Petula Clark has been an artist for over 85 years, and her iconic song ”Downtown” will forever hold a special place in our hearts.
Over the years, this 91-year-old veteran has seen and heard it all, but one particularly degrading request from Elvis Presley has lingered in her memory.
Keep reading to see what the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll suggested…
Petula Clark has been performing since she was six, and the amazing thing is that she’s still here, singing and captivating audiences.
Her professional career took off during World War II when she began singing regularly on the BBC. In 1942, a 9-year-old Petula was attending a radio broadcast with her father. She was trying to send a message to her uncle stationed overseas, but the broadcast was delayed by an air raid. During the bombing, the producer asked if anyone could perform to calm the nervous theatre audience. Petula volunteered and sang ”Mighty Lak’ a Rose”.
The talented girl repeated her performance for the broadcast audience, which launched her into a series of some 500 appearances in programs designed to entertain the troops.
Soon, she earned the nickname ”Singing Sweetheart” and performed for notable figures like Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. She became an inspiring person for the British army during World War II, with soldiers often taping her photos to their tanks for good luck.
“I was sweet and had a sweet little voice – that was all that was asked of me, really,” she told The Guardian in 2019.
The weird truth about her stage name
Petula Clark was born as Sally Clark on 15 November 1932 in Ewell, Surrey, England. It was her father who came up with Clark’s stage name ”Petula” by playfully merging the names of his two former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla.
Her dad, a male nurse with a striking resemblance to Errol Flynn and unfulfilled theatrical dreams, quickly pushed her into show business. It was his way of living out his own ambitions through her. At the same time, Petula Clark herself was deeply fascinated by theatre and decided early on to become an actress.
”I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman more than anything else in the world,” she said.
However, it was as a singer that she would achieve fame. Following her breakthrough, Petula often toured the United Kingdom alongside fellow child performer Julie Andrews. Petula became known as ”Britain’s Shirley Temple”.
”It was horrible”
By the age of 12, the young girl had already attained star status and secured a record contract. However, things weren’t as perfect as they seemed. As she toured the country, her schooling took a hit. And whenever she did manage to attend, she faced bullying due to her fame.
”I was just a robot. I was hired out, told to do this, do that. I obeyed because I knew nothing better,” Petula explained.
She soon began to doubt herself and experienced an identity crisis.
The powerful record label Rank insisted on portraying Petula as a child star, even as she was growing into her teenage years.
”It was horrible,” Petula said in 1981 and added:
”I was much more valuable to Rank as a little girl than as an adolescent, because in the early Fifties the teenager as such did not exist and was not glorified. This set up awful psychological problems. I’d grown up quite quickly through being in show business and hanging around backstage, so I knew a lot of things little girls don’t normally know and probably should have known.”
During her late teens, from ages 17 to 19, Petula felt she was losing her mind. She started to hear voices in her head and and embarked on a self-analysis journey.
”I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I had to do something about it. So in a darkened room, in front of a mirror, I examined myself deeply, turned myself inside out, asked questions, got answers,” she told Sunday Telegraph.
After that deep self-analysis, Petula Clark managed to live with herself “fairly comfortably.” And unlike many child star casualties, Clark made the transition to a pop star with grace.
Downton success
In 1954, Petula Clark had her first official Top 10 chart success with The Little Shoemaker, which also topped the charts in Australia. After that, Petula headed to France to rebuild her career, a decision that would change her life. Invited to Vogue Records to discuss a potential record deal, she met the publicist Claude Wolff.
Petula was instantly smitten with Claude, and upon learning he would work with her on the upcoming album, the British star eagerly accepted. They married in 1961, and Petula soared to pop stardom in her new homeland.
By the mid-1960s, Petula had cemented herself as a superstar in Europe, with her hits translated into multiple languages. Now, one thing remained: conquering the hearts of America
Petula still had friends in Britain who saw her potential and were eager for her to start singing in English again. When her friend and composer Tony Hatch visited Petula in Paris, it marked the beginning of an incredible musical journey. Hatch had recently returned from his first trip to New York and had begun writing a song, though it was far from complete. He played a snippet of the melody for Petula, who was captivated. She told Tony that if he could write lyrics as good as the melody, she would record it.
”Downtown” was initially released in Europe and became a hit in the UK. But how would it fare across the Atlantic? Surprisingly well. The rights to the song were bought by Warner Bros., and “Downtown” soared to number one on the American charts in January 1965. The success was undeniable, with 3 million copies sold in the United States alone.
