Petula Clark - International Fame - The "Downtown" Era

The "Downtown" Era

By 1964, Clark's British recording career floundered. The composer-arranger Tony Hatch, who had been assisting her with her work for Vogue Records in France and Pye Records in the UK, flew to her home in Paris with new song material he hoped would interest her, but she found none of it appealing. Desperate, he played for her a few chords of an incomplete song that had been inspired by his recent first trip to New York City, which he suggested might be offered to the Drifters. Upon hearing the melody, Clark told him that if he could write lyrics as good as the melody, she wanted to record the tune as her next single. Thus "Downtown" came into being.

Neither Clark, who was performing in Canada when the song first received major air-play, nor Hatch realised the impact the song would have on their respective careers. Released in four different languages in late 1964, "Downtown" was a success in the UK, France (in both the English and the French versions), the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Italy and also Rhodesia, Japan and India. During a visit to London, Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith heard it and acquired the rights for the United States. "Downtown" went to No. 1 on the American charts in January 1965, and three million copies were sold in America.

"Downtown" was the first of fifteen consecutive Top 40 hits Clark achieved in the United States, including "I Know a Place", "My Love", "A Sign of the Times", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "This Is My Song" (from the Charles Chaplin film A Countess from Hong Kong), and "Don't Sleep in the Subway." The American recording industry honoured her with Grammy Awards for "Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1964" for "Downtown" and for "Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance of 1965 - Female" for "I Know a Place". In 2004, her recording of "Downtown" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Clark's recording successes led to frequent appearances on American variety programmes hosted by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin, guest shots on Hullabaloo, Shindig!, The Kraft Music Hall and The Hollywood Palace, and inclusion in musical specials such as The Best on Record and Rodgers and Hart Today.

In 1968, NBC-TV invited Clark to host her own special in the U.S., and in doing so she inadvertently made television history. While singing a duet of "On the Path of Glory," an anti-war song that she had composed, with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a representative from the Chrysler Corporation, the show's sponsor, who feared that the moment would incur the racist bigotry of Southern viewers. When he insisted that they substitute a different take, with Clark and Belafonte standing well away from one another, Clark and the executive producer of the show — her husband, Wolff — refused, destroyed all other takes of the song and delivered the finished programme to NBC with the touch intact. The programme aired on 8 April 1968, with high ratings and critical acclaim. (To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original telecast, Clark and Wolff appeared at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on 22 September 2008, to discuss the broadcast and its impact, following a broadcast of the programme.)

Clark later was the hostess of two more specials, another one for NBC and one for ABC - one which served as a pilot for a projected weekly series. Clark declined the offer in order to please her children, who disliked living in Los Angeles. Clark starred in the television series This is Petula Clark, which aired from mid 1966 though early 1968.

Clark revived her film career in the late 1960s, starring in two big musical films. In Finian's Rainbow (1968), she starred opposite Fred Astaire and she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance. With her role, she again made history by becoming Astaire's final on-screen dance partner. The following year she was cast with Peter O'Toole in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), a musical adaptation of the classic James Hilton novella.

Throughout the late 1960s, Clark toured in concerts in the States, and she often appeared in supper clubs such as the Copacabana in New York City, the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where she consistently broke house attendance records.

During this period, Clark continued her interest in encouraging new talent. These efforts also supported the launch of Herb Alpert and his A&M record label. In 1968, she brought French composer/arranger Michel Colombier to the States to work as her musical director and introduced him to Alpert. Colombier went on to co-write "Purple Rain" with Prince, composed the acclaimed pop symphony Wings and a number of soundtracks for American films. Richard Carpenter credited Clark with bringing him and his sister Karen to Alpert's attention when they performed at a premiere party for Clark's 1969 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips.