Petula Clark, CBE

Petula Clark, CBE is a British singer, actress and composer whose career spans eight decades with global record sales in excess of 70 million.

Her father introduced her to theatre when he took her to see Flora Robson in a 1938 production of Mary Stuart; she later recalled that after the performance...

I made up my mind then and there I was going to be an actress... I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman more than anything else in the world.

Her first public performances was 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.

In October 1942, the 9-year-old Clark made her radio debut while attending a BBC broadcast with her father. In addition to radio work, Clark frequently toured the United Kingdom with fellow child performer Julie Andrews.

Nicknamed the Singing Sweetheart, she performed for George VI, Winston Churchill and Bernard Montgomery. Clark also became known as Britain's Shirley Temple and was considered a mascot by the British Army, whose troops plastered her photos on their tanks for good luck as they advanced into battle.

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 upbeat hits, including Downtown, I Know a Place, My Love, A Sign of the Times, I Couldn't Live Without Your Love, Colour My World, This Is My Song, Kiss Me Goodbye, and Don't Sleep in the Subway she went on to be dubbed the First Lady of the British Invasion.

I wasn’t part of the whole swinging King’s Road thing. I was married with two children. Of course, there were some parties you would go to, you walked in the door and you were stoned, but I wasn’t going for it. I floated in and out, that’s what I did. I was there to sing.

In 1965, Downtown won a Grammy for Best Rock & Roll record of the year and in 2003 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The song was the first of 15 consecutive Top 40 hits Clark achieved in the United States.

Talking about Downtown... You don’t realise it at the time. Some people have the impression that you know when you’re making a hit. I knew it was a good record. We all knew it was a good record, but we could have no idea where it was going. It was a hit in England, but it was picked up by Joe Smith of Warner Bros. Records of LA. He knew that it was going to be a hit in the states. He said, I want that! The next thing we knew he was right. But every time you go in, you don’t think, We’re going to make a hit. It doesn’t work like that. Anybody who tells you anything differently is not telling the absolute truth. You could have a pretty good idea, but nobody knows.

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.

In 1998, she was awarded a CBE by the Queen for bringing so much joy over the years.

In March 2019, it was announced that she would be returning to London's West End stage for the first time in 20 years, performing in the upcoming revival of Mary Poppins as The Bird Woman.

She also holds a Guinness World Record for being the Most successful English female recording artist of all time. 247 weeks on the UK singles chart.

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