“There was no escaping it. It cut through absolutely everything,” Petula said.
Following this triumph, Petula Clark had a big string of hits and went on to achieve 15 consecutive Top-40 songs in the U.S. She became the first British female singer to win a Grammy.
TV history with Harry Belafonte
The success on the U.S. charts had a domino effect. Suddenly, everyone was interested in the blonde British singer with the incredible voice.
During the sixties, Petula starred in two Hollywood musicals, Finian’s Rainbow and Goodbye Mr. Chips, opposite legends like Fred Astaire and Peter O’Toole. She also collaborated with icons such as Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr., Lucille Ball, and Glen Campbell. In an interview, she revealed that even Steve McQueen, the King of Cool himself, was a big admirer of hers.
At the peak of her Hollywood career, Petula Clark sparked one of the most memorable media storms of the 1960s. In 1968, she invited Harry Belafonte to join her on her NBC special. Together, they sang the anti-war duet ”On the Path of Glory”, written by Clark herself. The controversy? Petula dared to touch Belafonte’s arm during the performance. A white woman touching a black man in television was too much for the show’s sponsor, Plymouth Motors, a division of Chrysler.
The uproar was led by Doyle Lott, a decorated WWII combat pilot and head of advertising for Plymouth. He feared the moment would provoke racial backlash from Southern viewers. He wasn’t thrilled with the anti-war sentiment either and had already tried to veto Belafonte’s participation.The anti-war song was already a risky choice with the Vietnam War in full swing, and NBC was nervous about the potential backlash. Clark and her team had to convince the network that the song was about war in general, not just Vietnam.
Touching moment
During the show, Belafonte had a solo sequence, followed by the emotional duet with Petula. The touching moment between Belafonte and Clark wasn’t scripted. TV director Steve Binder encouraged their interaction, feeling the performance lacked something. Binder recalled:
”The first few takes, Petula walked up and stopped a few steps behind Harry, but I felt it wasn’t working. So I said to Petula: ‘Just go right up alongside him and stand shoulder to shoulder.’ So we do this take and all of a sudden it starts happening. Her eyes are tearing up, Harry’s eyes are tearing up and Petula becomes so emotional that she reaches over and physically holds Harry’s forearm. And I’m tearing up too, thinking: ‘This is great! This is the take!’ And then it all blew up.”
Doyle Lott stormed onto the set, demanding the segment be reshot. He was furious, yelling, “This will never get on TV!” and threatening to fire Binder.
“The most outrageous case of racism I have ever seen in this business,” Belafonte later said of Lott.
However, Belafonte was ready to comply with Lott’s demands. But Clark, her husband Claude Wolff, and the TV producers stood firm. They had recorded multiple versions, but Clark ordered NBC to erase all but the one with the touch.
“That was the best take. That was the way that the song was supposed to be done – with that feeling, that emotion. When it turned into this whole race thing – it sounds silly, but I didn’t quite understand what it was about,” Petula said in 2019.
For Belafonte, a prominent civil rights campaigner, this moment was crucial. In his autobiography, he recalled telling Clark they should fight another day. She replied, “Forget my best interests. What would you do?” Belafonte grinned, “I’d nail the bastard.” Clark agreed, “So we will.”
Belafonte also made the incident public, causing a media storm before the show aired. It became an international story in Newsweek and Time magazine. Lott later apologized, but Belafonte didn’t accept it.
When the show aired on April 2, 1968, many watched for the historic moment, but most viewers probably wondered why the tough hade caused such a big fuzz. There were no riots or protests in the South. Instead, another event, clearly tied to America’s racial tensions, came to dominate the news. Tragically, just two days after Petula’s show was broadcasted, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
Meeting with Elvis Presley
In the late 1960s, Petula Clark and Karen Carpenter became fast friends. The Carpenters were performing at the afterparty of the 1969 premiere of Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Petula was impressed by their performance, and when she learned that The Carpenters didn’t have a record deal, she pulled some strings. Soon enough, the band was signed with A&M Records.
After that, Petula and Karen met up from time to time, usually at concerts or shows.
”We had that connection, so that every time we did see each other, we were close,” Petula Clark told The Guardian.
In the interview with The Guardian, Petula Clark recalled how she and Carpenter met Elvis Presley in his dressing room after a show.
“He was flirting with both of us, (saying) ‘Wow, the two biggest girl pop stars in my dressing room. That’s pretty good’… He didn’t have us, exactly, but he had a darned good try.”
