Petula Clark
Petula Clark CBE (born 15 November 1932) is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She started her professional career as a child performer and has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 81 years.
Clark's professional career began during the Second World War as a child entertainer on BBC Radio.[1] In 1954 she charted with "The Little Shoemaker", the first of her big UK hits, and within two years she began recording in French. Her international successes have included "Prends mon coeur", "Sailor" (a UK number one), "Romeo", and "Chariot". Hits in German, Italian and Spanish followed. In late 1964 Clark's success extended to the United States with a four-year run of career-defining, often upbeat singles, many written or co-written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. These include her signature song "Downtown" (US number one), "I Know a Place", "My Love" (US number one), "A Sign of the Times", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "Who Am I", "Colour My World", "This Is My Song" (by Charlie Chaplin; a UK number one), "Don't Sleep in the Subway", "The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener" and "Kiss Me Goodbye". Between January 1965 and April 1968 Clark charted with nine US Top 20 hits in the US, where she was sometimes called "the First Lady of the British Invasion".
Clark has sold more than 70 million records.[2] She has also enjoyed success in the musical film Finian's Rainbow, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a musical, and in the stage musicals The Sound of Music, Blood Brothers, Sunset Boulevard and Mary Poppins.
Biography[edit]
Early career[edit]
Petula Clark was born Sally Clark on 15 November 1932 in Ewell, Surrey, England[3] to Doris (née Phillips) and Leslie Noah Clark. Both of Clark's parents were nurses at Long Grove Hospital in Epsom. Clark's mother had Welsh ancestry and her father was English. Clark's stage name "Petula" was invented by her father, who joked that it was a combination of the names of his two former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla.[4]
Clark grew up in Abercanaid, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales,[5] in a house with no electricity or running water and a toilet in the garden. Her grandfather was a coal miner.[6] Her first ever live audience was at the Colliers' Arms in Abercanaid.[7] She also recalls living just outside London during the Blitz and watching the dogfights in the air and running to air-raid shelters with her sister. Later, when she was eight, she joined other children to record messages with the BBC to be broadcast to members of their families in the forces. The recording event was in the Criterion Theatre, an underground theatre that was safe. When the air-raid siren went off other children were upset and a call went out for someone to step forward and sing to calm them. Petula volunteered, and they liked her voice so much, in the control room they recorded her. Her song was "Mighty Like a Rose".[8]
As a child, Clark sang in the chapel choir and showed a talent for mimicry, impersonating Vera Lynn, Carmen Miranda and Sophie Tucker for her family and friends.[9] Her father introduced her to theatre in 1944 when he took her to see Flora Robson in a production of Mary Stuart; she later recalled that after the performance, "I made up my mind then and there I was going to be an actress. ... I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman more than anything else in the world."[10] However, her first public performances were as a singer. In 1945 she performed with an orchestra in the entrance hall of Bentall's Department Store in Kingston upon Thames for a tin of toffee and a gold wristwatch.[11]
Personal life[edit]
In 1955 Clark became linked romantically with Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson. Speculation that the couple planned to marry became rife. However, with the increasing glare of the public spotlight and Clark's growing fame – her career in France was just beginning – Henderson, reportedly not wanting to end up as "Mr. Petula Clark", decided to end the relationship.[78] Their professional relationship continued for a few years, culminating in the BBC Radio series Pet and Mr. Piano, the last time they worked together,[79] although they remained on friendly terms. In 1962, he penned a ballad about their break-up, called "There's Nothing More To Say", for Clark's LP In Other Words. In 1967 in Las Vegas, she was a witness at the wedding of her friend, French singer Charles Aznavour, alongside Sammy Davis, Jr.
In October 1957, Clark was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia for Europe's premier live radio show, Musicorama. The next day, she was invited to the office of Vogue Records' chairman Léon Cabat to discuss recording in French and working in France. There, she met her future husband, publicist Claude Wolff, to whom she was attracted immediately, and when she was told that he would work with her if she recorded in French, she agreed.[26][13] They have two daughters and a son.[50]
Following the 1979 UK general election, at which Margaret Thatcher had won a majority for the Conservatives, becoming Britain's first female prime minister, Clark sent Thatcher a congratulatory telegram, saying "Felicitations – so happy for you and for Britain."[80][81] The same year, Clark performed at a Young Conservatives rally.[82] However, in 2002, she attended a fundraiser for Labour prime minister Tony Blair.[83]
Since 2012 Clark has lived for most of the year in Geneva, Switzerland; she also has a holiday chalet in the French Alps, where she likes to ski, and a pied-à-terre in London's Chelsea.
