0:00:08 > 0:00:12# When you're alone and life is making you lonely
0:00:12 > 0:00:16# You can always go Downtown... #
0:00:16 > 0:00:18Downtown.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20It's the sound of the sixties.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24The decade when British pop crossed the Atlantic
0:00:24 > 0:00:27and shook American popular music to its roots.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29But the singer, Petula Clark,
0:00:29 > 0:00:32fitted none of the Swinging Sixties stereotypes.
0:00:32 > 0:00:39With 20 years of stardom already behind her, Petula Clark was yet again, on the up.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44From the forties to the noughties, in Europe, America and the UK,
0:00:44 > 0:00:50Petula Clark's career is an essay in international superstardom.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53Pop Idols, take note!
0:00:53 > 0:00:56# You're gonna be all right now! #
0:00:56 > 0:01:00People love her. They, she just is so great with an audience.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05Everybody looks at her and thinks it's little vulnerable Petula.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10Uh-huh. She has got chutzpah, she has tremendous drive.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13Nobody could survive in this business...
0:01:15 > 0:01:17..without having that.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20There's no doubt that one of the great marvels is,
0:01:20 > 0:01:23that she keeps coming, decade through decade somehow
0:01:23 > 0:01:27without having to do Blind Date, without having to become Lulu.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Without having to do the facial surgery, without having to become the nostalgia act.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34She does manage to maintain it.
0:01:34 > 0:01:35She's fantastic!
0:01:35 > 0:01:39She's a sexy woman. She really is.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44# I...couldn't live without your love
0:01:44 > 0:01:46# Now I know you're really mine
0:01:46 > 0:01:51# Gotta have you all the time. #
0:01:53 > 0:01:56Petula Clark arrives at Kennedy Airport, New York,
0:01:56 > 0:02:00with Kenny Clayton, her long-time musical director.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Only the waiting limousine gives a hint of her status in America.
0:02:04 > 0:02:12With Downtown, Petula Clark achieved the holy grail of British pop, an American number one.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15# Listening to the music of the traffic in the city
0:02:15 > 0:02:20# Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
0:02:20 > 0:02:22# How can you lose? #
0:02:22 > 0:02:28I was on tour in French-speaking Canada at the time when Downtown hit in the States,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31and Ed Sullivan, who was like the big guy over there,
0:02:31 > 0:02:33they were calling all the time.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36Eventually, I did the Ed Sullivan Show
0:02:36 > 0:02:40and they start playing Downtown and the place goes wild.
0:02:40 > 0:02:46# Downtown, everything's waiting for you... #
0:02:46 > 0:02:49It was what all great pop songs should be.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54In a kind of disguise it was about sex in a really great symbolic way.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57There's this hint that she's a posh lady and she's going to take you
0:02:57 > 0:03:00"Downtown" and aren't you lucky that she's going to take you.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02# Downtown
0:03:02 > 0:03:06# Just listen to the rhythm of the gentle bossa nova
0:03:06 > 0:03:10# You'll be dancing with them too before the night is over
0:03:10 > 0:03:12# Happy again... #
0:03:12 > 0:03:15When you hear Roy Orbison sing Only The Lonely,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18you're touched by greatness.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20When you hear Del Shannon sing Runaway,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23you've experienced something that you can't explain.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28Petula Clark and Downtown is one of those.
0:03:31 > 0:03:3540 years on, Petula is still performing.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Downtown was the song that opened doors in the sixties,
0:03:38 > 0:03:40and it continues to do so.
0:03:40 > 0:03:46But she's always maintained a kind of nonchalance as to how the song came about.
0:03:46 > 0:03:51- PETULA:- Tony Hatch said, "I think I've got a song." He said "I haven't finished it yet.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54"I've got the title, I've got the idea and I've got the music.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57"Would you like to hear it?"
0:03:57 > 0:04:00And I said, "Yeah, OK.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03"I'll go and make the tea and I'll listen to it through the thing,"
0:04:03 > 0:04:06and he sat down and played...
0:04:06 > 0:04:10SHE PLAYS THE INTRODUCTION ON THE PIANO
0:04:10 > 0:04:13I heard it and thought, "Wow! I like that!"
0:04:13 > 0:04:19You had rock music, you had soul music just assaulting the airwaves, and at that point Petula
0:04:19 > 0:04:23was identified with the old school and light entertainment tradition.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27If you were an artist from that, you didn't have a hope in hell.
0:04:27 > 0:04:32You had to really change your style and adapt in order to survive.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36And I came back with the tea and I said, "If you can write a lyric
0:04:36 > 0:04:40"up to the standard of that music, I think we've got a great song."
0:04:40 > 0:04:44I think she could sense that this was her way through, and it really
0:04:44 > 0:04:50suited her because it had that soul inflection but it was quite light.
0:04:50 > 0:04:51It really suited her voice.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55Certain singers, if you hear them you know exactly who it is.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Vera Lynn or Edith Piaf or Judy Garland.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Petula Clark falls in to that category.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05She has a distinctive quality.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08# My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine
0:05:08 > 0:05:10# Softer than a sigh... #
0:05:10 > 0:05:15The big sale in records is to younger people and she had that appeal,
0:05:15 > 0:05:18when she came and did Don't Sleep In The Subway
0:05:18 > 0:05:23and Downtown and My Love and some of the other hits that she had,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25one right after another.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29I don't mean that only teenagers liked her, everybody liked her.
0:05:29 > 0:05:34Petula was actually the most successful of the British female singers in America.
0:05:34 > 0:05:41I Know A Place, My Love, they all went right into the top five in the US,
0:05:41 > 0:05:45whereas, interestingly, the other British beat girls like
0:05:45 > 0:05:50Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black, they had success in the States, but it wasn't as phenomenal.
0:05:53 > 0:06:00Tony Hatch's song-writing partner, Jackie Trent, remembers the scale of the success.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04There were 13 hits in a row for goodness sake!
0:06:04 > 0:06:08And we thought it was like the goose that had laid the golden egg.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11As writers it was unbelievable.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16And everybody went, well, we can't get a Clark song because you two are well in there.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22But we were coming up with the songs that Pet wanted to record and were absolutely right for her.
0:06:22 > 0:06:28Tony Hatch rescued her and gave her this extraordinary kind of iconic presence that I think
0:06:28 > 0:06:34distracted us from what she probably actually is, as a songwriter, as a performer, as a musician.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38As something other than just being the sixties dolly bird.
0:06:43 > 0:06:49On the strength of one almighty pop classic, we've persuaded ourselves that Petula Clark
0:06:49 > 0:06:54is just one of the Sixties Girls, alongside Lulu and Cilla,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57Sandie and Dusty - perhaps even the least of them.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59But nothing could be further from the truth.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03Petula Clark is a whole lot more than Downtown.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05PHONE RINGS
0:07:05 > 0:07:09'It's no use waiting little girl. No room for you on the bill. Full up.'
