop of the 80s. He came third with 23 points.

In November 2007, and again in December 2008, Culshaw appeared on The Sky at Night, where he impersonated a younger version of Sir Patrick Moore. Culshaw is a keen amateur astronomer.

On 31 October 2009, Culshaw started a new comedy sketch show with Debra Stephenson, The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson. Its third series began on 26 October 2011.

In 2010, Culshaw appeared in the television series, Missing, as Des Martin.

In March 2011 he appeared on the 700th episode of The Sky at Night reading viewers questions to the panel of experts. He appeared again on the May edition of the show reporting on the Northern Lights.

In January 2012 he appeared on the BBC2 astronomy programme, "Stargazing Live", with Professor Brian Cox and comedian Dara Ó Briain. He also was invited as a guest speaker at the Cambridge Union Society, answering questions and responding to requests for impersonations.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jon Culshaw at the Internet Movie Database
• Alter Ego.
• Article in The Stage
• BBC Dead Ringers.
• Honorary fellowship
• Viking FM photo

Audio clips[link]

• Prank call.^{[dead link]}
• The Time Lord contacts terrestrial organisations by telephone.
• Voice over work.
• Viking FM jingle
• Talking about his work on Dead Ringers.
• Interviewed on Radio Lancashire in July 2006
• Helping out with Budget 2005 on Radio Five Live
• Would You featuring celebrity vocals
• Talking on Danny Baker's programme.
• This is the Radio Four News with Brian Perkins.
• Are you sitting comfortably? It's time for Dead Ringers to begin.

Video clips[link]

• Receiving his honorary degree in Preston (YouTube)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2010)

The Impressions are an American music group from Chicago, originally formed in 1958. Their repertoire includes doo-wop, gospel, soul, and R&B.

The group was founded as The Roosters by Chattanooga, Tennessee natives Sam Gooden, Richard Brooks, and Arthur Brooks, who moved to Chicago and added Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield to their line-up to become Jerry Butler & the Impressions. By 1962, Butler and the Brookses had departed, and after switching to ABC-Paramount Records, Mayfield, Gooden, and new Impression Fred Cash collectively became a top-selling soul act. Mayfield left the group for a solo career in 1970; Leroy Hutson, Ralph Johnson, Reggie Torian, Sammy Fender, and Nate Evans were among the replacements who joined Gooden and Cash. Inductees into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, The Impressions are best known for their 1960s string of hits, many of which were heavily influenced by gospel music and served as inspirational anthems for the Civil Rights Movement.They are also 1998 Grammy Hall of Fame Inductees for their hit, People Get Ready, and are winners of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Pioneer Award (in 2000) .

History[link]

Early years[link]

Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield met while singing in the same Chicago church choir. After singing in a number of local gospel groups, the two of them joined a doo-wop group called "The Roosters" in 1957, whose members included Chattanooga, Tennessee natives Sam Gooden, Richard Brooks, and his brother Arthur Brooks. By 1958, The Roosters had a new manager in Eddie Thomas, a record deal with Vee-Jay Records, and a new name: "Jerry Butler & the Impressions".

The group's first hit single was 1958's "For Your Precious Love", which hit #11 on the US pop charts and #3 on the R&B charts. However, soon after the release of the R&B Top 30 hit "Come Back My Love", Butler left the group to go on to a successful solo career. After briefly touring with the now-solo Butler as his guitarist, Curtis Mayfield became the group's new lead singer and songwriter, and Fred Cash, a returning original Roosters member, was appointed as the new fifth member.

ABC-Paramount Records success[link]

Mayfield wrote a number of Butler's early solo hits, and used the money to get The Impressions to move to Chicago, Illinois. There, they got a new deal with ABC-Paramount Records in 1961, and released their first post-Butler single. That single, "Gypsy Woman", was their biggest single to date, hitting #2 on the R&B charts and #20 on the pop chart. Successive singles failed to match "Gypsy Woman"'s success, and Richard and Arthur Brooks ended up leaving the group in 1962.

The Impressions returned to Chicago as a trio, and soon aligned themselves with producer Johnny Pate, who helped to update their sound and create a more lush soul sound for the group. The result was "It's All Right", a 1963 million-selling gold single that topped the R&B charts and made it to #4 on the pop charts, and became one of the group's signature songs. "It's All Right" and "Gypsy Woman" were the anchors of The Impressions' first LP, 1963's The Impressions.

1964 brought the first of Mayfield's Black pride anthem compositions, "Keep on Pushing", which became a Top 10 smash on both the Billboard Pop and R&B charts, peaking at #10 Pop.It was the title cut from the album of the same name, Keep On Pushing, which also reached the Top 10 on both charts. Future Mayfield compositions would feature an increasingly social and political awareness, including the following year's major hit and the group's best-known song, the gospel-influenced "People Get Ready", which hit #3 on the R&B charts and #14 on the pop charts.

Increasing social consciousness[link]

In the mid-1960s, The Impressions, were compared with Motown acts such as The Temptations, The Miracles, and The Four Tops. After 1965's "Woman's Got Soul", and the #7 pop hit "Amen", The Impressions failed to reach the R&B Top Ten for three more years, finally scoring in 1968 with the #9 "I Loved and Lost". "We're a Winner", which hit #1 on the R&B charts that same year, represented a new level of social awareness in Mayfield's music. Mayfield created his own label, Curtom, and moved The Impressions to the label. Over the next two years, more Impressions message tracks, including the #1 R&B hit "Choice of Colors" (1969) and the #3 "Check Out Your Mind" (1970), became big hits for the group.

