Web Page No 2540
29th December 2018
Happy New Year Everyone.
Petula Clark, CBE
1st Picture. Young Petula Clark
4th Picture. Petula and Family
This is someone
that many of us feel that we grew up with, from a child actress she always
seems to have been around. She was born Sally Olwen Clark, in Epsom on 15th November 1932 and her career spans seven
decades. Both of her parents were nurses there at Long Grove Hospital. Her
mother was of Welsh ancestry and her father was English. Young Sally's stage
name of Petula was invented by her father, Leslie Clark; he
joked it was a combination of the names of two former girlfriends, Pet and
Ulla.
During
the War she lived with her sister at the
home of their grandparents in Pontlottyn South Wales, in a small stone house with no electricity, no
running water and a toilet at the bottom of the garden. Her grandparents spoke
little English and she learned to speak Welsh. Her grandfather was a coal miner and her first ever
live audience was at the Colliers' Arms in Abercanaid, near Merthyr Tydfil.
As
a child she sang in the chapel choir and
showed a talent for mimicry, impersonating Vera Lynn, Carmen Miranda and Sophie Tucker for her family and friends.[Her father took her to see Flora Robson in a 1938 production of Mary Stuart; here she
I made up her mind to be an actress. However, her first public
performances were as a singer, performing 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, in 1939.
Her
professional career began as an entertainer on the Radio through the War. During the 1950s she started recording in French and having international success in both French
and English, with such songs as "The Little Shoemaker", "Baby
Lover", "With All My Heart" and "Prends Mon Cœur".
During the 1960s, she became known globally for her popular hits, including
"Downtown",
"I Couldn't Live Without Your
Love", "Colour My World",
"This Is My Song"
and "Don't Sleep in the Subway.
She has sold more than 68 million records. From a chance
beginning at 9, she would appear on radio, film, print, television and
recordings by the time she turned 17.
In October 1942, at
9 years old she made her radio debut while attending a BBC broadcast with her
father. She was there trying to send a message to an uncle stationed overseas,
but the broadcast was delayed by an air raid. During the bombing, the producer requested that
someone perform to settle the jittery theatre audience, and she volunteered to
an enthusiastic response. She then repeated her performance for the broadcast
audience, launching a series of some 500 appearances in programmes designed to
entertain the troops. In addition to radio work, she frequently toured
with fellow child performer Julie Andrews and they performed for George VI, Winston Churchill and Bernard Montgomery.
While
performing at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1944, she was discovered by film
director Maurice Elvey, who cast her, at age 12, in
his weepy war drama Medal for the General. In
quick succession, she performed in London Town, Here Come the Huggetts, Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad,
films based on the radio series. Although some of the films she made in
the UK during the 1940s and 1950s were B-films] she worked with Anthony Newley and Alec Guinness In 1945.
In
1946, she launched her television career with an appearance on a variety
show, Cabaret Cartoons,
which led to her being signed to host her own afternoon series, ‘Petula Clark’. Pet's Parlour followed in 1949.
In
1947, Clark met Joe "Mr Piano"
Henderson at the Maurice Publishing Company. The two
collaborated musically and were linked romantically over the coming decade. In
1949 Henderson introduced her to Alan A. Freeman who, together with her father Leslie,
formed Polygon Records for
which she recorded her earliest hits. She had recorded her first release,
"Put Your Shoes On, Lucy", for EMI.
Because neither EMI nor Decca, for whom she also had recorded, were keen to sign her
father teamed with Alan Freeman to form the Polygon record label This project
was financed with Petula’s earnings. She scored a number of major hits during
the 1950s, including "The Little Shoemaker"
(1954), "Majorca" (1955), "With All My Heart" (1956). "The Little
Shoemaker" was an international hit, reaching No. 1 in Australia, the first of many No. 1 records in her career. Although she released
singles in the US as early as 1951 it was 13
years before the American record-buying public discovered her.
Near
the end of 1955, Polygon Records was sold to Nixa Records, then part of Pye Records. This turn of events signed her to Pye for the
remainder of the 1950s, through the 1960s and early into the 1970s.
In
1957, she was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia where, despite a bad cold, she was received
with acclaim. The following day she was invited to the office of Vogue Records to discuss a contract. It was there that
she met her longtime publicist, collaborator and future husband, Claude Wolff.
In 1960, she embarked on a concert tour of France and Belgium with Sacha Distel, who remained a close friend until his death. She
recorded in German, French, Italian and Spanish and established herself as a multi-lingual performer.
During
her new career in France, she continued to achieve hit records in the UK into
the early 1960s. Her 1961 recording of "Sailor" became her first No.1 hit in the UK, while such
follow-up recordings as "Romeo" and "My
Friend the Sea" landed her in the British Top Ten later that year.
"Romeo" sold over one million copies globally, and was her
first gold disc. In
France, "Ya Ya Twist" the only successful recording of a twist song by a woman became a smash hit in 1962,
In
1964, she wrote the soundtrack for the French crime film A Couteaux Tirés and made a
cameo appearance as herself. Additional film scores included Animato (1969), La bande à Bebel (1966),
and Pétain (1989).]
She
was the subject of This Is Your Life in
February 1964, and twice more, in April 1975 and March 1996, becoming the only
person to receive the television tribute three times.