0:07:09 > 0:07:16Petula's singing talent had been recognised when she was still a child and encouraged by her family.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18My Dad was in the Army.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22My mother was Welsh, therefore musical.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25I think that's where I got my musicality from.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28I used to sing at the drop of a hat really.
0:07:28 > 0:07:35I was very shy, so when I was singing I didn't feel so shy.
0:07:43 > 0:07:50So anyway, the chance came along to do this broadcast on the BBC
0:07:50 > 0:07:54for the forces serving abroad, and that was the first time
0:07:54 > 0:07:58I sang on the air and the reaction to that was huge.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03# Let's you think that heaven... #
0:08:03 > 0:08:08By the time she was eight, Petula was a star, performing
0:08:08 > 0:08:16alongside Vera Lynn and the young Julie Andrews, on BBC Radio and at troop concerts all over England.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23Six decades later, touring American casinos and concert halls,
0:08:23 > 0:08:26her childhood shows are still remembered with great affection.
0:08:28 > 0:08:34- How are you?- I'm well, well. How lovely to see you.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37At the American Red Cross Club during the Second World War,
0:08:37 > 0:08:42she entertained there, and we were there every night she was there.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45She provided a little break for us
0:08:45 > 0:08:49from the horrors that we were facing. This is her.
0:08:49 > 0:08:55She belted out a song at 11 years old that would knock you off the wall!
0:08:55 > 0:08:58Spotting her appeal, Petula was signed up
0:08:58 > 0:09:02by The Rank Film Organisation, and while her new fans were
0:09:02 > 0:09:06very much children of the sixties, she also connected with
0:09:06 > 0:09:10their parents, who remembered her as "Our Pet".
0:09:10 > 0:09:15She'd been around in our lives forever.
0:09:15 > 0:09:22My mother and father were absolute fans when she was The Huggetts and everything else.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26And all of a sudden I thought, I'm writing lyrics for Petula Clark
0:09:26 > 0:09:31and it was a bit daunting, but very exciting.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Jackie Trent's lyrics, were right for Petula.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41They weren't cliched, they were really convincing,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44and Petula could sing with real passion there.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47# I long to wake up in the morning... #
0:09:47 > 0:09:53Thanks to Jackie and Tony, Petula was one of the hottest properties in American entertainment.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57And it was not just the commercial success of working in America
0:09:57 > 0:10:00that was to have its impact on her career.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08- PETULA:- America was another take on show-business.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10Very, very professional.
0:10:10 > 0:10:16If you have success, then you are revered and you are treated...
0:10:16 > 0:10:21They do everything but tuck you up in bed.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25You decide you want 25 musicians,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27you've got them, and they are all good.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29You want two days of rehearsal.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32You've got them.
0:10:32 > 0:10:39In Las Vegas, they give you a house, a car, a driver...
0:10:39 > 0:10:44if you want, a cook, and everything it's easy.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50But if, offstage life was easy,
0:10:50 > 0:10:55when it came to facing an American audience, the pressure was on.
0:10:55 > 0:11:02I remember going to the opening at the Copacabana in New York, and she was positively heaving.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05She was sick with nerves.
0:11:05 > 0:11:10And I thought, "How does she go on and perform,
0:11:10 > 0:11:14"feeling that ill before doing a show?"
0:11:14 > 0:11:17Because the nerves took over.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20Soon as she walked out in the spotlight she was fine.
0:11:20 > 0:11:27She was whoosh, up and flying, but she was literally running to the loo and I thought, "Oh, My God!
0:11:27 > 0:11:29"How dreadful!"
0:11:29 > 0:11:34But there again that got her adrenaline going to get out there
0:11:34 > 0:11:37and do what she does, which is absolute perfection.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42The musicality of it was very important and I think I became a better singer
0:11:42 > 0:11:46in America because I was working with people who were better than me.
0:11:46 > 0:11:53And I was...just learning from them, just being around them.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57Petula's American polish was even beginning to impress British critics
0:11:57 > 0:12:02who, by the late sixties, were putting her in the top rank.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07It's almost a cliche to say that excellence needs very little dressing.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11The best television performance that Sinatra ever gave,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14was the concert he gave at the Festival Hall five or six years ago.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Just a man, a microphone and a small backing group.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21Only the very best performers can work like this,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24and I think Petula Clark is of this company.
0:12:24 > 0:12:29# You are the day or the night
0:12:29 > 0:12:36# You are the dark on light
0:12:36 > 0:12:41# Only my heart can know
0:12:41 > 0:12:56# Only my heart can know. #
0:13:00 > 0:13:06All through this, I was having to unlearn all the silly things I'd learned as a child performer.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08About being cute and...
0:13:10 > 0:13:14..the little tricks that kids do, they just do because it works.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17And I had to get rid of all of that.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20# ..the kids will say
0:13:20 > 0:13:22# That old man won't give a dime away. #
0:13:22 > 0:13:25I didn't have a showbiz mum.
0:13:25 > 0:13:29I suppose I had a showbiz dad, but he wasn't really at all.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33A lot of things written about my dad were rather unkind.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38He was a bit stage struck himself, I suppose.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43He had always wanted to be in the theatre. Wanted to be an actor.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45He was very handsome,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47he looked a bit like Errol Flynn.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49And he was never allowed to do it.
0:13:49 > 0:13:57So when a kid came along, who had a little bit of talent, he said, "I'm going to help her along."
0:13:57 > 0:14:03Petula's father, Leslie Clark, was very dominant in her life.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07Right up to the age of 25, she was still living with him.
0:14:07 > 0:14:12He chose a lot of her material, he really guided her career.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15He was the one who steered her into the limelight,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19and I guess saw her as a sort of British Shirley Temple.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26It was strange, I didn't have what you might call a normal childhood,
0:14:26 > 0:14:32because I was working and I didn't have many friends of my own age.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35I was working with adults in film studios.
0:14:37 > 0:14:42So in a way, I was sort of quite grown up,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45and in other ways I was totally naive.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50And I loved going to Wales.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58Wales was another place, another thing for me, you know?
0:15:00 > 0:15:04I was really like a little wild animal when I went there.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09I used to go up into the mountains and sing all day
0:15:09 > 0:15:11and play in the streams.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17And come back and look as if I've been pulled through a hedge backward.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19A bit, the way I look now.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21And, er, happy.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28I love that. I love the whole Welsh...sound.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31I love the sound of the language
0:15:31 > 0:15:35and it was a more simple life and I really, really loved it.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Everybody sang and I used to sing in chapel.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45And I went to school there when I was about six and came out Welsh.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51I spoke Welsh. It was great. I've lost it unfortunately,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55but I can still hear it. It's like it's there inside me somewhere.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01I was a little nervous about coming back
0:16:01 > 0:16:06because I know things have changed. Everything changes. That's life.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11But the people are still the same.
