Word: showness
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...broken-down Hyundai abandoned on their street. It was always there, but nobody had ever bothered to look. Thanks to that grouchy Simon Cowell (and YouTube), the two amateur singers each became overnight sensations, bringing lumps to the throats and surreptitious wiping of the eyes to millions, including the show's judges. (See pictures of the unlikely ascendance of Susan Boyle...
...turned up in front of the judges, Potts was a dentally challenged mobile phone salesman, wearing a $50 suit from the supermarket chain Tescos. Boyle, with her gold dress, black hose, white shoes and hedgerow eyebrows, was unemployed and, yes, living alone with her cat, Pebbles. Nobody, the show made clear, had any idea they could sing...
...quite. Luciano Pavarotti, for one, had an idea about Potts. While Potts' hometown, Fishponds, is not an upscale neighborhood, he went to St. Mary's Redcliffe, one of the best non-private schools in Bristol. After he graduated with honors from university, he went on a quiz-cum-talent show hosted by Michael Barrymore and won enough money to take singing classes in Italy. There he performed for Pavarotti...
...Boyle's story is similar but with fewer light notes. Her hardscrabble town was Blackburn in Scotland. She also auditioned for a Barrymore TV show, but didn't make the cut. Yet she took singing lessons and recorded Cry Me a River for a charity CD in 1999, the same year she made a demo tape. An observant Catholic, she often sang at church and on karaoke nights. So her talent was no surprise to her neighbors. "Everyone here knew she could sing," Jackie Russell, manager of the local pub, told the AP. "We were always saying, 'You should...
...Mike Tyson, now 42, would be worthy of documentary attention even if he hadn't been convicted of rape or snacked on Evander Holyfield's ear. Behind the elaborate facial tattoos and that odd soft lisp, parodied on The Simpsons and Don Imus's old radio show, is a compelling mind-voice, at once naive and reflective. The man may be washed up, bankrupt, a figure of fear or fun to those who remember him. But in close-up here, detailing his "madness of the mind, chaos of the brain," Mike Tyson is a star. (See Top 10 Mike Tyson...