Hollie Steel

kevin (16) says:

i made a new video for hollie so before i go her for you t show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkTPZbXZ8Dg

Georgi Velev says:

Very poor job of the microphone guy.

kevin (16) says:

hi olivia, i make links on my homepage where i´ve got all these photos from on monday when i´m back in from switerland.

Scott says:

Sorry Hollie, it does sound quite bad with the sound, very shaky as well, promise I will do better in October.

Bye

Mick Uhl says:

Hello all,
I’m not sure why I hadn’t noticed this before but Hollie reminds me of someone whom I accidentally discovered last December in a little known film I was watching. At the time, I couldn’t find much information about her on-line, but I eventually learned more from a published biography of her. Can you guess who she is? Here are some facts about her.
- She was a real person, no longer living.
- She attended a Catholic school as a girl.
- She loved musical theatre and took leading roles in school plays.
- Her mother decided to further her dreams of a dancing career by moving to France. Here, by the age of thirteen, she had become a professional ballet dancer at the Paris Opera.
- At the age of fifteen, she moved to Hollywood and for the next seven years was a leading lady in film.
- When twenty-two, she returned to her first love, musical theatre, and starred on Broadway in a George and Ira Gershwin musical that I believe was the most successful of the decade.
- At twenty-five, she married a vice-president of Pan American Airlines and, with two major exceptions, retired from a performing career.
- She was set to play the leading role in a Mozart opera when the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the production to a sudden end.
- In middle age, after her only child left home, she co-starred briefly in a national television drama series. When that was cancelled, she retired, for the most part, from public life.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald thought her the most beautiful woman in Hollywood. She was the inspiration for the fictional character, Rosemary Hoyt, in his novel, Tender Is Night.

To summarize, this lovely young lady was a ballet dancer, both a classical and a popular singer, and an accomplished actress. She worked in Hollywood, on Broadway, and in television. I am curious. Can anyone name her? She was famous in her day but is no longer well-known. Of course, Hollie will far outshine her in accomplishments.

Mick Uhl says:

Hello David,

You are correct. I was referring to Lois Moran.

I was watching the 1929 Charlie Chan film, Behind That Curtain, this past winter and, although I thought the plot hackneyed, the acting (except for Lois’s) stilted, and the dialogue melodramatic, my attention was slowly drawn to the leading lady. Even with her flapper look, it dawned on me that she was very beautiful. The credits gave her name as Lois Moran. I had never heard of her. Researching her history, I was surprised to learn how multi-talented Lois was at such a young age. (She was only 21 at the time she made this movie near the end of her film career.) The similarity in her talents and those of Hollie just clicked in my mind a couple of days ago. They are remarkably similar.

I’ve never seen any of her musical films so don’t know how well Lois sang. I would like to compare her voice to Hollie’s. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Hollie has the better one.

Mick

Mick Uhl says:

For my own curiosity, I did an informal count of Hollie’s video clips on you tube. I only checked you tube. I didn’t include videos that Hollie shared with other BGT performers. I didn’t count any of the fatuous rants about Hollie. (Four of Dave Solari’s tirades ammounted to about 3 million views.) I probably missed some of the videos as the you tube sorts aren’t always complete. As an example, the View Count sort doesn’t include one of two frequently watched ‘Wishing…’ videos while the Relevance sort has only the other. I’m not sure how many other anomalies there may be. I did count her interviews and news items (e.g. Returning To School, Wicked, etc.)

I stress that I did no scientific measuring. I just counted the views of all her videos that appeared in the you tube list.

And the total is just under 17.5 million views in 112 different clips – over 20 million hits if you include infamous Dave’s 4.

Here is another interesting count. On July 23, the BGT09 clip of her audition had 7,357,927 views; the same clip, today, has 7,522,887 views. That’s a gain of 164,960 views in 15 days. That averages to about 11,000 views a day for this one video. This audition clip is Hollie’s most watched. If I do a simple extrapolation, I estimate that all of Hollie’s clips receive a total of 25,000 – 26,000 views per day. I think that’s very good for someone who hasn’t been in the national eye for over 2 months. (I am not considering the tour since only about 150,000 people attended.)

