'When something good happened, I always called Dad': Why Simon Cowell named his son after the father who gave him his entree into showbusiness

By Alison Boshoff for DailyMail.co.uk

He was an older dad: a fun-loving, larger-than-life character who would leave for work in his E-type Jag, a Havana cigar clamped between his teeth.

He had staff — a gardener, a cook and a nanny — and loved to hobnob with celebrities.

He went racing at Ascot every year, and he would give Simon and his younger brother Nicholas the day off school so they could join him in his debenture box.

And Eric Cowell, after whom The X Factor creator has named his own newborn boy, had an eye for the ladies at least the equal of his son’s.

Indeed, everywhere you look in Simon’s life, you can see the influence of Eric Selig Phillip Cowell, the East End boy with Jewish roots who became a property mogul.

And, interestingly for the mother of Simon’s son, Lauren Silverman, who is still waiting for a proposal from her beau, Eric was the marrying kind — but he tied the knot only after the children had been born.

Indeed, Eric married three times and fathered five children, all born out of wedlock — including Simon. Cowell’s redoubtable mother Julie kept much about Eric’s racy past from the children.

It seems no one in the family told Simon about Eric’s first marriage until a couple of years ago.

And Eric’s two children from his second marriage were not allowed to meet Simon or Nicholas for years.

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