Simon Cowell Family History

Simon Phillip Cowell was born on October 7th, 1959 to Eric Cowell and Julie in Lambeth, London.  He was raised in Elstree, Hertfordshire – in a big house next door to actress Joan Collins and Gerry Blatner, the head of Warner Brothers UK studios.

Simon’s younger brother Nick recalled: ‘We had the likes of Gregory Peck, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor in our house.  As children, we didn’t really understand who they were.  But we loved the events.”

There were plenty of kids around.  Julie’s kids, as well as Simon and Nick.  As they grew up,  Simon looked as a mentor to his half brother Tony who was nine years older than him.  He copied his love of cigarettes, women, motorbikes and pop music. Tony then was the lovable rogue, irresistible to girls.

He also idolized his Dad.  Eric always ensured that Simon dressed impeccably.  He would often take him out of school to enjoy the racing at Royal Ascot.  And he gave him his first big break in the music industry, landing him a job in the EMI mail room.

Simon’s Music Career.  Simon left EMI in the early 1980’s to venture into the pop music business.  The acts that he signed were hit and miss for a while.  But in 1995 he struck gold with Robson & Jerome.  Their song Unchained Melody topped the UK charts.  According to Simon, they made him his first million.

His music career continued after his TV career took off.  His company Syco, formed in 2005, signed and managed artists like Leona Lewis, Little Mix and Susan Boyle who had performed well on Simon’s TV talent shows.

Simon’s TV Career.  Simon came to public prominence in 2001 as a judge on Pop Idol, a TV talent show which he and its creator Simon Fuller had pitched to ITV.  The show became an instant UK hit.  American Idol followed in the US in the following year.

In these shows Simon’s TV persona began to get known.  His prominence grew, fed by his signature phrase: “I don’t mean to be rude, but ….”  This was inevitably followed by an unsparingly blunt appraisal of the contestant’s talent or lack of talent.  Even so, Simon had his fans as well as his haters.

He subsequently created The X Factor in 2004 and Britain’s Got Talent (open to all talents, not just singing) in 2006.  These too became successful franchises sold around the world.  In 2018 Simon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the television category.

Where Is Home?  Simon has maintained homes in both England and America since 2000, more recently with his partner Lauren.  In England they currently have places to live in Wimbledon and the Cotswolds, in Los Angeles (which Simon has seen as his second home) in Beverly Hills and Malibu.

Early Cowells

Ropemakers.  The early Cowells were ropemakers in the East End of London, starting with William Cowell back in the 1770’s.

Ropemaking here, close by the Thames river and its docks, had a long history dating back to the 1570’s.  Rope was important during the era of sailing ships.  A large sailing ship of the 1800’s could easily require three ot four miles of rope.  By that time the traditional craft techniques of ropemaking were beginning to make way for the more mechanized approaches whereby strands of rope could be formed and wound in a single operation.

However, as sail gave way to steam, the demand for ropemakers lessened.  The Cowells themselves ended their ropemaking business in the early 1900’s.

During the Victorian era the Cowell ropemakers had been represented by three generations of Josephs:

• Joseph Cowell (1827-1914)
• Joseph Cowell Sr. (1874-1933)
• and Joseph Cowell Jr (1891-1945)

For a time their business thrived.  At the time of the 1861 census Joseph, the patriarch of the family, had ten men working for him.  He married twice and had servants at home. The ropemaking continued with Joseph Sr, his son by his second wife Kate.  Both Joseph Sr. and his son Joseph Jr. married Jewish women.

The Jewish Connection.  The Cowells – being in London’s East End – had, because of the Jewish influx from Eastern Europe, an increasing number of Jews in their neighborhood.

In 1890 Joseph, an Anglican, married Nancy Levy in Whitechapel. Their eldest son, also named Joseph, was born the following year.  Because of his mother’s religion he automatically became Jewish.

And Joseph’s wife later would also be Jewish.  In 1915 Joseph Jr. married Esther Malinsky, aged twenty-nine from Poland, in a Jewish synagogue.  Her father Gabriel, a cap maker, had fled to England around 1890 to escape persecution.  He had set up business at Spitalfields in London’s East End.

When Eric, the second of Joseph and Esther’s three sons, was born in 1918, Joseph was employed as an inspector checking tickets on London’s buses.  After the war he became an office clerk.  They moved out to Ilford, an east London suburb.

Their eldest son Edward was killed in 1939 in the first stages of the war.  He had been serving at Newbury Park in Ilford with an anti-aircraft unit of the Royal Engineers.  Eric meanwhile was recruited to work in India during the war.

Joseph died in 1945.  His wife Esther lived on in Ilford for a further sixteen years.  Eric would live near her for a short time after his return from India in 1946.

Interestingly, Eric did tend to hide his Jewish connection.

When he had married Enid Proudfoot at Bombay’s Anglican cathedral in 1943, he had described himself as Congregational.

In 1959, according to Tom Bower in his 2012 book Sweet Revenge, the following conversation took place after Eric had introduced his wife-to-be Julie to his Jewish-born mother Esther at their home.

“Do you think you’re Jewish?” Julie challenged her partner.

“I could be. I don’t know,” Eric replied, and then added: “No, I’m certainly not.”

Eric never discussed his Jewish connection with his children.

