Profile
A nation’s ‘pet’ returns to the stage at 89
Back on stage at 89 in Mary Poppins The Musical
George Keegan goes ‘Downtown’ to trace the career of superstar Petula Clarke and Germany, but also worldwide. She studied languages and became multi lingual which greatly helped her to break into music charts around the continent. She moved to France in early 1960 where she married the music publicist Claude Wolff. He has continued to manage her career to this day. In 1964 she was presented with 3 gold discs for record sales of three different songs in Germany, France and England. She was now firmly established as a superstar. The early years
Child star Petula
Petula Sally Clark was born in Epson, Surry, England on 15th November 1932. Almost immediately she acquired the nickname ‘Pet’. Today at the age of 89 she is still performing on stage. Her music career has been quite remarkable and she has enjoyed fame not only in the UK and many European countries, particularly France
In fact they were very early years because Petula first came to prominence as a child star during WW2 and recorded over 200 shows for the British forces before she even reached her 9th birthday. During the late 1940’s and 1950’s she was a regular guest on a large number of radio shows for the BBC before moving into television. It was in 1949 that her first hit record The Little Shoemaker reached number seven in the UK charts and No 1 in Australia. This was the first of forty six number one hits achieved worldwide. Chart success Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent were a massive influence in Pet’s record career. They combined to write the music and lyrics for well over 70 of her songs including massive hits such as Colour My World, Don’t Sleep in the Subway, I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love, My Love and of course Downtown. Senior Times l January - February 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 63