This was one after his shows in Las Vegas and according Petula, ”the King of Rock and Roll” asked if they wanted to have a threesome.
“He was raring to go. Karen was lovely, but she was kind of innocent. I felt sort of responsible for her, so I got her out of there. Then I looked round, and Elvis was at the door, and he looked at me, like: ‘I’m going to get you one day.’” But he never did, she tells my voice recorder directly. “Some people think he did. I think he put out the rumour that he did. But he didn’t.”
This was during the height of Elvis’s career. However, according to Petula, a romance with him was never in the cards.
“I didn’t find him that attractive,” she said.
Petula Clark children
In the mid-1970s, Petula Clark shifted her focus from film and television to spend more time with her family. Alongside her husband Claude Wolff, she raised two daughters (Barbara and Kate) and a son (Patrick).
Petula’s children experienced a rather unique upbringing. Barbara was born in London, Kate in Paris, and Patrick in Geneva. Though the family was based in Switzerland and France, they often joined Petula on her work trips to Los Angeles.
Focusing on her family was a much-needed change for Petula. Even during her pregnancies, she worked until the eighth month and was back on the job just three weeks after giving birth.
”I wanted to be the perfect mother and the perfect wife and, hopefully, a fairly good performer,” Petula said. “That’s a very difficult thing to do. Something has to give, and I think both sides suffered. If I had a performance scheduled in Vegas, I would leave my home in Geneva, Switzerland at the very last minute, so I could be with the children as long as possible. That meant I would get to Nevada or California with only a short time to recuperate from the flight and get my act together for the show, which was not the way to go.”
She added:
”It was pretty frantic getting everything right in a day or two while fighting jet lag. Then, I would finish the shows, and instead of staying on and relaxing a bit and making friends and contacts, I would get right back on a flight to Geneva. So it was very exhausting and I think both my performances and my family suffered.”
Petula was determined that her children would have a normal childhood, influenced by her own early rise to stardom. From the moment they were born, she and her husband Claude decided they did not want their children to become ‘showbiz’ kids.
”I am in this business because I like singing and I like music. The rest of it I do not like very much, and I suppose my children have been protected more because of those feelings,” Petula told TVtimes.
Evil rumors
Yet, the family’s happiness was marred by malicious rumors. As their children grew up and left home, tabloids began speculating about a split between Petula and her husband and publicist Claude.
”The rumours came about because we were seen apart a lot . . . and we used to be completely together,” Petula said in 1981 and added:
”There’s no question of a rift but we have been married 20 years. It’s not a honeymoon any more. I’m able to cope with a lot of things on my own now and my children aren’t at home, so I have more time. Sometimes my husband can’t be with me. But I don’t need him . . . it’s very good I can cope on my own”.
In the 1980s, Petula scaled back her career but made a notable return to the stage, embarking on extensive tours across the UK in 1998 and 2002. In 2000, she captivated audiences with a self-written, one-woman show that celebrated her remarkable journey.
Husband death
Claude Wolff was by Petula’s side throughout all those ears, and they lived together in Geneva. But after many years in love, they chose to part ways romantically.
According to Petula, the couple drifted apart. They still lived together, but he had his own life and she had hers, and it somehow worked.
“He has his life and I have mine. How can you talk about that? Personal relationships are complicated, and it’s very difficult to explain that to the world,” Petula told Loose Women in 2016.
Sadly, Claude died on 21 March 2024. According to Petula, her husband died aged 93 following a short illness.
”Our hearts are heavy. This afternoon – Claude, my husband of so many amazing years – passed away – leaving us lost for words to describe this awful emotion – grief,” Petula wrote on Facebook.
While many 91-year-old living legends might be content to rest on their laurels, Petula Clark is not one of them. Despite an outstanding career, Clark herself admits she has always been “totally unambitious.”
”I didn’t go out seeking Sunset Boulevard. I’ve turned down more work than I’ve accepted,” she reflects.
But the fact remains that she has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 85 years
Just last year, Clark made a memorable appearance in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends concert, which aired on the BBC in January 2023. Her performance of “I’m Still Here” from Follies was a powerful testament to her enduring talent and passion for her craft.
And for a 91-year-old, I must say, Petula Clark looks absolutely stunning – she has truly aged like a fine wine! She radiates a timeless elegance.
Petula Clark is a true icon and we will never forget her song ”Downtown”. Her ability to captivate audiences, even now, is a testament to her extraordinary gift!
As she continues to grace the stage and screen, we can’t help but hope for more magical moments from this living legend.