It should also be noted that 'The Impressions' were a huge influence on Bob Marley and The Wailers and other ska/rocksteady groups in Jamaica: The Wailers modelled their singing/harmony style on them and in part borrowed their look, too. There are many covers of Impressions songs by The Wailers, including 'Keep On Moving', 'Long Long Winter' and 'Just Another Dance'. Pat Kelly covered 'Soulful Love' and The Heptones covered 'I've Been Trying'. No doubt the social consciousness of Curtis Mayfield's lyrics appealed as well as the spectacular harmonies.

After Mayfield's departure[link]

After the release of the Check Out Your Mind LP in 1970, Mayfield left the group and began a successful solo career, the highlight of which was writing and producing the Super Fly soundtrack. After his success with this soundtrack, he collaborated on the soundtracks of Claudine (soundtrack), Sparkle (album), and A Piece of the Action (soundtrack). He continued to write and produce for The Impressions, who remained on Curtom. Leroy Hutson was the first new lead singer for the group following Mayfield's departure, but success eluded The Impressions, and Hutson left the group in 1973.

Later years, awards, and accolades[link]

New members Ralph Johnson and Reggie Torian replaced Hutson, and The Impressions had three R&B Top 5 singles in 1974–1975: the #1 "Finally Got Myself Together (I'm a Changed Man)" (which also reached the Pop top 20 ), and the #3 singles "Same Thing it Took" and "Sooner or Later". In 1976, The Impressions left Curtom and Mayfield behind for Cotillion Records, and had their final major hit with "Loving Power". The same year, Ralph Johnson was replaced by Nate Evans, who remained in the group for three years, during which time The Impressions switched to 20th Century Records. Singles and albums sales continued to slip, and Evans left in 1979, reducing the group to a trio. The album Fan the Flames, was released in 1981.

Reggie Torian left in 1983. Ralph Johnson rejoined that year, as well as new member Vandy Hampton.^[1][2] This lineup recorded with Eric Clapton on his Reptile album.

On August 14, 1990, Mayfield was severely injured when lighting equipment fell on him during an on-stage performance. Paralyzed from the neck down, he could no longer play and could barely sing. He eventually was able to make a brief, well-received, comeback in 1997 with his album New World Order. He died in Roswell, Georgia, on December 26, 1999, at the age of 57.

The Impressions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. The members who got to take part in this honor, as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, were Sam Gooden, Jerry Butler, Richard Brooks, Curtis Mayfield, Arthur Brooks, and Fred Cash.

Johnson left in 2001, was replaced by Willie Kitchens.^[3] This lineup was featured on the PBS specials R&B 40 and Soul and Inspiration. Hampton was released in 2003; he died in 2005.^[2] Reggie Torian later returned, replacing Kitchens. The Impressions recorded a tribute album to Curtis Mayfield in 2000, which was released by Edel America. In 2008, Universal Music & ip O Records released Movin' On Up - the first-ever video compilation of The Impressions, featuring brand new interviews with original Impressions members Sam Gooden and Fred Cash, along with taped interviews with the late Curtis Mayfield and video performances of the group's greatest hits and several of Mayfield's solo hits.The group's first million-selling hit song "For Your Precious Love", featuring original lead singer Jerry Butler on lead, is ranked #327 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time),and their hit People Get Ready is ranked #24 on that same list.Also,The Impressions' album/CD The Anthology 1961–1977 is ranked at #179 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Their 1965 hit song, "People Get Ready", has also been chosen as one of the Top 10 Best Songs Of All Time by a panel of 20 top industry songwriters and producers, including Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Hal David, and others, as reported to Britain's Mojo music magazine.

Personnel[link]

For a detailed listing of the various versions of the group, see Impressions chronology.

• Jerry Butler (1958–1960)
• Curtis Mayfield (1958–1970)
• Sam Gooden (1958–present)
• Arthur Brooks (1958–1962)
• Richard Brooks (1958–1962)
• Fred Cash (1960–present)
• Leroy Hutson (1970–1973)
• Ralph Johnson (1973–1976;1983–2000)
• Vandy Hampton (1983–2003)
• Nate Evans (1976–1979)
• Reggie Torian (1973–83;200?–present)
• Gary Underwood (1992–2001)

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• 1963: The Impressions
• 1964: The Never Ending Impressions
• 1964: Keep on Pushing
• 1965: People Get Ready
• 1965: One by One
• 1966: Ridin' High
• 1967: The Fabulous Impressions
• 1968: We're a Winner
• 1968: This Is My Country
• 1969: The Versatile Impressions
• 1969: The Young Mods' Forgotten Story
• 1970: Check Out Your Mind!
• 1972: Times Have Changed
• 1973: Preacher Man
• 1974: Finally Got Myself Together
• 1975: First Impressions
• 1975: Three the Hard Way
• 1976: Loving Power
• 1979: Come to My Party
• 1981: Fan the Fire

With others[link]

• 2001: Reptile - Eric Clapton

DVD[link]

• 2008:Movin' On Up- "The Music and Message of Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions"

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Impressions in-depth interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' June 2011
• Their album The Complete A &B Sides 1961 to 1968 won Rhapsody's Album of the Day on June 27, 2010

External links[link]

• 'The Impressions' Vocal Group hall of Fame page
• 'Richard Brooks'
• 'Arthur Brooks
• The Impressions at Rolling Stone
• The Impressions at Allmusic

John Royds Culshaw OBE (28 May 1924 – 27 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.

Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for Decca from the age of 22, first writing album liner notes and then becoming a producer. After a brief period working for Capitol Records, Culshaw returned to Decca in 1955 and began planning to record the Ring cycle, employing the new stereophonic technique to produce recordings of unprecedented realism and impact. He disliked live recordings from opera houses, and sought to put on disc specially made studio recordings that would bring the operas fully to life in the listener's mind. In addition to his Wagner recordings, he supervised a series of recordings of the works of Benjamin Britten, with the composer as conductor or pianist, and recordings of operas by Verdi, Richard Strauss and others.