By
1964, her British recording career was foundering. Tony Hatch, who had been assisting her at Vogue Records in France and Pye Records in the UK, flew to her home in Paris with new
material but she liked none of it. Desperate, he played a few chords of
an incomplete song and on hearing the melody she said she wanted to record the
tune as her next single and "Downtown" was
born.
"Downtown"
was the first of 15 consecutive Top 40 hits she had in the US.The American
recording industry awarded her a for "Best Rock & Roll Recording of
1964" for "Downtown" and for "Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal
Performance of 1965 – Female" for "I Know a Place."
In 2004, her recording of "Downtown" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Her
recording successes led to frequent appearances on American programmes hosted
by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin. In 1968, NBC-TV invited her to host her own special and in doing
so she made television history. While singing a duet of her anti-war song
"On the Path of Glory," with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a
representative from the show's sponsor, who feared that the moment would incur
racial backlash from Southern viewers. When
he insisted that they substitute a different take, with the singers standing
well away from each other, she refused, destroyed all other takes of the song,
and delivered the finished original programme to NBC with the touch
intact. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original telecast, she
appeared at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on 22nd September 2008, to discuss the broadcast and
its impact, following a showing of the programme.
She
revived her film career in the late 1960s, in two big musicals, Finian's Rainbow (1968),
opposite Fred Astaire. The following year she
was cast with Peter O'Toole in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969),
a musical adaptation of the classic story.
Throughout
the late 1960s, she toured the States and during this period, she continued her
interest in encouraging new talent. Richard Carpenter credited
her with bringing him and Karen to Alpert's attention when they performed at a
premiere party for Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
During
the early 1970s, she had chart singles on both sides of the Atlantic and she
continued touring performing in clubs in the US and Europe.
In
the mid-1970s, Clark scaled back her career in order to devote more time to her
family.
On
31st December 1976, she
performed "Downtown" on BBC1's A Jubilee of Music,
celebrating British popular music for the impending Silver Jubilee. Through the 1970s, she made numerous
appearances on variety, comedy and game show television programmes and in 1980
she made her last film appearance, in Never Never Land.
As
she moved away from film and television, she returned to the stage but it was
not until 1981, at the urging of her children, that she returned to legitimate
theatre, starring as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music in
London's West End. In 1983,
she took on the title role in Shaw's Candida. Later stage work includes Someone Like You in
1989 and 1990, for which she composed the score, Blood Brothers, in
which she made her Broadway debut in
1993 followed by the American tour and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard,
appearing in both the West End and American touring productions from 1995 to
2000. In 2004, she repeated her performance of Norma Desmond in a production at the Opera House in Cor kwith more than 2,500 performances, she has played the
role more often than any other actress.
In
1998, she was made a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire and in 2012, she was installed as a
Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of
France by the French Minister of Culture.
In
November 2006, she was the subject of a BBC Four documentary titled Petula Clark: Blue Lady and appeared with Michael Ball and Tony Hatch in a concert at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
In 2007, she took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home, about
her Welsh family history. She was
presented with the 2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Use of a Song in a
Television Programme for "Downtown" in the ABC series Lost.
In
2010, she became president of the Hastings Musical Festival;
toured Australia, New Zealand and Quebec and appeared on French television.
In
November 2011, at age 78, Clark performed at the Casino de Paris, a Parisian music hall. Clark entertained for more than 90 minutes and
introduced five new songs, one of which she had recently written with
friend Charles Aznavour. A French
album of all new material was to be released on 7 February 2012 on the Sony
label, Clark's first in that language since the late 1970s. On 11 December
2011, the Saw Doctors released
their version of "Downtown," featuring her. In February 2012, she
completed her first New York City show since 1975. After the end of her
season, which had to be extended due to the demand for tickets, she returned
to Paris to promote her new album, before flying to
Australia for a tour.
On
20 June 2015, she appeared with the Midtown Men at the Beacon Theatre in New
York City, performing "Downtown"and Petula makes a cameo appearance
in the 2017, London Heathrow Airport Christmas television commercial,
accompanied by her song, "I couldn't live without your love"
In
October 1957, she was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia for the Europe N°1 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. It was there that she met her future husband
the 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. They have two daughters and a son. Since 2012,
Clark has lived for most of the year in Geneva, she also has a holiday chalet in the French Alps, where she likes to ski,
and she has a pied-à-terre in Chelsea.
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Peter
On this day 29th December 1960-1965.
On 29/12/1960 the number one single was I Love You - Cliff
Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV
show was The Arthur Haynes Show (ATV)
and the box office smash was Psycho.
A pound of today's money was worth £13.68.
End of National Service in Britain The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada)
On 29/12/1961 the number one single was Moon River - Danny
Williams and the number one album was Another Black & White Minstrell Show - George Mitchell Minstrels.
The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and
One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town
On 29/12/1962 the number one single was Return to Sender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George
Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash
was Lawrence of Arabia.
A pound of today's money was worth £12.89
and Everton were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Tax reduced to 25% on TVs and radios.
On 29/12/1963 the number one single was I Want to Hold
Your hand - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The
top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool
were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 29/12/1964 the number one single was I Feel Fine - The
Beatles and the number one album was Beatles For Sale
On 29/12/1965 the number one single was Day Tripper/We Can
Work It Out - The Beatles and the number one album was Rubber Soul - The Beatles. The top
rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's
money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool
were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