0:16:11 > 0:16:12The mountains are still the same.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15The stream is still here.
0:16:15 > 0:16:16And the rest? Well...
0:16:18 > 0:16:21The rest is just in my memory.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28But the memories of her working life are less tranquil.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33As the "child" in Rank's stable of actors, Petula was constantly busy.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36Her most popular role was as the youngest daughter
0:16:36 > 0:16:41in the Huggett family, alongside Jack Warner and Diana Dors.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43Come in.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46- Did you want me?- Yes, I did.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49All the time you're in my house you'll iron your own smalls.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51- You understand?- It's OK by me.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53They don't take long, Uncle.
0:16:53 > 0:16:58Don't call me Uncle, otherwise I might forget myself and behave as though I was.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04What are you looking at?
0:17:04 > 0:17:07Nothing.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12Despite appearances, Diana Dors was barely a year older than Petula,
0:17:12 > 0:17:16who continued to be cast much younger than her actual age.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20- It's my mother.- Crippen! Your mother?
0:17:20 > 0:17:22Yes.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26Growing up in show business at that time it was almost a formula.
0:17:26 > 0:17:34I had to be cute, dress a certain way and sing certain songs and they were keeping me very, very young.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38I was probably about 17 in that. Poor little thing.
0:17:38 > 0:17:43# Clickerty-clack along the track That's taking me back to you
0:17:43 > 0:17:45# I've had enough the going's rough
0:17:45 > 0:17:48# You're calling my bluff I'm through... #
0:17:48 > 0:17:50The transition was difficult.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53That was the tough bit. Adolescence was not good.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56I don't suppose it's good for most,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59but it was particularly difficult for me because...
0:17:59 > 0:18:04I was doing all my growing up in public and...
0:18:04 > 0:18:07by then I had a television show.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10I was pretty well known,
0:18:10 > 0:18:13but I wasn't allowed to wear certain clothes.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15I wasn't allowed to go out with boys.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21It was pretty well controlled and I was pretty unhappy.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25Because you started so young, you've got so many decades ahead of you,
0:18:25 > 0:18:29and so much awareness that you've got so many decades ahead.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32And trying to sustain this pace, this glory, this attention.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35And the dreadful possibility of losing that attention.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39It's clearly driven Petula. If she hadn't reinvented herself
0:18:39 > 0:18:42she might have just been remembered as the British Shirley Temple,
0:18:42 > 0:18:47flowering in the forties and whatever happened to that little girl?
0:18:47 > 0:18:53But while Shirley Temple never made the transition from child star to adult performer,
0:18:53 > 0:19:00and Petula was struggling, not everyone seemed to be having such a difficult time.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03Julie Andrews sort of emerged at about the same time.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06And in a way Julie Andrews became the queen
0:19:06 > 0:19:14of that sort of dramatic musical role and is taken very seriously as an actress as well as a singer.
0:19:14 > 0:19:22And Petula in a way that's where she could have gone and she was slightly hampered, I think,
0:19:22 > 0:19:28by maybe not very wise choices on the part of her father.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32He was seen as more of a hindrance after a while in the business.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36She maybe didn't get the parts that she needed to at the right time.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38Well, I adored my father.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42He could do no wrong in my eyes.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45But of course as I got older, you know what happens.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47"I want to do things my way.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50"Make my own mistakes," and all that stuff.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53And I was going through that.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56I would come home from the studio
0:19:56 > 0:20:00and not be sure if I was having dinner with my dad or with my manager.
0:20:03 > 0:20:09And it got very difficult, emotionally, very, very difficult, for both of us.
0:20:14 > 0:20:21Even after breaking with her father, Petula would continue to trust those closest to her with her career.
0:20:21 > 0:20:28Initially her pianist and boyfriend Joe Henderson, then her husband and manager Claude Wolff.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32And access to this inner circle was no foregone conclusion,
0:20:32 > 0:20:36as Tony Hatch's new wife Jackie Trent would find out.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41Petula was quite friendly with his ex-wife
0:20:41 > 0:20:46and then Jackie came onto the scene and it was interesting
0:20:46 > 0:20:48that they kept that from Petula for a little while
0:20:48 > 0:20:51because they weren't sure how she'd react and they were right.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55When she did find out she was extremely annoyed.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59And she didn't treat Jackie very nicely.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01She was quite icy with her.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05# No-one knows that you're so understanding
0:21:05 > 0:21:09# Even though my love is so demanding... #
0:21:09 > 0:21:12Couldn't Live Without Your Love I wrote on a number 12 bus.
0:21:12 > 0:21:19And I'd written the lyric, as a personal lyric, to me, for me.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21Right.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26Of course Claude comes steaming in, "Petula is in...
0:21:26 > 0:21:30"and we are in for three days, we need to record!" OK.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33What else do we have in the bag?
0:21:33 > 0:21:36Couldn't Live Without Your Love,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40and I went,"OK. Wear your writing hat, don't wear your performer's hat."
0:21:40 > 0:21:42Always wore two hats, two hats.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46One as a performer, one as a writer.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50And she had a big hit with it, and I smiled.
0:21:50 > 0:21:56# You wander around on your own little cloud
0:21:56 > 0:22:02# When you don't see the why or the wherefore
0:22:05 > 0:22:07# You walk out on me
0:22:07 > 0:22:10# When we both disagree
0:22:10 > 0:22:17# Cos to reason is not what you care for... #
0:22:17 > 0:22:21I can imagine her being quite jealous of other women.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25She's surrounding herself with men to an extent and allowing them in
0:22:25 > 0:22:29to her world to create the vision she has of herself
0:22:29 > 0:22:33and I guess it's another little hint of the side of Petula Clark
0:22:33 > 0:22:40that we do not know, that we've not been allowed, if you like, or have not bothered to understand
0:22:40 > 0:22:47that she's a lot more dynamic and powerful and what would the word be?
0:22:47 > 0:22:51Edgy, if you like, than the little cartoon we have of her in our heads.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58The cartoon Petula was a hangover,
0:22:58 > 0:23:00not just from her childhood and teenage years,
0:23:00 > 0:23:06but from the fifties when she was making hit records, but in an entirely different style.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09Women in the fifties, really in Britain particularly,
0:23:09 > 0:23:13tended to sing more novelty tunes, or light ballads.