Culshaw left Decca in 1967 and was appointed head of music programmes for BBC Television, where he remained until 1975, employing a series of innovations to bring classical music to the television viewer. He later undertook several academic posts. However, he remains best remembered for his Decca records. Along with Fred Gaisberg and Walter Legge, he was one of the most influential producers of classical recordings.^[1] The Times said of him that "he stood in that great tradition of propagandists from Henry Wood to Leonard Bernstein, who seek to bring their love and knowledge of music to the widest audience."^[2]

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Culshaw was born in Southport, Lancashire, one of at least two children of Percy Ellis Culshaw, a bank inspector, and his first wife, Dorothy née Royds. He was educated first at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby, which he despised for its snobbery and its sports-obsessed philistinism.^[3] His father then sent him to King George V Grammar School, Southport.^[4] When he left school in 1940, aged 16, he followed his father into the staff of the Midland Bank as a clerk, working at a branch in Liverpool.^[5] He had little aptitude or liking for banking, failing to pass the company's examination in banking theory,^[5] and in 1941 he volunteered to join the Fleet Air Arm as soon as he reached the minimum recruitment age in May 1942.^[6] He trained as a navigator, was commissioned as an officer, and promoted to lieutenant as a radar instructor.^[7] What spare time he had, he devoted to his passionate interest in music.^[8]

Apart from piano lessons as a child, Culshaw was self-taught musically, and had no ambitions to be a performer.^[9] The critic and biographer Richard Osborne wrote of him, "Like many people for whom music is an obsession, Culshaw was a lonely and meticulous person, jealously guarding the sense of personal integrity which his precocious interest in music had helped form and deepen."^[1] While in the Fleet Air Arm, Culshaw "wrote articles on music by the dozen and – quite rightly – they came back by the dozen."^[8] After many rejections, his first substantial article to be accepted for publication was a piece on Rachmaninov, for The Gramophone, published in March 1945.^[10] This led to invitations to broadcast musical talks for the BBC and to contribute articles to classical music magazines.^[8]

Decca[link]

After demobilisation from the forces, Culshaw joined the Decca recording company in November 1946, writing musical analyses and biographies of recording artists for Decca's classical albums. His first book, a short biography of Rachmaninov, was published in 1949 and was well-received. The critic of The Times praised it for its discriminating judgment, conciseness and discretion.^[11] It was followed by two further books; a popular introduction to concertos (The Concerto in "The World of Music" series in 1949), and a guide to modern music (A Century of Music in 1952).^[2]

Georg Solti, conductor of the Decca Ring cycle

By 1947 Culshaw had been given the chance to produce classical sessions for Decca's rapidly expanding catalogue. At Decca, the musicians whom he recorded included Ida Haendel, Eileen Joyce, Kathleen Ferrier and Clifford Curzon.^[12] In 1948 he first worked with Georg Solti, a pianist and aspiring conductor.^[13] In 1950, after the introduction of the long-playing record (LP), he produced the first LP versions of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.^[14]

In 1951, Culshaw and one of Decca's senior engineers, Kenneth Wilkinson, were sent to the Bayreuth Festival to record Wagner's Parsifal.^[15] For Culshaw, Wagner was an abiding passion,^[16] and he persuaded Decca and the Bayreuth management to let him record that year's Ring cycle in addition to Parsifal. The Ring recording could not be released, probably for contractual reasons.^{[17][n 1]} The Parsifal recording, on the other hand, was released to great acclaim in 1952.^{[n 2]} The Decca team returned to Bayreuth to record the 1953 performances of Lohengrin. The resultant recording was well reviewed,^{[n 3]} but Culshaw wrote of it:

… the cast was only of moderate ability, and we had access to far too few performances to make up anything really worth while. It was still felt that this was the only economic way to record Wagner, for the expense involved in taking his major works to the studio did not seem to be justified by the sales potential. But after the Lohengrin experience I found myself fervently hoping that I would never return to Bayreuth, at least in a recording capacity.^[22]

Capitol[link]

From 1953 to 1955 Culshaw headed the European programme for Capitol Records. As Capitol at that time had commercial ties with Decca, Culshaw's move did not estrange him from the head of Decca, Edward Lewis, who generally took a dim view when his employees left Decca to join its competitors.^[23] Culshaw found his attempts to build up a roster of classical artists for Capitol frustrated by bureaucracy at the company's headquarters in Los Angeles. He was prevented from encouraging the soprano Kirsten Flagstad to emerge from retirement, or from signing the conductor Otto Klemperer. The latter misjudgment, as Culshaw noted in his memoirs, was not repeated by Walter Legge of EMI, who signed Klemperer up with great artistic and commercial success.^[24] Capitol further frustrated Culshaw by ignoring the impending introduction of stereophony which the major companies were working on.^[24] Among the recordings Culshaw was able to make for Capitol were a Brahms Requiem conducted by Solti in Frankfurt, and what Peter Martland in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls "a series of remarkable recordings of performances by Eduard van Beinum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam."^[4]

In early 1955, Lewis warned Culshaw that he had heard rumours that Capitol was on the point of severing its ties with Decca. Within days it was announced that Capitol had been taken over by EMI. Capitol sessions already booked were completed, including two records of Jacques Ibert conducting his own works, but EMI made it clear that it would put an end to Capitol's classical activity, which was regarded as superfluous.^[25] Lewis invited Culshaw to rejoin Decca, which he did in the autumn of 1955.^[26]

