Petula Clark

British pop singer Petula Clark is best known in America for mid-'60s hits such as "Downtown" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway" but has also carried on a varied career in Europe. She began singing professionally at age eight; by nine she was a regular on radio shows; at 11, she hosted her own radio show, Pet's Parlour. Along with other child stars Julie Andrews and Anthony Newley, she performed for British troops during World War II.

She was 12 when she made her film debut in A Medal for the General. By the early '50s, she was a major star in the U.K., with over 20 movie credits. In 1954 "The Little Shoemaker" (#12, U.K.) became her first hit, followed by "Majorca" and others. She got her first #1 in the U.K. with 1961’s “Sailor,” followed by her first million-seller, “Romeo” (#3 U.K., 1961). That same year she married Vogue Records publicity director Claud Wolff, who became her manager. They moved to France, and she became popular there with such hits as “Chariot” and “Monsieur,” also a big seller in Germany. Her string of English hits continued throughout the early ’60s - “My Friend the Sea,” “Ya Ya Twist,” “Casanova” - and she cracked the American market with “Downtown” (#1, 1965), which won a Grammy Award in 1964.

Clark toured U.S. nightclubs for the next few years and managed followup hits like “I Know a Place” (#3, 1965), “My Love” (#1, 1966), and “I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love” (#9, 1966). Although she cut down her personal appearances to raise her family, there were a few more hits like “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” (#5, 1967), “The Other Man’s Grass Is Always Greener” (#31, 1967), and “Kiss Me Goodbye” (#15, 1968). Blue Lady, issued in 1995, unearths previously unreleased material recorded in 1975, overseen by famed Nashville producer Chips Moman.

In the late ’60s, she revived her acting career, starring in the films Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Finian’s Rainbow. She has also performed on the British stage, in The Sound of Music (1981) and Someone Like You (1990), which she cowrote with Fay Weldon. She made her Broadway debut in 1993 in Blood Brothers, which costarred David Cassidy and his half brother Shaun Cassidy. From the late ’90s through 2000, Clark toured the U.S. playing Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard; she also appeared in the musical during its 1995–97 U.K. run.

In late 1988, Clark returned to the upper reaches of the pop charts when a remix of “Downtown,” entitled “Downtown ’88,” became a Top 10 U.K. hit. Ten years later Queen Elizabeth named Clark a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, one of the U.K.’s highest honors. Here for You contains an assortment of standards and show tunes.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)