[Red Moon]

Revealed: the secrets of Simon Cowell's youth, by his mother

Heavens! His control freakery is legendary, but this is something else. Simon Cowell's mum even matches the furniture. Julie Cowell is a vision of creamy elegance. A former dancer, she adds a sculptural grace to her son's living room, gliding through the taupes and mochas with arms held just so.

She might be 80, but she looks 20 years younger as she apologises for the army of workmen putting in a new driveway at Simon's £7million mansion.

He needs more space for all his cars, she explains. "Simon is always having something done. He likes things to be just the way he wants them." That, Mrs Cowell, is immediately obvious. The Cowell residence is one of those impossibly elegant homes that only seem to exist in the back of magazines you read at the hairdresser's.

A four-storey affair, in London's Holland Park, it used to be an ambassador's residence, in the days when ambassadors traditionally earned more than pop svengalis. It is all high ceilings and dark wood flooring, but the copious corner sofas are of the sort that make you perch elegantly, rather than slouch.

I wonder if the striking floral displays - huge hydrangea heads deep inside glass bowls - are real. Julie does too, and sticks her hand in to investigate. "Yes, they are. Wait, oh no, maybe they aren't. Gosh. Hard to tell."

Whatever, not an awful lot of living seems to have happened in the living room. The walls are bare, save for two small, tasteful prints and two photos.

There are, however, two photo frames in the conservatory, each containing a picture of Simon and his girlfriend Terri. What's peculiar is that the photos are almost identical, clearly taken seconds apart.

Terri's face has not moved from one to the next, but in the second photo, Simon has tilted his head back slightly and shown more white teeth. The impression is more of a Snappy Snaps display than genuine family portraits, but no matter.

Julie says her son is very handsome and looks very happy, which makes her happy in turn. And she is certainly a woman who is determined to be happy.

She has something of a track record when it comes to strength of character. Twelve years ago she was told she had breast cancer and promptly went shopping for a new coat.

While her husband Eric sat numb in the Selfridges café, convinced that the family's world was falling apart, she charged off determined to have her coat.

"I was like a woman obsessed. It became about so much more than a coat. I would wear the damn thing. I would live."

And so she did. First she had surgery to cut out the malignant lump. Then, every day for six weeks, she made the daily journey to hospital for radiotherapy.

She refused to let her husband, or her sons, come with her - partly because she could not bear to have to be strong for them, partly because she did not want to put them through it.

"I had to do it alone," she recalls. "My boys would come and see me, and mostly I could say hand on heart that I was fine. But I didn't want to risk them seeing me at a low moment because it would have worried them. As a mother, your first role is to protect your children."

Now, she admits that it was a terrifying time. At one point a spot on her lung was detected, and it was thought the cancer had spread.

"Everything just seemed to stop. I thought: 'I can't do this any more', but I was so fortunate because this one turned out not to be cancer.

"I made a pact with myself that I would always be positive about everything from then on. On the day I got the all clear, Simon sent me a bunch of flowers so big that I couldn't get them through the door."

It's why she has now thrown herself into fund-raising for a cancer vaccine - and is convinced her third born, worth a cool £75million, to get involved himself.

Does he always do as he's told, I wonder. She smiles. "No. But he's a good boy at heart. And he's terribly generous."

He is too. She tells me that Simon - who made his fortune by taking the X Factor format all over the world - recently bought her a car, even though she asked for a duvet, and every year she accompanies him to Barbados for Christmas, where they party with the likes of Michael Winner, a family friend.

It sounds hideous, but she's as showbiz as her famous son is. In fact, she got there first.

She started dancing at the age of four and later decided that it was her destiny to be an entertainer.

Her first marriage, to an actor, was something of a disaster, not least because she was too independent to adapt to married life. It floundered when her two sons, Michael and Tony - now in their 60s - were still young.

She met her beloved Eric - the father Simon so adored - not long afterwards.

"We met on a train," she smiles. "Every week, I used to travel to see my parents. Usually, I'd go with my friend and we'd chat all the way. This man would sit near us, and I used to say to her, 'I'm sure he listens to our conversation.' But I thought he looked nice.

"For two years we did that journey and never spoke. Then one day my friend wasn't there and he asked me if I'd like a drink. I said: 'I will actually, it's my birthday today.' And that was it."

Her second marriage was everything the first hadn't been. They settled in Elstree, Hertfordshire, and could afford a huge detached house on Eric's salary as a record company executive with EMI.

Their neighbours were Joan Collins, on one side, and the boss of Warner Bros studios on the other - which appealed to Julie's theatrical side.

"I was happy, Eric was supportive. I remember being so excited about the prospect of having children together. I had two children already, and Eric had two of his own, but having our own family was desperately important."

Things seemed rosy, and Julie soon fell pregnant as planned. Eight months into the pregnancy, however, complications were detected. She had an emergency caesarean but the baby, a boy she called Stephen, died after a week. She has never forgotten him.

And it was just the start of a terrible period. Julie went on to have two miscarriages, and her desperation to have another baby increased. She consulted doctors, and now believes she had some form of fertility treatment.

"The doctor gave me pills - I don't even know what they were now. Hormones, I guess, but you didn't ask in those days."

In time she did indeed fall pregnant again - with a little boy who would go on to become the highest-paid person on British TV.

"I remember being absolutely petrified all the way through the pregnancy. I bled quite badly three or four months in, and I was in hospital. Even when he was born, I was sure it would go wrong.