[edit] Stereo and the Decca Ring

Finding on his return to Decca that other recording producers were capably filling his former role, Culshaw concentrated on the emerging stereophonic recording technology, and stereo opera in particular.^[26] A year after his return he was made manager of the company's classical recording division, a position of great influence in the classical music world.^[27] The Gramophone obituarist wrote of him in 1980: "To meet John Culshaw for the first time, quiet, charming, sharp-eyed but with no signs of aggressiveness about him, was to marvel that here was one of the two great dictators of recording art. If Walter Legge in a flash had one registering extrovert forcefulness in the very picture of a dictator, John Culshaw's comparable dominance was something to appreciate over a longer span. … [H]e transformed the whole concept of recording."^[27]

Culshaw hoped to record Die Walküre with Flagstad, whom he persuaded out of retirement, as Brünnhilde. Flagstad, however, was over sixty, and would not agree to sing the whole opera. To capture as much of her Wagner as she was willing to record, Culshaw produced separate sets of parts of the opera in 1957. Act 1 was conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch with Flagstad in the role of Sieglinde; in the other set the "Todesverkundigung" scene from Act 2 and the whole of Act 3 were conducted by Solti with Flagstad as Brünnhilde. In those early years of stereo, Culshaw worked with Pierre Monteux in recordings of Stravinsky and Ravel, and with Solti in a recording of Richard Strauss's Arabella. He also recorded the first of many New Year's Day concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic and Willi Boskovsky.^[28]

Birgit Nilsson, Culshaw's chosen Brünnhilde

By 1958 Decca, with its pre-eminent technical team (The Times called them "Decca's incomparable engineers")^[29] was in a position to embark on a complete studio recording of Wagner's Ring cycle. Decca decided to begin its cycle with Das Rheingold, the shortest of the four Ring operas. It was recorded in 1958 and released in the spring of 1959. Culshaw engaged Solti, the Vienna Philharmonic and a cast of established Wagner singers. The performance won enthusiastic praise from reviewers, and the engineers were generally acknowledged to have surpassed themselves. The Gramophone described the recording quality as "stupendous" and called the set "wonderful … surpass[ing] anything done before."^[30] To the astonishment and envy of Decca's rivals the set outsold popular music releases such as those of Elvis Presley and Pat Boone.^[2][31] The cast included Flagstad in one of her last recorded performances, in the role of Fricka, which she had never sung on stage. Culshaw hoped to record her as Fricka in Die Walküre and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, but her health did not permit it.^[32] His cast for the remaining three Ring operas included Birgit Nilsson, Hans Hotter, Gottlob Frick, Wolfgang Windgassen, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, James King (tenor) and Régine Crespin, with even minor roles sung by such stars as Joan Sutherland.^[33]

In these productions Culshaw put into practice his belief that a properly-made sound recording should create what he called "a theatre of the mind".^[34] He disliked live recordings such as those attempted at Bayreuth; to him they were technically flawed and, crucially, were merely sound recordings of a theatrical performance. He sought to make recordings that compensated for the lack of the visual element by subtle production techniques, impossible in live recordings, that conjured up the action in the listener's head.^{[34][n 4]}

Culshaw took unprecedented pains to meet Wagner's musical requirements. Where in Das Rheingold the score calls for eighteen anvils to be hammered during two brief orchestral interludes – an instruction never followed in opera houses^{[n 5]} – Culshaw arranged for eighteen anvils to be hired and hammered. Similarly, where Wagner called for steerhorns, Culshaw arranged for them to be used instead of the trombones habitually substituted at Bayreuth and other opera houses.^{[n 6]} In The Gramophone, Edward Greenfield wrote:

It was thanks to Culshaw's devotion to Wagnerian intentions – ever encouraged by the engineer who was at his right hand through the whole project, Gordon Parry, himself a devoted Wagnerian – that in the Solti Ring cycle one is able to hear the scores in a way literally impossible in the theatre. Siegfried's voice made to sound like Gunther's, the voice of Fafner from his cave, not to mention the splendour of anvils and rainbow bridge harps in Rheingold, all transcend what is heard in the opera-house.^[27]

In 1967, after the Decca Ring was complete, Culshaw wrote a memoir, Ring Resounding, about the making of the recording.^{[n 7]} In 1999, Gramophone ran a poll of its readers to find "the ten greatest recordings ever made." The Decca Ring topped the poll.^[38]

Britten, Karajan and others[link]

Herbert von Karajan recorded for Decca in the 1960s

Culshaw produced a series of Decca recordings of Britten's music with the composer as conductor or pianist. The Times described them as "a priceless heritage for posterity."^[2] Culshaw thought that of all his recordings that of Britten's War Requiem was the finest.^[27] Greenfield says of it, "another recording which confounded the record world not just by its technical brilliance but by the way it sold in huge quantities."^[27] The recording was made in London in 1963, the year after the premiere of the Requiem at the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral. For the recording Culshaw managed to assemble the three singers whom Britten had in mind when writing the work, uniting Russian, German and English soloists to represent the former enemy nations – Galina Vishnevskaya, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Peter Pears.^[27] Culshaw wrote, "The happiest hours I have spent in any studio were with Ben, for the basic reason that it did not seem that we were trying to make records or video tapes; we were just trying to make music."^[39] Among the works Britten recorded with Culshaw were his operas including Peter Grimes (released in 1959), Albert Herring (1964), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1967), and Billy Budd (1968).^[40]

Culshaw produced many of the conductor Herbert von Karajan's best-known operatic and orchestral sets, which remain in the catalogues four decades later. The opera sets include Tosca, Carmen, Aida, Die Fledermaus and Otello; among the orchestral sets were Holst's The Planets and several Richard Strauss works including the then rarely heard Also sprach Zarathustra.^[41][42]