0:23:13 > 0:23:21Nothing too taxing. It was strictly family entertainment. Quite popular.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24Artists like, Dusty Springfield was in the Lanna Sisters
0:23:24 > 0:23:27and they were doing sweet little novelty things like,
0:23:27 > 0:23:33Seven Little Girls In The Back Seat and Petula fitted in with that tradition at that time.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36Your women artists weren't expected to be too racy.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39It's all right. Could it be a bit quicker?
0:23:39 > 0:23:43- What, in tempo? - Try it in tempo, please.
0:23:43 > 0:23:48# Have I told you lately that I love you? #
0:23:48 > 0:23:49That's better.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53They were all sort of themed, sort of songs.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56It was the little waists and the full skirts.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59What we would all call very twee. Pet wasn't like that at all.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03I think there was a very impressionable woman.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07I think there was a very passionate woman inside her that wanted to get out.
0:24:11 > 0:24:18Petula's chance to break out came when her French record company asked her to perform in Paris,
0:24:18 > 0:24:23with a view to persuading her to record in French.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25They kept calling and calling
0:24:25 > 0:24:28so eventually I said, "OK, I'll come over."
0:24:28 > 0:24:30"It's just for one night."
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Little did I know that it was at the Olympia,
0:24:34 > 0:24:39which is, was the Mecca of show-business in France
0:24:39 > 0:24:44and Europe Number One was THE radio station and I sang three songs in English.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46Couldn't even say bon soir.
0:24:46 > 0:24:55In front of a huge French audience, in the Olympia Theatre and they loved it.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58And I to this day, will never understand why they loved it.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02In France, they really warmed to her.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05I think they saw her as an English rose
0:25:05 > 0:25:08and they loved that she sang French with a strong English accent.
0:25:08 > 0:25:13And I think they quite liked the fact that she didn't have much style.
0:25:13 > 0:25:17French women are so chic and yet she would,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20her husband Claude said when he first met her he wasn't that impressed
0:25:20 > 0:25:25because she was singing, she was wearing a dress that looked like two large pink lampshades,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29but they still warmed to her.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Despite the success of the evening, Petula had little enthusiasm
0:25:33 > 0:25:38for recording and performing in France, until the lights went out.
0:25:38 > 0:25:43She came to office the day after - I was a PR at the time.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50And the boss called me at one point
0:25:50 > 0:25:54because his lamp broke down
0:25:54 > 0:26:00and I was the only tall guy who could fix it upwards.
0:26:00 > 0:26:02And I jump on the desk, changed it.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06And I look up at this guy, this...
0:26:06 > 0:26:08Cette homme!
0:26:08 > 0:26:11I said, "Who's that? Who's that?"
0:26:11 > 0:26:14He said, "Ah, he's our PR man
0:26:14 > 0:26:19"and if you decided to do a record he would be taking you around Paris
0:26:19 > 0:26:24"and helping you out with the interviews, television, radio, journalists."
0:26:24 > 0:26:29And I said. "OK. Well, maybe I'll have a little try."
0:26:32 > 0:26:34She became a big star there in France.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38She really absorbed that chanson tradition
0:26:38 > 0:26:43and was hanging out with Sacha Distel and Charles Aznavour.
0:26:43 > 0:26:49Again, very light entertainment, but with depth to it because of that chanson tradition
0:26:49 > 0:26:54and the whole ballad format that Edith Piaf had set up.
0:26:54 > 0:27:00And I think Petula learnt a lot there and you can hear those influences in her singing
0:27:00 > 0:27:02and I think that gave extra depth to her singing.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06SHE SINGS IN FRENCH
0:27:15 > 0:27:20The wonderful thing about the success that I was having
0:27:20 > 0:27:25in France was that it had nothing to do with my childhood.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28It had nothing to do with my background.
0:27:28 > 0:27:33They just liked me the way I was and that was important to me.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36I could leave my luggage behind me.
0:27:36 > 0:27:42I'll give you three, four in to this, guys. Three and a four - in.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45Petula still works with her musical director
0:27:45 > 0:27:49from those early French tours - Kenny Clayton.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53They said, "Right the musicians go in the Citroen estate car,
0:27:53 > 0:27:56"cos it could take the bass, the drums and the three musicians
0:27:56 > 0:27:58"and we'll see you in Lyon."
0:27:58 > 0:28:01But on the way in to Lyon
0:28:01 > 0:28:04I'm looking at these gigantic posters
0:28:04 > 0:28:08with Pet's image on it saying,
0:28:08 > 0:28:13"Petula, Palais d'Hiver, Lyon, ce soir."
0:28:14 > 0:28:17I'd never seen posters this size.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20I thought, "My, God, this is good publicity."
0:28:21 > 0:28:23I didn't know what the Palais d'Hiver was.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Well, it's an arena and it holds 5,000 people,
0:28:26 > 0:28:32and it was packed and they were jumping up and down like a football crowd for Petula.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35I was just amazed by the whole thing.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39I was learning about another kind of show business...
0:28:41 > 0:28:45..because for a long time, for me anyway, in England
0:28:45 > 0:28:54it was all about wearing a big frock and singing a jolly song
0:28:54 > 0:28:59and finishing with a great big ballad and not getting too involved really, in any of it.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04And in France I was seeing something else.
0:29:04 > 0:29:09The first time I saw Piaf she sort of stumbled on to the stage
0:29:09 > 0:29:15in her funny little black dress, which was not chic at all, and she looked ill.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21And it was a black stage, no fancy tra-la-las at all.
0:29:21 > 0:29:25No special effects and I thought,
0:29:25 > 0:29:28"I don't know if I'm going to enjoy this much."
0:29:28 > 0:29:30Then she started to sing.
0:29:30 > 0:29:35And it was all about what she had inside her.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39And she could sing about anything - life, death, madness, sex - you name it.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41It was all in her songs.
0:29:41 > 0:29:45SHE SINGS IN FRENCH
0:30:04 > 0:30:05And she wasn't the only one.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09There were many other singers of that kind around.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12And it was quite a... quite a revelation really.
0:30:12 > 0:30:13# Pour toi
0:30:15 > 0:30:20# Pour moi L'amour... #
0:30:22 > 0:30:26She is an actress. I think, probably, she's an actress first and foremost.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29And I think the...the...
0:30:29 > 0:30:35the box of pop star that we put people in in those days
0:30:35 > 0:30:39was probably too tight a box, too tight a fit for her.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42And I think there was a lot more freedom for her over there.
0:30:42 > 0:30:50And, um... The French chanson, the Jacques Brel, the things she used to sing over there,
0:30:50 > 0:31:00I think possibly brought out the actor in her more than the uniform of a pop personality over here.
0:31:05 > 0:31:12In 1961, Petula and Claude were married in Paris in a frenzy of media and fan attention.
