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They say that sometimes all it takes is being in the right place at the right time for your life to change, and for one lucky jazz singer, this was definitely the case.
Back in 2007, then 18-year-old Victoria Hart was just squeaking by. Originally born in California, she grew up in both the U.K. and the south of France before returning on her own to London, England when she was just 16 years old.
She was there to chase her dream of becoming a famous jazz singer. But chasing dreams doesn't pay the bills. So when she wasn't going to music college, she was singing for her supper while waiting tables at the Naked Turtle restaurant in Richmond.
"I came here to follow my dream," she told Hello Magazine. "I was just trying my luck really."
Lady luck was on her side.
She was making $7 an hour when she was plucked from obscurity and landed on a yacht — in Cannes. But that wasn't all she landed, she also just so happened to land a multi-million-dollar deal.
Hart had been working at the Naked Turtle restaurant for about a year when her ship finally came in.
One night a customer spotted her performing a jazz number after her shift.
Hart said, "This guy came in and he was like 'I really want you to sing for a party' and I was like ok, thinking it was a wedding or something."
Turns out he was the event organizer for an A-list Darfur fundraiser in Cannes hosted by George Clooney, and he wanted her to be there.
Just two weeks later she was on board an $80 million dollar yacht, singing for George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and the cast of Ocean's Thirteen, along with all of their friends.
It wasn't her first time at the Cannes Film Festival. She had performed there before, in 2006, but George Clooney wasn't there.
This time, she was performing at the gig of a lifetime, and interest in the teenage singer skyrocketed. She was barely back on dry land before a fierce bidding war broke out between rival record companies.
According to the Irish Examiner, she eventually landed on a six-album joint deal with the labels Decca and Universal Classics and Jazz, home of Ella Fitzgerald and Jamie Cullum.
Hart signed the £1.5 million deal ($1.8M USD) for her first album, Whatever Happened To Romance, at the restaurant where it all started – the Naked Turtle restaurant in Richmond, southwest London. She also handed in her notice at the same time.
To mark the occasion, she attached her waitressing apron to balloons and sent it soaring into the skies above London. A fitting gesture for a teenage girl whose dreams were taking off - with a little help from George Clooney.
Victoria Hart never imagined that working as a singing waitress would eventually result in a huge record deal. She just knew she needed to earn money and figured she might as well do it using her talents.
So often, we do things in life because we have to, and sometimes it's those very things that lead us to exactly where we are meant to be.
For Victoria Hart, that was definitely the case.
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