In the late 1950s Decca entered into a commercial partnership with RCA, by which Decca teams recorded classical works in European venues on RCA's behalf. Among the recordings supervised by Culshaw for RCA were Sir Thomas Beecham's lavishly re-orchestrated version of Handel's Messiah. Other artists with whom he worked for Decca and RCA included pianists such as Wilhelm Backhaus, Arthur Rubinstein and Julius Katchen; conductors including Sir Adrian Boult, Karl Böhm, Fritz Reiner, and George Szell; and singers such as Carlo Bergonzi, Jussi Björling, Lisa Della Casa, Leontyne Price, and Renata Tebaldi.^[43]

Later years[link]

By 1967 Culshaw wished for a change. He was growing disenchanted with the top management of Decca, which he believed had lost its pioneering enthusiasm.^[4] He moved from the record industry to become BBC Television's head of music programmes. He inaugurated, and supervised several series of, André Previn's Music Night, in which Previn would talk informally direct to camera and then turn and conduct the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), whose members were dressed not in evening clothes but in casual sweaters or shirts.^[44] The programme attracted unprecedented viewing figures for classical music;^[2] an historian of the orchestra wrote, "More British people heard the LSO play in Music Night in one week than in sixty-five years of LSO concerts."^[44] Culshaw also screened more formal concerts, including Klemperer's 1970 Beethoven symphony cycle from the Royal Festival Hall.^[45] In 1973 BBC television broadcast a complete performance of Wagner's Siegfried conducted by Reginald Goodall,^[46] and in 1974 Verdi's Un ballo in maschera from Covent Garden.^[47] Culshaw also set up BBC studio productions of The Marriage of Figaro, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Flying Dutchman and La traviata.^[48]

Culshaw commissioned Britten's opera Owen Wingrave, written expressly for television. He also persuaded Britten to conduct television productions of Peter Grimes and Mozart's Idomeneo, and to accompany Pears in Schubert's Winterreise.^[45][49] Britten and Pears invited him to Snape, not far from their base at Aldeburgh in Suffolk and he encouraged them to transform the Snape Maltings into a concert-hall.^[4] He later initiated the Benson and Hedges music festival at Snape and was planning the fourth season at the time of his death.^[4] Some of his BBC programmes have been preserved on DVD, including films of the Amadeus Quartet playing works by Schubert and Britten.^[50] He took time off from the BBC to return to the recording studio, rejoining his old Decca engineering team in 1971 to produce Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.^[51]

In 1975, Culshaw left the BBC and worked freelance as a record and stage producer, writer and broadcaster. He was invited to serve on the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1975 and was chairman of its music panel from 1975 to 1977.^[52] In 1977 he became a senior fellow in the creative arts at the University of Western Australia, and was visiting professor at the University of Houston, the University of Southern California and the University of Melbourne.^[53] He also took on the responsibility for the annual United Nations concert in New York, and acted as a music consultant to the Australian Broadcasting Commission.^[4] He frequently served as a commentator for broadcasts of Metropolitan Opera performances, and his 1976 book, Reflections on Wagner's "Ring", was based on the series of interval talks he gave during the broadcasts of the Met's Ring cycle in 1975.^[54]

Culshaw died in London in 1980, at the age of 55, from a rare form of hepatitis. He was unmarried. His unfinished autobiography, Putting the Record Straight, was published after his death.^[55]

Among the honours given to Culshaw, The Times listed "eight Grands Prix des Disques, numerous Grammys and in 1966 an OBE", and the Vienna Philharmonic's Nicolai Medal in 1959 and its Schalk Medal in 1967.^[2]

Publications[link]

A lesser-known part of Culshaw's work was writing fiction. He published two novels in the early 1950s; the first, The Sons of Brutus (1950) had been inspired by what he had seen during trips to ruined German cities in the aftermath of the war.^{[n 8]} It was chosen by The Observer as one of its books of the year in 1950.^[58] At the time of its publication he was working on a second novel. He gave it the title A Harder Thing, but was persuaded by his publisher to change it to A Place of Stone.^[59] It was published in 1951.

Culshaw's musical books were: Sergei Rachmaninov, 1948; The Concerto, 1949; A Century of Music, 1951; Ring Resounding: The Recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen, 1967; Reflections on Wagner's "Ring", 1976; Wagner: The Man and His Music, 1978; and Putting the Record Straight: The Autobiography of John Culshaw, 1981.^[60]

Notes and references[link]

Notes

References

Bibliography[link]

• Culshaw, John (1967). Ring Resounding. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-11800-9. 
• Culshaw, John (1976). Reflections on Wagner's Ring. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-670-59301-X. 
• Culshaw, John (1981). Putting the Record Straight. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-11802-5. 
• Morrison, Richard (2004). Orchestra – The LSO: A Century of Triumph and Turbulence. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-21584-X. 
• Osborne, Richard (1998). Herbert von Karajan. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 1-85619-763-8. 