0:31:12 > 0:31:17Ya Ya Twist went to number one in France, and though it made the British charts too,
0:31:17 > 0:31:21a second wedding here was an altogether quieter affair.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29Well, I married a French man, so everybody thought that was naughty.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33Particularly the English, you know, the...
0:31:33 > 0:31:38"Our little Pet," you know, "she's gone off to marry a foreigner, a Frenchman."
0:31:38 > 0:31:45We had two children quite quickly and my career was really pretty extraordinary in France.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48I was voted their top singer and, er...
0:31:48 > 0:31:53I was also making hit records in Italy and Germany. It was wonderful.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56I was doing all my growing up, really, in Paris.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00It is a great pleasure to welcome to our programme Miss Petula Clark.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02Back in the UK, we might have had trouble
0:32:02 > 0:32:07seeing Petula's French adventures for more than their novelty value...
0:32:07 > 0:32:10SHE SINGS IN FRENCH
0:32:13 > 0:32:16..but Our Pet had definitely moved on.
0:32:16 > 0:32:22She did look a lot more chic and she became very international, really.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25She was able to sort of project that famous poise
0:32:25 > 0:32:29and that really helped her when she broke through into America.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32# My funny Valentine
0:32:34 > 0:32:38# Sweet comic Valentine
0:32:40 > 0:32:43# You make me smile
0:32:43 > 0:32:48# With my heart... #
0:32:49 > 0:32:56When I first met her, when we first worked together, in the sixties, and she did my television show
0:32:56 > 0:33:00and I did a special of hers, she's such a great performer.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04People would come to see her expecting to hear Downtown
0:33:04 > 0:33:06and the other songs that they knew of hers.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08Um...
0:33:08 > 0:33:10And they got so much more.
0:33:10 > 0:33:16They got, you know, a woman who knew how to perform, who'd been...who'd done theatre,
0:33:16 > 0:33:17who knew how to act,
0:33:17 > 0:33:21who knew how to handle an audience.
0:33:21 > 0:33:22She's just terrific.
0:33:22 > 0:33:30# Visions of sugarplums race through my head
0:33:30 > 0:33:37# You and I drinking yesterday's wine...
0:33:37 > 0:33:39I think there's much too much emphasis on....
0:33:39 > 0:33:44You can't complain. I mean, it's given her a wonderful lifestyle.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47Much too much emphasis on Downtown and I Know A Place,
0:33:47 > 0:33:50which are, by the way, great songs
0:33:50 > 0:33:54and indelibly stamped by her no matter who else tries to do them.
0:33:54 > 0:33:59And there's too little emphasis on her wide, wide range of talent.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02There isn't anything she can't sing.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08# I'm in with the in-crowd I go where the in-crowd goes
0:34:08 > 0:34:11# I'm in with the in-crowd
0:34:11 > 0:34:16# And I know what the in-crowd knows... #
0:34:16 > 0:34:19In demand for TV shows and concerts, not just in Britain,
0:34:19 > 0:34:21but in Europe and America as well,
0:34:21 > 0:34:27Petula was that rarest of British commodities - an international superstar.
0:34:27 > 0:34:33And with two young children, Bara and Kate, it can't have been easy to fit it all in.
0:34:35 > 0:34:40I think it must have been terribly difficult for her.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43To have the two daughters - Katie and Bara.
0:34:43 > 0:34:50They went from the Lycee in Paris to the Lycee in Los Angeles, New York. They were all over the place!
0:34:50 > 0:34:55And it must have been terribly difficult, because you're uprooting all the time.
0:34:55 > 0:35:02And I know her sister travelled with them quite a lot, so she could be there for the girls, you know?
0:35:02 > 0:35:06Um, yes... She took a lot on. She took a heck of a lot on.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10My work in America, I think, was really good for me,
0:35:10 > 0:35:14although it was complicating my life, if you like.
0:35:14 > 0:35:16You know, the constant travelling.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24You know, and I would finish a season in - I don't know -
0:35:24 > 0:35:29Vegas or Los Angeles or wherever I was, in Chicago, and instead of,
0:35:29 > 0:35:34hanging out and having fun with it,
0:35:34 > 0:35:37I would get on a plane, you know, and go back.
0:35:39 > 0:35:41So...it was a...
0:35:41 > 0:35:43It was not totally satisfactory.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47# Life is never what it seems We're always searching in our dreams
0:35:47 > 0:35:49# To find that little castle in the air... #
0:35:49 > 0:35:57In one way, it's a comfortable life, because you make money.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02On the other hand, they don't have a real mother like other children.
0:36:02 > 0:36:08Some, maybe Bara suffered a little bit of it. Kate, I don't know.
0:36:08 > 0:36:13We tried at the time to do, we'd do Las Vegas or Reno or Tahoe.
0:36:13 > 0:36:19To do that during Easter or the summer holidays or Christmas,
0:36:19 > 0:36:21to take them with us.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23But we've done our best.
0:36:25 > 0:36:31They have to make their own life and now they're old enough too.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34# Look! Look!
0:36:34 > 0:36:37# Look to the rainbow... #
0:36:37 > 0:36:44At the height of her pop career, Petula starred in two films - Finian's Rainbow with Fred Astaire
0:36:44 > 0:36:52and Goodbye Mr Chips with Peter O'Toole - but neither revived the success of her earlier film career.
0:36:52 > 0:36:54They were a couple of odd movies, in a way.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59The kind of movies you put an ex-pop star in anyway,
0:36:59 > 0:37:01not necessarily because she was an actress.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04In the Huggett movies, she was, er...she was brilliant.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09You couldn't see the join, she was in it, she was of it, and she was something.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12Who knows what would have happened if that had continued
0:37:12 > 0:37:17and she'd found a way to grow up as a film actress, if you like, and actually make films.
0:37:19 > 0:37:23From child star to movie star, through her rise as a singer
0:37:23 > 0:37:29during the fifties and her reinvention as a pop star, Petula's career had soared.
0:37:29 > 0:37:35The stumbling of her film career was the first hint of trouble ahead.
0:37:35 > 0:37:40The seventies was a very difficult time for sixties artists.
0:37:40 > 0:37:43On the whole, um, they were seen as old hat.
0:37:43 > 0:37:48And there was a whole raft of new bands, and really, um...
0:37:48 > 0:37:51the seventies was a lot more about bands,
0:37:51 > 0:37:55like big super groups like Led Zeppelin or The Eagles.
0:37:55 > 0:38:00And then, in the late seventies, it was punk and, obviously, at that point
0:38:00 > 0:38:02everyone tore up the rule book.
0:38:02 > 0:38:05# We're so pretty Oh, so pretty
0:38:07 > 0:38:09# We're vacant!
