Petula Clark shows no signs of stopping the showgirl who emerged during the war when she was just a child but she's no showbiz addict either, as she makes clear 

To read a biography of Petula Clark’s achievements is rather overwhelming.

More than 50 years performing more than a thousand songs, an international career and recordings in many languages, 15 top 40 hits in the US, two Grammys, 68 million sales of her recordings, movie roles (Finian’s Rainbow and Goodbye, Mr Chips), numerous concert tours, TV shows, lead roles in musicals on the West End and Broadway, a musical and many songs she has penned – it’s a truly stellar career.

Petula will perform in Cairns for one night only on March 2 as the first gig on her Australian tour.

Entitled The Lady, Her Music Returns – Petula Clark – Once More With Love, the concert features old favourites such as Downtown and This is My Song, hits from the musicals she has been involved in, and some new songs.

“I was in Cairns before, way back the first time I was in Australia,” Petula says from her chalet, surrounded by the beautiful snowy French Alps.

Petula lives in Switzerland but is in France now, finishing her latest CD.

It’s been a while since the singer, now 78, began her public life.

“It’s a long story and I don’t know whether you have time for it,” she says, laughing.

“My mother was Welsh and as you know the Welsh sing.”

It seems Petula was similar to the character of Maria, whom she played in the musical The Sound of Music, as she continues.

“I used to sing in the mountains and play in streams and tell myself stories,” she says.

“Then I started singing in the chapel and I enjoyed it.”

Petula was known for having “a voice as sweet as chapel bells” and became the British version of Shirley Temple, the famous child entertainer.

Petula began in showbiz by entertaining the troops in England during World War II.

“My dad was in the army and he heard me singing around the house and didn’t realise it was me,” she says.

“He thought it was the radio.”

Petula’s dad had wanted to be an actor, and so he lived his stage dreams through his daughter.

“He was a handsome man,” Petula says.

“We didn’t have money or influence but during the war, I started singing for the troops,” she says.

“Julie Andrews was doing the same thing at the same time.

“We travelled in troop trains and sang in troop camps.”

Petula says she never had a chance to even imagine any other career as her singing career took off so quickly.
She had performed in some 200 shows by the age of nine.

Although she loves to perform, Petula says show business does not mean everything to her.

“I’m not a show business fiend,” she says.

“I’m in my chalet on my own.

“I have a lady who cooks for me.

“I go for walks and enjoy the silence.”

She would go skiing, she says, only her contract won’t allow it in case she is injured before her tour.

Probably the song for which Petula is most famous is Downtown written by Tony Hatch, who brought the song to her in Paris, where she had moved to live with her French husband Claude Wolff.

The song was a huge success, topping the charts around the world.

It soared to number one in the USA, launching her career there, and it earned Petula a Grammy award in 1964.

Petula says her voice hasn’t changed through the years, although her songs may not sound exactly the same.

“Singing is about expressing yourself in a song, so when I sing Downtown now, I probably sing it differently,” she says.
“I’m not trying to be that person in the ’60s.

“Also, I’m now working with five musicians.”

Petula enjoys songwriting too.

She wrote and produced the musical Someone Like You and has composed many songs.

Most of her music, she says, comes to her quite quickly.

“I work on the piano but sometimes a song comes to me on a train or a plane and I can’t get to a piano, so that’s hard,” she says.

“I’ve just finished the lyrics for a French CD.

“It’s for a sort of soul song and that came to me quite easily, but I’ve written another one based on the music of Bach, which was more difficult because of the music, and the subject was more complicated.”

What comes across most from Petula is her enthusiasm, her passion for life and for what she does.

“It’s all fun,” she says.

“Singing is a great joy and writing is like a bonus.”

She has enjoyed performing on Broadway and in West End musicals.

Apart from Maria in The Sound of Music, she played Mrs Johnstone on Broadway in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, and was Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.

Playing a part onstage and singing her own songs is a totally different experience for Petula as a performer.

“In Cairns I will be myself,” Petula says.

“I am not putting on an act and nobody tells me what to sing or what dress to wear.

“I am totally me and it’s a great freedom.”

But working in a show like Sunset Boulevard, she says, involves working with other people, toeing the line with the orchestra, and being conscious of set and costume changes.

“It’s very disciplined and you are saying someone else’s words,” she says.

“I love it almost as much (as doing her own thing).”

One of the highlights of her career was the making of the 1968 movie Finian’s Rainbow.

“It was one of the most joyful experiences of my life,” she says.

“Francis Ford Coppola directed it and Fred Astaire, who was such a unique person, was in it.

“I was sandwiched between all these great people.

“Making that movie, we were like a band of gypsies.

“We filmed it on the backlot of Warner Bros so we were well away from the executives.”

Petula says Fred Astaire was very nice to work with.

“The big ones (stars) are usually very nice,” she says.

“It’s the ones who are not so big who are not.”

She declined to give any hints about who they are, preferring to expand on the nice list.

“Peter O’Toole was a lovely generous actor,” she says.

“We loved each other.

“It was a wonderful experience making Goodbye, Mr Chips.”

Petula has met many stars during her career.

“I would be very excited say to meet Dean Martin but would then find out he was just as excited about meeting me,” she says. “That’s just the way it works.”

It seems a world away but Petula is keen to say it is not a world of glamour.

You might imagine one of her three children would have become entertainers, but she says though they are musical, they steered clear from the show life.

“They travelled around with us a lot and saw a lot; the side you don’t hear about that much,” she says.

“The glamour is only a front. It’s more about backstage and getting it all together.”

It hasn’t been enough to encourage Petula to hang up her touring and recording shoes though, and she has many plans for the future.

“I am very much looking forward to going to Australia because there is so much to do,” she says. “Afterwards I will go back to Europe and start work on a new English CD.”

>> Petula Clark will perform for one night only on March 2 at Cairns Civic Theatre. Tickets $74.50, concessions apply. www.ticketlink.com.au or phone 1300 855 835.

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