Simon’s Father Eric

Eric was born in West Ham and grew up in Ilford.  He qualified as a surveyor and then, at the onset of war, was posted to Calcutta in India as a clerk.  He had a good war there.  He returned to England post-war as a man on the make.

Eric and His Work.  Someone described him as “an East End boy with Jewish roots who became a property mogul.”  Not quite the case.  There was a lot of scrabbling around – first as a surveyor and then as a property manager for Barratts the shoe company – before he opened his own real estate agency on Barham Avenue in Elstree in 1961.

One of his clients there happened to be EMI, the music publishing and record business.  He managed to join them as a record company executive and prospered there.

Eric and His Women.  Eric was a man on the make also with regard to women.  He had married in India and his wife Enid had followed him to England.  But he soon tired of her and she returned to India in 1947.

Eric had his eyes elsewhere.  Specifically on Jeanette Sevier, a baker’s daughter and part-time model from Bristol.  They soon moved in together in Kensington.  In 1948 they had a son John; and in 1952 a second child, a daughter June.  June’s arrival came after Eric’s divorce from Enid had come through and they had married.  But within a year their marriage was floundering and Eric was on the lookout again.

He found her.  Or rather Julie Dalglish found him.  Julie was a London showgirl at the Pigalle club on Piccadilly and was having to commute there from Birmingham.  She was also approaching her thirties and had two young children from a bad relationship.  She needed some security.

One Monday in 1954 they happened to meet on a train coming into London.  Per Tom Bower, Eric approached her after entering the dining car.  “Would you care for a drink with me?” he asked.  “It’s my birthday,” she replied, “yes, I would.”  So began their relationship.

Unhappy in his marriage, Eric abandoned his wife to pursue Julie.  After some time they moved into a flat in Richmond.  Eric wanted children.  They had Stephen (died stillborn) in 1958 and Simon in 1959.  But, like before, they were unmarried.  Eric’s divorce from his wife Jeanette had not come through.  It did in 1961 and Eric and Julie married.

And Later.  Things stuck this time.  The family moved into a three-bedroom home at Elstree north of London.  And Eric was doing great.

By the late 1960’s he had sold off his real estate business and become a director of the record label EMI with responsibility for property.  They were living well by this time.  They resided at Abbots Mead, a large country house with seven acres of woodland that was close to Elstree film studios.

Among Eric’s children, June by his wife Jeanette was the first to attract attention – as a child film star.  But she gave it all up in 1965 at the age of fifteen:

“As a child I had seen being picked up in a Bentley and taken to a film set as incredibly exciting.  But as I grew older, I began to see a seedy side of showbiz I didn’t like.  It seemed all about money and it was full of leery men.”

June left England for Spain in 1971 and married there in 1976.  Her mother Jeanette passed away in Spain in 1996.

Of Eric’s other children, Tony became a journalist and Simon’s biggest supporter, even co-writing his biography.  And Simon’s younger brother Nick has been a very successful property developer.

Eric himself died of a heart attack in Brighton in 1999 at the age of eighty-one.  Simon called him his “ultimate mentor.”  His wife Julie passed away, much lamented, in 2015.

Simon Cowell’s Family Tree

• London East End

• Joseph Cowell, ropemaker (1827-1914) m. Caroline Sheard (1816-1872) in Hackney, London in 1851.  After Caroline’s death Joseph rem. Kate Allerton (1852-1887) in Poplar, London in 1873.  Joseph, a widower, was still recorded as a ropemaker in 1911.
• – Caroline Cowell (b. 1854), with Caroline
• – Joseph Cowell (1874-1933), with Kate
• – Ethel Daisy Cowell (1875-1972), with Kate
• – Walter Clarence Cowell (b. 1876) m. Elizabeth Watts, with Kate

• Joseph Allerton Cowell Sr, ropemaker m. Nancy Levy (1869-1933) in Whitechapel, London in 1890
• – Joseph Cowell (1891-1945)
• – Daisy Cowell (1894-1938) m. John Dicks
• – Laura Cowell (b. 1896) m. Samuel Mitchell
• – Harriet Cowell (b. 1901) m. Harry Aalen
• – Jean Cowell (1911-1993) m. Geoffrey Hoffman

• Joseph (Joe) Cowell Jr. m. Esther Molinsky, Jewish from Poland (1885-1961) in West Ham synagogue, London in 1915.  They later moved to Ilford.
• – Edward Cowell (1916-1939), Royal Engineers
• – Eric Cowell (1918-1999)
• – Joan Cowell (1921-2000) m. John Simmonds
• – Gerald Cowell (1923-1986) m. Elsie Armstrong

• Eric Selig Philip Cowell m. Enid Proudfoot (1914-1990) in Bombay (India) in 1943, divorced in 1952; rem. Jeanette Sevier, model (1926-1996) in London in 1952, divorced in 1961; rem. Julie Dalglish aka Josie Brett, London showgirl (1925-2015) in London in 1961 and moved to Elstree in Hertfordshire
• – John Cowell (b. 1948), construction consultant, with Jeanette
• – June Cowell (b. 1950) m. Francisco del Mar (divorced), former child actress, with Jeanette
• – Michael Cowell (b. 1946), property agent, with Julie and former partner
• – Anthony (Tony) Cowell (b. 1950) m. Emma Lloyd, journalist, with Julie and former partner
• – Simon Cowell (b. 1959), with Julie
• – Nicholas (Nick) Cowell (b. 1961) m. Katie, property developer, with Julie