Scott says:

Hi Mick Uhl

‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ is back up. it is a better HD version

Scott

Mick Uhl says:

Hello Georgi,

I detect another face of Hollie in the audition. It’s her transported look when she sings. It may be more obvious when she sings ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’ in the final but that joyous look is still visible in her audition. She sings with all her might. That is one of many things I love about her.

Mick

Haselmaus says:

Friends
my favourit look from Hollie is the first if she went on the stage looking down to the “Great world Publikum” before she said “Hi” and the dance. Kelly answered her looks with smile.

And the moment before as she is wipping sitting on the chair next to her mum, the joy in the eyes.

And I think too she captured the BGT cameraman (Regisseur), because by all other he shows more the Publikum than the small Stars.

And in once I found Simon good, by weeping he calls her name till she turn the eyes to him and said he will look that she can sing again.

So I think it is it worthy to come to her evening (perhaps free from contructs?) And saw her without cameraman eyes
in Love Haselmaus

kevin (16) says:

mandy you should join facebook, if you want to

Haselmaus says:

Her Performance in Manchester and Nottingham is also very good, she hold the Microphon little unknown “busy” in the hands, but the singing is fresher.
Greetings Haselmaus

JackeShan says:

Hey all.

I have made a music video for Hollie and uploaded it on youtube. You can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-gaUjF5XG4

Mick Uhl says:

Hollie and Nina did a very informative and revealing 15 minute interview last Saturday with Stephen Nolan on the BBC radio. It is absolutely worth a listen for anyone who cares about Hollie. She even sings two lines of “I Could Have Danced All Night” at the end. It commences at 1:43:30 into the program. Find it at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m533q/Stephen_Nolan_15_08_2009/

The BBC will make this interview available until next Sunday. It can be downloaded directly but only in the UK. Since I am in the US, it would be great if someone could store the interview permanently at this site. Would there be legal objections to do so?

Thanks, Mick

Georgi Velev says:

Another thing that struck me while listening to the interview was the way Hollie prepared herself for the finals. Basically, what I gathered was that she sang both songs 5 times each and that’s all. It seems she did not exercise phrasing or warm-up her voice before singing which is quite extraordinary.

When I was a kid of Hollie’s age I used to play the violin. My then teacher was a very talented student who was said to have repeated while exercising a certain fragment of a violin concerto around 150 times before she continued with the rest of the concerto.

I can conclude that singing is actually quite natural to Hollie and she proved it by the ease she sang that small fragment from ‘I Could Have Danced’ at the spur of the moment – which fragment is actually a very difficult one beginning with an arpeggio in Cmajor and finished the fragment in a typical a-capella singing, holding the big notes and singing very expressively.

I think she is way more special that I originally thought.

Georgi

JackeShan says:

I meant, it costs about $30 if you want to record more than a minute.

WouterNL says:

Indeed it will be nice if someone can save the interview Mick mentioned to put on this site, especially an excerpt of just the part with Hollie and Nina. I checked the link an it’s a 3 hour broadcast, and I really don’t have the time this week to go through the whole thing.

Wouter

Mick Uhl says:

Thanks very much WouterNL for the clip of the interview. I really think it’s worth having and am very very grateful for your effort to record and download it here. Perhaps, Mandy, you can make this interview a new topic for this fansite. It would be the first for August.

I know that everyone who frequents this site does so because they admire Hollie and her beautiful voice. Please listen, then, to the interview, if you get a chance, for new insights into her BGT experiences and lovely personality. Nina shines as well. I am not sure, though, how Hollie will be able to balance daily performances of Elphaba in Wicked with photo shoots as a professional model when she gets older but I’m betting she will be able to manage it.