External links[link]

• Link to talk by Culshaw on Die Walküre An audio file from a Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast intermission feature (scroll to "From The Archives - March 1, 1975 - John Culshaw discusses Die Walküre; you will need Real Player to hear this)

Simon Cowell
Cowell at the National Television Awards at the Royal Albert Hall, London, October 2006.
Background information
Birth name	Simon Phillip Cowell
Born	(1959-10-07) 7 October 1959 (age 52) Lambeth, London, England
Origin	Elstree, Hertfordshire, England
Occupations	A&R executive, television producer, entrepreneur, television personality
Years active	1979–present
Labels	EMI, E&S Music, Fanfare Records, BMG, S Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Syco
Associated acts	Westlife, Sinitta, Leon Jackson, Jai McDowall, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Sonia, Five, Robson & Jerome, Ultimate Kaos, WWF Wrestlers, Zig and Zag, Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, Joe McElderry, Shayne Ward, Il Divo, Susan Boyle, Paul Potts, JLS, One Direction, Melanie Amaro

Simon Phillip Cowell (born 7 October 1959) is an English A&R executive, television producer, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is known in the United Kingdom and United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and American Idol. He is also the owner of the television production and music publishing house Syco.

As a judge, Cowell is known for his blunt and often controversial criticisms, insults and wisecracks about contestants and their abilities. He is also known for combining activities in both the television and music industries, having promoted singles and records for various artists, including television personalities. He was most recently featured on the fifth series of Britain's Got Talent and the first season of The X Factor USA.

In 2010, the British magazine New Statesman listed Cowell at number 41 in a list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".^[1]

Early life[link]

Cowell was born in Lambeth, London^[2] and brought up in Elstree, Hertfordshire.^[3] His mother, Julie Brett (née Josie Dalglish), is a former ballet dancer and socialite, and his father, Eric Selig Phillip Cowell (1918–1999),^[2] was an estate agent developer and music industry executive.^[4] Cowell's father was from a mostly Jewish family, though he did not discuss his background with his children (Cowell's paternal grandmother had immigrated from Poland).^[5] Cowell's mother was from a Christian background, and is of part Scottish descent.^[5][6][7] He has one brother and three half-brothers and a half sister; younger brother Nicholas Cowell, half-brother John Cowell, half-brother Tony Cowell, half-brother Michael Cowell and half sister June Cowell.^[8]

Cowell attended Radlett Preparatory School and the independent Dover College as did his brother, but left after taking GCE O levels. He passed in English Language and Literature and then attended Windsor Technical College where he gained another GCE in Sociology.^[9] At the age of 17, he dated model Paula Hamilton.^[10] Cowell took a few menial jobs—including, according to Tony, working as a runner on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining^[11]—but did not get along well with colleagues and bosses, until his father who was executive at the recording giant EMI Music Publishing, managed to get him a job in the mail room.^[12]

Career[link]

Cowell's father's connections originally got him rehired as the assistant to an A&R man. From there onwards, Simon worked his way up and eventually got promoted to a music publishing^[13] position but left during the early 1980s to form E&S Music with his boss at EMI, Ellis Rich (later Chairman of the Performing Right Society). The company had several hit records at one point with five singles in the UK top 40. The offices were in a converted gentleman's washroom in the NCP car park on Brewer Street in London's Soho district. Cowell left by mutual agreement a few years later. He worked for Iain Burton, manager of choreographer Arlene Phillips, co-founder of dance group Hot Gossip and of nascent independent record label Fanfare Records. Cowell worked with Burton for eight years at Fanfare where he achieved his first real success in the music industry, becoming a partner and building Fanfare into a highly successful 'indie' pop label. Fanfare had numerous top ten hits with various pop artists and particularly Sinitta, selling more than 500,000 copies of her debut single "So Macho", and more than 500,000 copies of her album Rondo Veneziano.^[14] Next in 1984, Cowell and Burton met up with Pete Waterman for the first time.

Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman formed the songwriting and record producing trio known as Stock Aitken Waterman.^[15] Stock Aitken Waterman helped Fanfare during the second half of the 1980s producing several hit singles for Sinitta and licensing The Hit Factory SAW Compilation Albums to Fanfare. Next in 1989, Fanfare's parent, Public Company, found itself in difficulties, forcing Fanfare into the hands of BMG. An in-debt Cowell was forced to move back in with his parents. Later that year, he became an A&R consultant for BMG. In 1990, he appeared as a contestant on the UK gameshow Sale of the Century.^[16][17]

Subsequently, Cowell signed up a number of acts to S-Records that became successful, including Curiosity Killed the Cat, Sonia, Five, Westlife, Robson & Jerome, and Ultimate Kaos. He also released several novelty recordings featuring the likes of Teletubbies, wrestlers of WWE^[18] Zig and Zag and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, that were huge successes.^[3] In 2002, Cowell set up another label, Syco Music, which later became part of Columbia Records and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Artists such as Leona Lewis, Il Divo and contestants from The X Factor and America's Got Talent are released on Syco. Cowell explained, "There has to come a point when I will step down from being on camera and remain behind the scenes because you can't keep doing this forever...I think by [the end of my contract] that the public will be sick to death of me anyway and it will be time to go."^[19]

In 2006, Cowell signed to two more record-breaking deals. In the US, he agreed to remain as a judge on American Idol, earning £20 million (US$33 million) per season for another five years. He also has a deal with FOX which allows his production company to broadcast Got Talent and American Inventor on other networks, but he may not appear on them. In the UK, he signed a "golden handcuffs" deal with ITV, worth approximately £6.5 million a year for three years, which gave ITV rights to his talent show The X Factor, a British singing talent show, and Grease Is the Word, a musical talent show to find the stars of a Grease production in London's West End. In late 2005, he signed a new contract to remain working for Sony BMG.