0:38:09 > 0:38:12# We're so pretty Oh, so pretty
0:38:12 > 0:38:15# We're vacant! #
0:38:15 > 0:38:21# You wander round on your own little cloud... #
0:38:21 > 0:38:26I think Petula handled the transition from the sixties to the seventies very well.
0:38:26 > 0:38:31And the main reason she did that was because she embraced that international market.
0:38:31 > 0:38:36She could do clubs, she could do cabaret, she could do pop, and she did it all with this
0:38:36 > 0:38:45real charm and she moved very easily within different circles, whether it was Frank Sinatra, Vegas or, um...
0:38:45 > 0:38:48a more hip sort of Motown crowd.
0:38:48 > 0:38:51She could move very easily between all those, um, places.
0:38:51 > 0:38:57# I've heard it all a million times before...
0:38:57 > 0:39:03# My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine
0:39:03 > 0:39:04# Softer than a sigh... #
0:39:04 > 0:39:09One of my favourites. One of the Tony Hatch, Jackie Trent songs.
0:39:12 > 0:39:13Tonight, it's for you.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20# You're the only one that I rely on... #
0:39:20 > 0:39:24Petula re-worked her back catalogue for the middle of the road.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28But the artist in her wanted more.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32OK, she was doing this cabaret thing, but also, she was exploring
0:39:32 > 0:39:40her own artistic depth with the albums Memphis and Blue Lady, which she recorded in Nashville in '75.
0:39:40 > 0:39:47And she was working with Chips Moman, who's a wonderful producer-songwriter,
0:39:47 > 0:39:53who's worked with everyone from Elvis Presley to Bobby Womack to Aretha Franklin. Lovely guy
0:39:53 > 0:39:55and a real enabler.
0:39:55 > 0:40:03# I wanna see morning with him I wanna see morning with him
0:40:03 > 0:40:07# No, I'm not made of stone... #
0:40:07 > 0:40:10You got the feeling this was at the heart of what she wanted to do.
0:40:10 > 0:40:15Sing great songs from a female point of view about disappointment and defiance.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17Sing them beautifully.
0:40:17 > 0:40:23Not necessarily have hits, as such, but sort of have album hits, I guess.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28And join in a world where there was Joni Mitchell and Carole King, James Taylor.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32I think there was a glimpse of the possibility that Petula Clark could have done that.
0:40:34 > 0:40:40# The room was crowded when I walked in... #
0:40:44 > 0:40:50Petula also recorded with Arif Marden, who - 30 years later -
0:40:50 > 0:40:56would be responsible for producing Norah Jones' 20 million-selling album Come Away With Me.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00# ..no welcome, not a trace
0:41:02 > 0:41:06# I felt so out of place
0:41:07 > 0:41:16# And then I saw your lovely face... #
0:41:17 > 0:41:23You know, it's 30-odd years ago, but you think of it now as a template for the Norah Jones album.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27You know, that kind of strange way of putting an unclassifiable female voice
0:41:27 > 0:41:31with this wonderful mixture of jazz and country and blues and rock.
0:41:31 > 0:41:35And that album - the Arif Marden one - does stand up and it is a kind of lost masterpiece.
0:41:35 > 0:41:41There's a new maturity there, um...and it's an area that really
0:41:41 > 0:41:44I think she could have explored a bit more, because I think it
0:41:44 > 0:41:51got to her that she couldn't really find her own intrinsic musical style and I think it was probably there.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54If she'd stuck in that groove, maybe we would've trusted that,
0:41:54 > 0:41:59but she got restless that it wasn't taken and kept moving about.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02By the mid-seventies, she'd become a... Just singing covers,
0:42:02 > 0:42:06just singing the hits of the day, and again really fantastically.
0:42:06 > 0:42:11You know, the only thing that dates them is the sound of them, not the way she sings them.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15And by the mid-seventies, she'd run into the final cul-de-sac.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18The reinventions, no-one was really noticing.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30Eventually, the struggle to combine her creative interests with her more commercial work
0:42:30 > 0:42:34and her family life began to take its toll.
0:42:34 > 0:42:39I was feeling really torn apart, so I stopped.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41I stopped for a couple of years,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44which was a very strange experience.
0:42:44 > 0:42:48Just not performing at all, really.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53And, er... By then, of course, we had three children.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56Our lovely Patrick had been born in Geneva.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01And I thought, "Well, OK..."
0:43:01 > 0:43:04But you know, there was something missing from my life.
0:43:04 > 0:43:10# I don't know how to love him
0:43:12 > 0:43:14# What to do
0:43:14 > 0:43:16# How to move him... #
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Before the seventies were out, Petula was back on stage,
0:43:19 > 0:43:22and staking her claim to a new kind of performance.
0:43:22 > 0:43:29When she took on the role of Maria in the stage version of The Sound of Music, the critics muttered.
0:43:29 > 0:43:31They needn't have worried.
0:43:31 > 0:43:38The show ran for over a year in the West End and Petula had found herself another career.
0:43:38 > 0:43:40A very good move, actually.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43Because there was a big revival of the musical in the eighties.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47It's a whole other circuit now and it's enormous.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50Um...
0:43:50 > 0:43:56And I think, um... it is the place to go for a lot of older artists
0:43:56 > 0:44:01or pop artists who, um, have maybe grown out of that young audience
0:44:01 > 0:44:07and are not quite sure where to go, but don't want to go somewhere too left field or too startling.
0:44:07 > 0:44:12Entering into the musicals to give yourself the eighties, to give yourself the nineties -
0:44:12 > 0:44:14that takes a kind of courage, and a kind of...
0:44:14 > 0:44:18Having to force yourself to deaden part of yourself to keep the career going.
0:44:21 > 0:44:23And it certainly did keep going.
0:44:23 > 0:44:31After the success of The Sound of Music, Petula was called upon to rescue a show in dire straits.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35It was a bomb. And it was not just a critical disaster, it was a financial disaster.
0:44:35 > 0:44:40I remember my lawyer in New York, saying,
0:44:40 > 0:44:46"Claude, you are taking a big risk, because if this show doesn't work..."
0:44:46 > 0:44:48I said, "Look,
0:44:48 > 0:44:50"you have two ways to look at it.
0:44:50 > 0:44:53"I'm looking that way the show doesn't work.
0:44:53 > 0:44:58"If Petula goes in it and it doesn't work, we will say the show's bad.
0:44:58 > 0:45:00"And if the show works,
0:45:00 > 0:45:03"it's because of her."
0:45:03 > 0:45:07And he said, "Well, you're taking a risk." And it worked very well.
0:45:07 > 0:45:12I had never done Broadway before. The idea of going into, um...
