Beverly Delich - Come Fly with Me: Michael Bublés Rise to Stardom, a Memoir

Copyright 2013 by Beverly Delich and Shelley Fralic

Photographs copyright 2013 Beverly Delich except where noted

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, bc v n h

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

isbn 978-1-77162-006-2 (cloth)

isbn 978-1-77162-007-9 (ebook)

Edited by Shirarose Wilensky

Index by Stephen Ullstrom

Cover design by Carleton Wilson and Anna Comfort OKeeffe

Print edition text design by Mary White

Cover photos: Top inset, Michael Bubl 1996, David Clark photo/ The Province . Centre inset: Beverley Delich and Michael Bubl , Ann Hamilton photo/ North Shore News . Background image: Thinkstock.

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Acknowledgements

E veryone has a story to tell, a tale of challenge and hardship, of joy and sorrow, of triumph and tragedy. What, then, compels some to write their memoirs, to be driven to share their personal lives in such a public way, while others wouldnt dream of stepping outside the boundaries of privacy?

It may be as simple as a need to reflect, and share. For many, the autobiography is cathartic, a letting go of secrets. For others, its an opportunity to educate, or perhaps entertain. Sometimes, its just a good story that seems worth telling.

For me, its all of the above.

Mine has a been a life of twists and turns, of transformation and self-discovery, the varied textures of my seventy-plus years having been inexorably woven into the strong, lush fabric of a life well-lived. From a hardscrabble childhood in Montana marked by parental constraint to an adulthood of unbridled social freedom, from my marriage to my children to my various careers, the roller coaster of highs and lows has been both ordinary and extraordinary.

And it was never more so than in 1993, when at the age of fifty-three I crossed paths with a promising young singer from Burnaby and, within a few years, embarked with him upon one of the most unlikely and exhilarating adventures we could ever imagine.

This book could not have been written without the people who have always been in my corner, the friends and family who have been with me every step of the way.

Gratitude, for them and so much more, is in order.

To my familymy son, Daniel, and his wife, Kelly; my daughter, Lisa, and her husband, Mike; my wonderful grandchildren, Taylor and Mikayla; and my sister, Jerri, and brother, Robertfor their love and spirit and never-ending support.

To Michael Bubl, for starring in my lifes second act.

To Shelley Fralic, for helping me put it all into words.

Come Fly with Me is my story, told with heart and with truth.

Beverly Delich

Prologue

Come Fly with Me

T he plane lifted off, circled above the whitecaps of the Pacific and levelled out in the clouds over the mountains of Washington State as it headed south, Vancouver International Airport a shrinking speck behind us, Nevada on the horizon ahead.

It was September 27, 2001, a bright, clear Thursday morning, and we were less than three hours away from landing at McCarran International in Las Vegas, where fortune can be found in a slot machine and where our future was waiting, the future wed been working toward for eight long years.

This flight, on Alaska Airlines, felt more secure than any flight Michael and I had been on before. Security had been tight out of yvr , heralding a new age of nervousness on the ground and in the air that would take hold throughout the world and not let go, the horror of planes imploding those twin towers on the New York skyline still so fresh in the mind and heavy in the heart.

But I felt no fear as we settled into our seats, only an odd lightness, for ahead lay promise. This flight, I just knew, was different, nothing like those trips we had taken in past years, to places like Memphis and Toronto, trips so often marked by hope and then disappointment, so often about scrambling to survive while success, waiting in the wings, mocked us with its elusiveness.

But this flight, this was the one that would change everything. I could feel it in my bones.

Michael and I were booked into the mgm Grand Hotel, at the invitation of powerhouse music producer David Foster, who had arranged for Michael to be the opening act for comic and Tonight Show host Jay Leno.

Jay Leno. I could hardly believe it.

Jay, sensing that his fellow Americans were spooked by the unsettling terrorist threat of September 11, was giving free tickets to two of his performances at the mgm Grand theater for anyone courageous enough to fly into Las Vegas for the weekend. This was his way to prove to the fly-shy that the most powerful nation on earth needed to get back to business.

Jay wanted a singer to open his show, and that singer was to be Michael. My Michael. Michael Bubl, who had so impressed David, when he sang a year before at the wedding of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroneys daughter, that David had been booking him ever since for various events around the country. David had convinced his friend Jay that this young Canadian singing sensation was the perfect first act, the ideal antidote to lift the mood of a shell-shocked audience looking for diversion, if only for an hour or two, from the tragedy that had so levelled their spirit.

But up in the sky, as the jet cruised south and the Vegas revellers in the seats around us began their party planning, all I could think about was how surreal it was that after years of struggling for recognition, after all the talent shows and travelling revues and endless auditions and heart-rending rejections and false starts, with nothing but hope in our pockets and talent on our resume, this might be our time.

Michael sat directly across the aisle from me, where he always did when we flew, so that we could talk and still have private time, as well as leg room, and I knew that we must have made an unlikely pair, me the sixty-one-year-old manager and confidante, he the charismatic, impish twenty-six-year-old protege.

Should I tell them, or do you want to? Michael said, leaning toward me and motioning to his seatmates, who turned out to be two disc jockeys from the Rock 101 radio station back home in Vancouver. Bro Jake and Ollie had recognized Michael from the many shows he had done in the Vancouver area and were wondering aloud what we were up to in Las Vegas, what our relationship was, who I was.

You tell him, I said to Michael.

I could only smile at how it must look and how no one, really, would believe it and how I intuitively knew that we were flying headlong into a new beginning.