In 2010, Cowell finalised a deal which secures the long-term business future of Syco with Sony Music Entertainment.^[20] The deal will also see him launching a US version of X Factor on 21 September 2011.^[21]

[edit] Idol franchise and Il Divo

Cowell was given the role of judge on the first series of Pop Idol in the UK by then ITV Controller of Entertainment Claudia Rosencrantz^[22] in 2001, he was then judge on the first season of American Idol in 2002. With his notoriously critical reputation, Cowell is likened to TV personalities such as Judith Sheindlin and Anne Robinson. Though comparable to Robinson, Cowell has expressed his dislike for her and has commented in an interview, "I hate her and I hate her show because it's just an act".^[23] Cowell's prominence grew, fed by his signature phrase, "I don't mean to be rude, but ...", inevitably followed by an unsparingly blunt appraisal of the contestant's talents, personality, or even physical appearance. A lot of these one-liners were the product of coaching that Cowell received from noted publicist Max Clifford.^[24] Cowell also appeared on the one-off World Idol programme in 2003, where it became clear that each country's version of the Idol had attempted to come up with its own "Simon Cowell" type personality. In 2003, Cowell placed No 33 on Channel 4's list of the all-time 100 Worst Britons. Cowell's S Records signed the top two finishers of the first season of Pop Idol, Will Young and Gareth Gates, both of whom went on to have No 1 UK hits. Efforts begun in 2001 materialised in 2004, when Cowell returned to his group manufacturing roots with his latest brainchild, the internationally successful operatic pop group Il Divo,^[25][26] consisting of three opera singers and one pop singer of four different nationalities. Inspired by the success of Il Divo, Simon created a child version, Angelis, beating competition from many similar groups emerging at Christmas 2006.^[27]

On 11 January 2010, Cowell's exit from American Idol was made official. The 2010 season was Cowell's last on the show. It was also announced that FOX had acquired the rights to The X Factor USA, an American version of Cowell's popular British show, The X Factor, which began in September 2011.^[28][29]

[edit] The X Factor

In 2004, with Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh, Cowell was a judge on the first series of the British television music competition The X Factor, which he created using his production company, Syco. The X Factor was an instant success with the viewers and began its eighth series in 2011.

Leona Lewis, the winner of the third series of The X Factor, was signed to Cowell's label Syco and has had number one singles and album sales around the world.^[30][31] Cowell returned for a fourth series on 18 August 2007 alongside Osbourne, Walsh and new judge, Dannii Minogue. Walsh had previously been sacked from the judging panel by Cowell for the fourth series, and was subsequently replaced by Brian Friedman, who was a judge on Grease Is the Word. Walsh was later brought back a week into the auditions by Cowell when he and Osbourne realised that they missed Walsh and that without him, there was no chemistry between the judges. Cowell returned for the fifth series in 2008, with Walsh, Minogue and new judge Cheryl Cole, as Osbourne decided to quit before the show began.^[32][33] Cowell returned for series 6 and 7 as well, although series 7 was his to be his last, as he left in 2011 in order to launch The X Factor in America. After placing third in the seventh series of The X Factor in the UK, boyband One Direction signed to Cowell's label in 2011, and the group have gone on to top singles and album charts worldwide.^[34][35]

The X Factor Australia launched in 2005, but was cancelled due to poor ratings. It returned to Australian television for its second season on 30 August 2010, with Kyle Sandilands, Ronan Keating, Guy Sebastian and Natalie Imbruglia as judges.^[36] Season 3 began on 29 August 2010 and ended on 22 November. It featured Ronan Keating, Mel B, Guy Sebastian and Natalie Bassingthwaighte as judges.

Cowell also launched The X Factor USA in September 2011 on American broadcaster Fox. It was originally announced that he would be a judge both on the UK and U.S. editions of the show, which air at similar times of the year,^[20][21] but MTV officially reported on 17 April 2011 that this was not true; Cowell is no longer a judge in the UK version,^[37] but instead will be an enormous presence backstage.^[38] He currently is a judge on The X Factor USA alongside Paula Abdul, L.A. Reid, Nicole Scherzinger and formerly Cheryl Cole.

In October 2010, Cowell signed new three-year deals with ITV for both Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor, renewing both shows until 2013.^[39]

[edit] Got Talent franchise

Following the success of the Idol and X Factor franchises, Cowell, his company Syco, and its business partners developed a talent show format open to performers of any kind, not only singers, but also dancers, instrumentalists, magicians, comedians, novelty acts, and so on. The origins of the Got Talent format can be traced to the British show Opportunity Knocks, which began as a radio programme in the 1940s and later transferred to television, where it was an ITV staple for several decades. Looking further back, Opportunity Knocks had its roots in the variety show traditions of British music hall and American vaudeville.

Cowell is the executive producer of America's Got Talent,^[40] which debuted in June 2006, along with Fremantle producers of the Idol series, but he does not appear on the show due to the terms of his contract with FOX. The show was a huge success for NBC, drawing around 12 million viewers a week, and beating So You Think You Can Dance on FOX (produced by rival and Idol creator Simon Fuller).

Britain's Got Talent^[41] debuted on ITV in June 2007. Cowell appears as a judge alongside Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. The show was a ratings success and second and third seasons followed in 2008 and 2009. The third series featured a publicity coup when Susan Boyle^[41][42][43] made a global media impact with her regional audition performance comparable to that of any previous talent show series winner.

[edit] American Inventor

On 16 March 2006, Simon Cowell's next competition show, American Inventor,^[44][45] debuted on ABC. Fledgling entrepreneurs from across the United States competed to see who could come up with the best new product concept. The 2006 winner, Janusz Liberkowski,^[46][47] received $1 million and the opportunity to develop his idea into a business. The show returned one more time in 2007 for a second season.

[edit] Celebrity Duets

In 2006, Cowell executive-produced Celebrity Duets,^[48] which was described as "an Idol show for Hollywood superstars." The show was hosted by Wayne Brady, and its judges were Marie Osmond, Little Richard^[49] and David Foster.