And from then on, all her energies went into making sure this much-wanted son was cared for. She even gave up the career that had meant so much, at Eric's insistence.

"He wanted me to stop and by then I wanted to as well. I had a happy home life for the first time, and I wanted to be a full-time mother. It was just a wonderful, happy environment."

Two years later, another son, Nicholas, came along, and the family was complete.

Theirs was clearly a privileged existence. As well as the big house, they had several foreign holidays a year. A family photo from a few years later - the early Sixties - was taken in Bermuda. It shows an impeccably dressed Julie, and a proud Eric. In the foreground are two small boys in matching sailor outfits.

"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, so I made them get all sorts of jobs." She giggles.

"Awful jobs. I remember Simon moaning once: 'She's got me working on a farm, picking stones.' He hated it.

"Of course they didn't need to work, but I felt it was so important that they get out there and learn that money doesn't grow on trees.

"No child of mine was going to be spoiled."

She says she was quite a strict mother. "When they were babies, I thought that routine was important. And I was always putting Simon outside in the pram to get fresh air, but you could in those days.

"I was certainly stricter than Eric. I used to do that 'wait till your father gets home' thing, but I discovered years later that Eric never disciplined the boys at all.

"He'd pretend that he had given them hell, but actually he'd just said: 'Tell your mother I've had a real go at you about this.'"

It sounds as if Simon, in particular, needed well-defined boundaries. By the age of four, the determination that would make him famous had become a source of anguish for his mother.

"He was a complete handful," she admits. "Into everything. Once, he shaved his brother's hair off. And he would not take 'no' for an answer. Then again, neither would I. It was a battle of wills."

His characteristic honesty made an early entrance, too. At four, when he was asked if his mother looked pretty in her new hat he retorted: "No, she looks like a poodle."

If he was a difficult child, he was a more difficult teenager. He was smoking by his mid-teens. At 15 he "borrowed" his parents' car and had a prang.

Julie was horrified. She sounds like any mother recalling the awful stage of watching her sons turn into men.

"Once they started to drive, oh my goodness. It was awful. I worried about them being in an accident. I worried about them having a drink then driving - it wasn't such a no-no then.

"I'd always told my sons that the most important thing was that they did a job that made them happy, and I knew that Simon had ambition.

"He started working at EMI, in the post room, I remember him being horrified that there were two men there who had been doing the job for 20 years. He said to me: 'This is just a stepping stone, Mum. I want more.'" Of course he did. Within a few years, Simon had moved in to pop management, discovering that he had an uncanny knack for spotting the stars of the future.

Hearing her talk about her son, though, there is little evidence of where his incredible drive came from. "I have often wondered that. He's certainly a workaholic, he gets that from his father. Eric was a huge influence."

The timing of Eric Cowell's death - in 1999 - could not have been more tragic. He suffered a massive heart attack at home with Julie.

When her son rang that evening - before she had even had a chance to call him with the news - she simply couldn't tell him.

"It was the most awful thing. He came on, so thrilled, saying: 'Guess what?' Westlife were Number One. It was his big break, and he was over the moon.

"I couldn't speak. I told him that I was breathless because I'd run up the stairs. I made out that I couldn't hear him properly. He was all cock-a-hoop, and I let him go without telling him his father was dead."

The family vicar who was in the house at the time, convinced Julie that she had to call her son back, but she simply couldn't. It was left to his brother Nicholas to break the news.

"I felt so bad for him. When he came in the front door, he was in pieces. He sobbed and sobbed. He still misses him terribly."

Before he died, Eric had introduced the tradition of taking the whole family away to sunny climes for Christmas. Simon was quick to take over the annual event, and his mother is deeply appreciative.

"It's lovely that he still wants to take the old bird along," she jokes. "He is wonderfully thoughtful. He calls me every day, both my sons do, and I know if I ever need him he will come running.

"After a show, he'll call me up and see what I think. And I'll tell him, too. If I think he's been too harsh on someone, I'll say it. Mostly though, he gets it just right."

Those close to him confirm that he does crave his mother's approval. Tellingly, the pop star Sinitta, in an interview about her bizarre relationship with Cowell - her former manager, and his earliest prodigy - revealed that to this day she calls Julie "Mummy Look".

It was a family joke that all the boys in the family would constantly need reassurance that she was pleased with them. Interestingly, though, the things that make Julie proudest are not those connected with Simon's fame, professional success or perch on the showbiz tree.

"I'm proudest of the fact that my son is a lovely person. What you see is what you get. I don't watch him on TV and think: 'Who is this?' And he hasn't let his success go to his head, I can assure you of that. I was watching for his feet to come off the ground, and if they did, I would have made sure they came down again quickly."

She simply will not hear of the scurrilous sort of rumours that make newspaper headlines. Her nose turns up at the mere mention of Simon's supposed womanising - one report claims he has bedded over 100 women and has a penchant for lapdancers.

"I just don't believe that. Newspapers can write what they want," she says.

She has given up hoping that her son will settle down and have children of his own. Although he has been with Terri for several years now, he doesn't seem any closer to tying the knot, and he recently told her that if she is feeling broody, she might like to get a pet terrapin.

The copious cream rugs underfoot seem to rather underline the fact that this is not a house where children are planned. It is a shame, she nods.

"I know he would be a wonderful father. He is brilliant with Nicholas's children, but he says that it isn't for him. I've always said that he will change his mind some day, but I'm not so sure now.

"Once Simon has made up his mind about something, that tends to be it. I'm not sure even I can talk him round this one."

Source:Daily Mail