0:45:12 > 0:45:17a show which was in trouble was kind of exciting.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20I kind of liked that - the challenge.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24Producer Bill Kenwright was making frightening losses on Broadway,
0:45:24 > 0:45:29with Willy Russell's Blood Brothers and facing eviction from the theatre.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33Gerald Schoenfeld, who is the Godfather of New York Theatre,
0:45:33 > 0:45:36he owned the theatre, came to see me and gave me notice.
0:45:36 > 0:45:42He said, "We have Stacey Keach coming in, in Kentucky Cycle or something,"
0:45:42 > 0:45:44and I said, "I'm going nowhere."
0:45:44 > 0:45:48We were in my London office and I said, "I'm going nowhere!"
0:45:48 > 0:45:51He said, "What do you mean? I'm giving you notice!"
0:45:51 > 0:45:55I said, "No, you're not, because I've got..." And I sort of looked up there
0:45:55 > 0:46:00and I heard myself saying, "I've got David Cassidy and Petula Clark taking over."
0:46:00 > 0:46:03And he went, "Have you really?"
0:46:03 > 0:46:07I said, "Yup." I didn't have David Cassidy and Petula Clark.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10And he went and phoned his head office and said,
0:46:10 > 0:46:13"Bill's got David Cassidy and Petula Clark..."
0:46:13 > 0:46:16"Oh, well, that's a different story!" So we shook hands
0:46:16 > 0:46:20and I thought, "How do I get hold of David Cassidy and Petula Clark?"
0:46:22 > 0:46:27Playing a mother destined to see the tragic death of her twin sons,
0:46:27 > 0:46:32Petula, alongside David and Shaun Cassidy, defied the critics.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37Against all odds, they turned round the fortunes of the show.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40It was actually called the "Miracle of Broadway".
0:46:40 > 0:46:48So she - and David I have to say - but she gave Willy Russell and myself just dreams-come-true time.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53First of all, she loves what she does.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56And she loves people around her.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59She just makes you feel comfortable, you know,
0:46:59 > 0:47:02and sometimes you feel you're not doing your job.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04You think SHE'S taking care of everybody.
0:47:05 > 0:47:11Though still very involved in each others' lives, Petula and Claude had grown apart.
0:47:11 > 0:47:17By 1995, she was free to tour America with Blood Brothers for nine months.
0:47:17 > 0:47:22When you have someone as experienced and as professional as Petula Clark,
0:47:22 > 0:47:23you can throw the ball
0:47:23 > 0:47:27and know that it's going to be caught and tossed back to you.
0:47:29 > 0:47:33That's a trust and a comfort as an actor, that...
0:47:35 > 0:47:38..this is why I do it - to have experiences like that.
0:47:40 > 0:47:42# Tell me...
0:47:42 > 0:47:44# Won't you tell me
0:47:44 > 0:47:46# It is not true?
0:47:48 > 0:47:52# Say you didn't mean it! #
0:47:53 > 0:48:00She shows you her loneliness, she shows you her truth and her honesty with such a bravery.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05When she sang, "Tell me it's not true, say you only dreamed it,"
0:48:05 > 0:48:07and those two boys are in front,
0:48:07 > 0:48:13you believed that was their mother and your heart just snapped.
0:48:13 > 0:48:14# Oh, oh, oh...
0:48:16 > 0:48:21# Oh, oh
0:48:21 > 0:48:31# Oh, o-o-o-o-oh! #
0:48:34 > 0:48:38Now, you wanna take it from the top? Why don't you sing this verse?
0:48:38 > 0:48:43'I always think of Petula, besides from the extraordinary voice,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46'of her ability to write.'
0:48:46 > 0:48:53I mean, not only is she a great writer, writes great songs, but she is so prolific,
0:48:53 > 0:48:58that at one point during the sixties,
0:48:58 > 0:49:01her husband Claude was able
0:49:01 > 0:49:06to come up with two separate contracts
0:49:06 > 0:49:09for her as a songwriter. One under a pseudonym,
0:49:09 > 0:49:15of all people Al Grant, was the name he chose, and the other as herself.
0:49:15 > 0:49:20So, in addition to everything else, she made two very good incomes as a songwriter.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23# Oh, what can I do now?
0:49:23 > 0:49:27# My heart is beating just for you... #
0:49:27 > 0:49:33Despite the financial advantages of writing her own material, the creative possibilities
0:49:33 > 0:49:38of Petula the songwriter went unrecognised and unpromoted.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42Heart, co-written by Petula, was never released as an A side.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45# ..out of my head Yeah, heart!
0:49:45 > 0:49:47# You gotta stop now!
0:49:47 > 0:49:49# I'm feeling hazy
0:49:49 > 0:49:51# Because I've got it so bad! #
0:49:51 > 0:49:55Petula did write her own songs, but that was an area that never
0:49:55 > 0:49:58really got developed, along with her more artistic side.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03And I sort of feel that, again, that was something that was discouraged.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06Female singers - "Oh, well, that's not really your strength.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08"Song-writing's not your strength.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11"You just... We'll compose and you sing,"
0:50:11 > 0:50:14and I think she internalised that quite a lot.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18If she'd been born, you know, 20 years later,
0:50:18 > 0:50:24she might have been like Carole King - writing her own songs and really creating a new sound.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28# Tragedy's not my...
0:50:29 > 0:50:35# But it looks like it has found me
0:50:35 > 0:50:41# Wrapped its grey old arms around me
0:50:44 > 0:50:48# You're looking at a blue lady... #
0:50:48 > 0:50:50INAUDIBLE
0:50:53 > 0:50:59None of Petula and Claude's three children has chosen to follow them into the music business,
0:50:59 > 0:51:02though Kate, their middle daughter,
0:51:02 > 0:51:06is a visual artist, with her own take on her mother's career.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09I think I'm probably not your personal taste.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11Oh, no. No, that's not true.
0:51:11 > 0:51:15There's actually some albums, or some songs anyway that I really like.
0:51:15 > 0:51:21And... I love your voice. I think you have a really beautiful voice.
0:51:21 > 0:51:26Now all the songs, are maybe not the songs that I'd love to listen to, but some of them...
0:51:26 > 0:51:31I've even got some CDs here, sometimes when I work I listen to a couple of songs.
0:51:31 > 0:51:33- Wow.- Uh-huh.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35Scary, eh?
0:51:35 > 0:51:40- I like the Blue Lady album, actually. - Oh, the Blue Lady album. Yes - that's the one we did in Nashville.
0:51:40 > 0:51:42Nashville, yeah. I love that one.
0:51:42 > 0:51:45There's something about the Nashville and the Memphis albums
0:51:45 > 0:51:52that they have a certain sound to them that, er...I don't know...is a little bit strange.
0:51:52 > 0:51:54And I... And I like that.
0:51:54 > 0:51:58- I would have liked to have done more of that kind of thing.- Yeah.