[edit] Grease Is the Word

Cowell was also the executive producer of Grease Is the Word for ITV. This show set out to find performers to play Danny and Sandy in the 2007 West End revival of Grease. It was hosted by Zoe Ball and judged by Britons David Ian and Sinitta and Americans David Gest and Brian Friedman. The musical theatre casting concept had already been introduced by the BBC with the ratings hit How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, but Cowell's show was not the hoped for success. He himself said, "It has been slaughtered by the critics – and rightly so. It is far too similar to our other formats."^[50]

[edit] Rock Rivals

Cowell collaborated with UK production company Shed Media to produce 2008 ITV drama series Rock Rivals, which is based on an X Factor type show.^[51]

[edit] Red or Black?

In 2011, Cowell also created his first game show, titled Red or Black? and hosted by Ant & Dec, for ITV.^[52] Series 1 was broadcast over seven nights in one week (excluding Tuesday), from 3 September to 10 September. The show has been recomissioned by ITV for a second series in 2012, which will be aired weekly.^[53]

Other activities[link]

Cowell has been involved in charity work for many years.^[54] He supports children from The Association Of Children's Hospices and invites them backstage to the screenings of The X Factor.^[55] When he can, he stops by some of the hospices to visit the children.^[55] He also supports animal rights and has appeared in a video for PETA in which he reminds drivers of the cruelty to animals that can occur when their pets are locked in cars in the summer.^[56][57] In view of his charitable works, particularly the production of the charity single Everybody Hurts in aid of victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, as well as his services to the music industry, there was considerable media speculation as to whether Cowell would receive a knighthood in the Queen's 2010 Birthday Honours, a proposal allegedly put forward by former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.^[58] Cowell stated that he believed his chances of receiving the honour were "zero" following what he described as being a "royal row";^[59] ultimately Cowell did not receive an honour in the list.

In December 2003, Cowell published his autobiography titled I Don't Mean to be Rude, but.... In it, he told the whole story of his childhood, his years working in music and experiences on Pop Idol, Pop Stars Rivals, and American Idol, and finally, his tips for being successful as a pop star.

Cowell has appeared as a guest voice in an episode of The Simpsons ("Smart and Smarter"), in which he gets beaten up by Homer Simpson (while criticising Homer's punches).^[60][61] His voice was also heard on an episode of Family Guy ("Lois Kills Stewie"), in which he told Stewie that his singing was so awful that he should be dead.^[62][63][64] He made an MTV Movie Award-winning cameo appearance as himself in Scary Movie 3, where he sits in judgment during a battle rap (and subsequently gets killed by gunfire for criticising the rappers). He also appears in the DVD version of Shrek 2 as a judge in Far Far Away Idol, and also provided the voice.^[65]

He appeared on an episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (the original British version) and Saturday Night Live in 2004. Cowell has also guest-starred (filling in for Regis Philbin) in the popular talk show Live with Regis and Kelly during American Idol's finalist week in early 2006. Cowell was once the fastest "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" on BBC's motoring show Top Gear, driving a Suzuki Liana around the show's test track in a time of 1:47.1. When Top Gear retired the Liana along with its rankings after the eighth series, Cowell was the eighth fastest overall and the third fastest non-professional driver. On 11 November 2007 Cowell yet again appeared on Top Gear, achieving a time of 1:45.9 thus putting him ahead of Gordon Ramsay and back at the top of the table.^[66] Cowell introduced entertainer Dick Clark at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards. He was seen on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice where he donated £25,000 for a fun fair ticket. Cowell has also appeared on the MTV shows Cribs and Punk'd. On Punk'd, Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson set him up to believe his $400,000 Rolls Royce was stolen and had caused an accident by using a nearly identical car.^[67]

Cowell was chosen as the first subject of the re-launched This Is Your Life in an episode broadcast on 2 June 2007. He was presented with the Red Book by Sir Trevor McDonald while presenting American Idol.^[68]

On 1 July 2007 Cowell appeared alongside Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest as a speaker at the Concert For Diana, held at Wembley Stadium.^[69]

Cowell was a partner in the Royal Ascot Racing Club, a thoroughbred horse racing syndicate which owned the 2005 Epsom Derby winner, Motivator.^[70]

In May 2010, he portrayed himself again, in another episode of The Simpsons, "Judge Me Tender".^[71]

In December 2010, he was added as a new entry to the latest edition of Who's Who.^[72]

Personal life[link]

Cowell became engaged to make up artist Mezhgan Hussainy in February 2010, however the couple separated in 2012.^[73] They met on the set of American Idol.^[74] Cowell is the godfather of pop singer Sinitta's adopted children.^[75]

Upon his appearance on Top Gear, it was revealed that Cowell pays more than £21.7m per year in income tax, suggesting that his taxable income is over £54.25m per year with income tax at the time approximately 40%.^[76][77] (NB: UK Income Tax 40% for earnings over £34,600). Cowell was estimated to have a fortune of £200 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2011, making him the sixth richest person in the British music industry.^[78] Cowell splits his time between homes in London and Los Angeles.^[79] He owns a £9million home in Holland Park, West London,^[79] and has a £13.7million ($22 m), 11,550 sq ft (1,073 m²) home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.^[80]

In April 2012 he said that he had an affair with fellow The X Factor judge Dannii Minogue during her time on the show.^[73]

Political views[link]

Cowell is a supporter of the Conservative Party. In 2010, Cowell endorsed David Cameron to be Prime Minister and claimed that he has the 'substance and the stomach to navigate us through difficult times'.^[81] In the aftermath of the election, it was reported that he had fallen out with fellow X Factor judge Cheryl Cole (who had declared her support for Labour and Gordon Brown) in a telephone conversation about politics.^[82]

References[link]