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Petula Clark music biography continued...

England, Petula Clark morphed from a child star entertaining the troops during World War II, into a popular television host in her native Britain. It wasn't until 1949 that she recorded her first song Music, Music, Music, following it up with children's favorites, Where Did My Snowman Go (1952) and The Little Shoemaker (1954). After a stirring performance in the Olympia theater in France, she was urged by her husband, Claude Wolff, to record in French, and she soon went on to become the country's most popular chanteuse, even rivaling the legendary Piaf--during Piaf's own lifetime. Urged by her friends in Britain to record something in English, Clark allowed Tony Hatch to visit her in Paris where he presented his new song, Downtown. Clark recorded it and the rest is music history. Downtown skyrocketed to number 1 in the US, launching Clark's American career and earning her a Grammy in 1964. She quickly followed with I Know A Place which went to number 3 and earned Clark her second Grammy in 1965. Numerous top 40 hits followed. All told, Clark has had 15 top 40 hits in the US (two #1 hits). Internationally, Petula Clark has charted in the top 40 somewhere, sometime, with 159 recordings.



In the 1960s, Clark starred in several movie musicals opposite such legends as Fred Astaire and Peter O'Toole. In the seventies, she took her act to Las Vegas, where she gave lavish concerts in front of sold-out audiences, and in the eighties took a totally different direction launching a country music career, with her top-10 hit Natural Love. In the nineties Clark reinvented herself once again as a Broadway and London's West End star. In 2003, she was the recipient of the Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her timeless recording of "Downtown" and hit the Top 20 in French Canada - while preparing appearances in France to promote another new release, "Kaleidoscope." In September, her return to Paris in a performance at the legendary Olympia Theatre --after an absence of 38 years-- was a smashing success. Clark remains an exceedingly popular entertainer to this day, capping off a long career filled with variety and passion.