Petula Clark
Petula Clark was born in Epsom, Surrey, UK, in November 1932 and
was encouraged by her father to seek a career in show business
from an early age.
 Her mother taught her how to sing, and her
first "paid" job was for a bag of sweets from Bentalls
department store in Kingston-upon-Thames where she performed with
the resident band in the store's entrance while shopping.
Her initial forays into the entertainment industry were as a
child performer during the wartime years.
She found some degree of
stardom on radio shows and played over 150 shows in two years,
earning the nickname of "The Forces Girl".
Throughout
her teens and into the mid-1950s, Petula featured in more than two
dozen movies and released her debut record in 1949.
She enjoyed
many minor hits during the 50s and featured regularly on British
television, and in the early 60s began recording French language
versions of her singles as well as the original English versions.
In 1964, Tony Hatch (who had been producing French sessions for
Petula) managed to interest her in a song he had written called Downtown
- originally intended for The
Drifters.
She recorded the
single in only two takes and it immediately hit Number Two in the
UK charts. Petula's career went sky-high, with appearances on Ready
Steady Go, Top of the Pops and Sunday Night At
The London Palladium.
In January 1965, Downtown knocked The
Beatles' I
Feel Fine out of the Number One position in America to hit
the top of the US charts - Making Pet the first British female to
top the American charts since Vera Lynn in 1952.
Visiting America, Petula performed Downtown and I
Know A Place on The Ed Sullivan Show, while Downtown
earned her the "Best Rock & Roll recording of 1964" award at the seventh annual Grammy Awards.
I Know
A Place hit the Number Three spot in the US charts, making
Petula Clark the only female vocalist to chart her first two
singles in the US Top Three - A record that would stand until
Cyndi Lauper repeated the feat in 1984.
Throughout the following four years, Petula released many more
successful records, performed live in the US and Britain, hosted
her own six-week BBC TV series (This Is Petula Clark),
appeared in front of HRH Princess Margaret at the London
Palladium, performed for President Johnson at the White House,
starred in US TV commercials for the Chrysler Plymouth and starred
in the movies Finian's Rainbow (with Fred Astaire and
Tommy Steele) and Goodbye Mr Chips (with Peter O'Toole).
In
1965, Petula was also offered the chance to co-star opposite Elvis
Presley in Paradise Hawaiian Style but she declined.
Her career during the 1970s centred around live performances at
venues such as Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and tours of
Australia, Japan and South Africa. She also hosted two variety
series' for BBC TV.
By the end of the decade she was living in
semi-seclusion in her Geneva chateau where she devoted much time
to her husband and three children.
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