0:51:58 > 0:52:00# It's midnight
0:52:01 > 0:52:06# Do you know where your baby is? #
0:52:06 > 0:52:12Blue Lady was recorded in 1975, with the title song written by Petula.
0:52:12 > 0:52:16Like Memphis, from earlier in the decade, it was produced by Chips Moman,
0:52:16 > 0:52:21one of American music's finest producers.
0:52:21 > 0:52:28Yet despite the quality of the line-up and of the songs recorded, it lay gathering dust for 20 years.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32It's odd to think of Petula Clark being dangerous,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35but in a record company in the early seventies definitely dangerous.
0:52:35 > 0:52:37And the idea of making a country album.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40I can imagine that it drifted off into
0:52:40 > 0:52:45the margins and sort of got held on the shelves, because it was oddly, er...
0:52:45 > 0:52:47almost an experimental album.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50You think of that period of Petula Clark as being experimental.
0:52:50 > 0:52:52Her trying to find...
0:52:52 > 0:52:58a new formula, if you like, that was comfortable for her as an artist, but also sustained
0:52:58 > 0:53:03her economic reasons for being, for the record companies and the managers and the producers.
0:53:08 > 0:53:14The money men had taken fright, but Petula had proved her bankability in musicals.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Trevor Nunn
0:53:17 > 0:53:23asked her to take on the role of Norma Desmond, the washed-up silent movie star of Sunset Boulevard.
0:53:23 > 0:53:28She delivered a West End hit, a two-year American tour
0:53:28 > 0:53:33and a triumphant concert performance opposite Michael Ball.
0:53:33 > 0:53:38When you're that close to an actress and a great singer,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41and you see in their eyes the belief in what they're doing,
0:53:41 > 0:53:44she became Norma Desmond. It was quite terrifying.
0:53:44 > 0:53:49And when she did the mad scenes at the end, it was so convincing.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52I sort of went, "Oh, my God, has she gone off on one?"
0:53:52 > 0:53:56And then, we'd finished rehearsing the scene and back to regular Petula.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58It was a great experience.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02I really went into that reluctantly.
0:54:02 > 0:54:08And I was scared. It is a very, very frightening thing to do.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12I've always been a nice... a nice lady, you know,
0:54:12 > 0:54:14in everything I've done.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16The Sound of Music, Blood Brothers.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20The "Aw" thing, you know, "Aw!"
0:54:20 > 0:54:22There's no "Aw!" in this at all.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25I mean, she is...weird.
0:54:25 > 0:54:31It would be very easy to stand on a stage and make a pleasant noise, but that doesn't engage an audience.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34You have to have something else, you have to share something
0:54:34 > 0:54:37of yourself. That's what she does - shares something of herself.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41# I've spent so many mornings
0:54:41 > 0:54:45# Just trying to resist you... #
0:54:45 > 0:54:51Well, I finished up loving the younger Norma Desmond -
0:54:51 > 0:54:52the one that we never saw -
0:54:52 > 0:54:58because she'd become this crusty, difficult, bitter woman...
0:54:58 > 0:55:02because she'd lost all that...
0:55:02 > 0:55:05that youth and beauty and fame.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08Instead of playing it hard
0:55:08 > 0:55:14and, you know, that kind of mad sort of nasty, um...
0:55:14 > 0:55:18I played her like a young woman.
0:55:18 > 0:55:20And it was...
0:55:22 > 0:55:29It's the only time in the show, when we saw, we had a glimpse of what she might have been like before.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31And I found that very moving.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35And I have to say, by the time I'd finished playing her
0:55:35 > 0:55:39for two years, which is a long time, I felt very differently about her.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42I actually sort of loved her
0:55:42 > 0:55:45and missed her when I wasn't playing her any more.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49BUZZ OF CONVERSATION
0:55:51 > 0:55:54Which I like actually...
0:55:57 > 0:56:01You think of Garland and Temple and you think of both of them self-destructing.
0:56:01 > 0:56:07Temple evolving into something, not to do with entertainment, making really a decision to get out of that.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11Garland staying in entertainment and completely destroying herself by
0:56:11 > 0:56:15having to face up to those problems of...
0:56:15 > 0:56:18of loss of reputation, loss of nerve, er...
0:56:18 > 0:56:21loss of voice, loss of material, loss of audience.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25All those things that Petula has faced up to and somehow penetrated and kept going.
0:56:31 > 0:56:38If you look at somebody's career and say, "You've been there, you've done that,"
0:56:38 > 0:56:43and my God has she ever, and done it in the best possible way.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48She's unique! She's totally and utterly unique, and you cannot take that away from her.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54We may have not got on very well at the beginning, but I admire her tremendously.
0:56:54 > 0:56:59Admired she may be, but after a 60-year career, in which
0:56:59 > 0:57:03she's wiped the floor with the competition, shouldn't there be more?
0:57:03 > 0:57:07Audiences who never saw the sixties know Cilla and Lulu.
0:57:07 > 0:57:09Critics rate Sandie and revere Dusty.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12But where's Petula in the roll call?
0:57:12 > 0:57:15I think her story is, oddly enough, the most interesting.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19It might be the most complicated, which is why we've had difficulty.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21The Lulu one is two or three moves.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23Cilla is the big Blind Date move.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26Sandie Shaw is a little bit of the Smiths in the eighties.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28But she's probably a better singer than all of them.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32Her ability to interpret a song is better than any of them.
0:57:32 > 0:57:33She was around for a lot longer.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37She's done a lot more interesting things, in a way, after.
0:57:37 > 0:57:40She's made better albums as works of art than any of them.
0:57:40 > 0:57:42Petula's almost too complicated really to fit into
0:57:42 > 0:57:46the nice comfortable boxes that making the canon has ended up being.
0:57:46 > 0:57:50She became too restless and we haven't been able to deal with that.
0:57:50 > 0:57:51- How are you?- Hello, darling.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55And Petula in her seventies is no different.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57If something,
0:57:57 > 0:58:03you know, out of left field came along, that I fancied doing, sure, I'd do it.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06It's fun. It's got to be fun for me.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09It's got to feel... Yeah, you know.
0:58:11 > 0:58:13So what next?
0:58:13 > 0:58:16Who knows?
0:58:17 > 0:58:19Watch this space.
0:58:19 > 0:58:24# When you say you love me You're not lying
0:58:24 > 0:58:25# So when people want to stare
0:58:25 > 0:58:31# I know I don't really care Just as long as you are there
0:58:31 > 0:58:36# I couldn't live without your love
0:58:36 > 0:58:40# Now I know you're really mine
0:58:40 > 0:58:45# I gotta have you all the time!
0:58:45 > 0:58:51# No, I couldn't live without your love
0:58:51 > 0:58:56# Now I know you're really mine I gotta have you all the time... #