Petula's Coming Back

by Lawrence Lauent

     Petula Clark has her second musical special on NBC this week, sharing an hour with singer Andy Williams and guitarist-vocalist Sacha Distel for a "Portrait of Petula."
      Miss Clark, just in case you've spent the last three years hidden in a cave, is a tiny, British singer whose recordings have sold over 20 million copies in Europe. She was re-established in the United States four years ago when "Downtown" swept across this Nation, blaring from every juke box and radio station, selling over two million records and being designated for a "Grammy" award.
      With such achievements, Miss Clark arrived in the United States with her two tiny daughters and her manager- husband Claud Wolff and shattered American reporters with this assessment of her own talent:
      "I am not a great singer. I don't have one of those fabulous voices. I have a style.., and I've learned how to entertain." She learned the hard way, through a lifetime of entertaining. Miss Clark came of a show business family and at the age of 9 was entertaining World War II armed forces as a performer for the British Broadcasting Corp. One of her childhood friends was another second-generation entertainer, a fresh-faced girl with a four-octave range as a singer. The friend's name: Julie Andrews.
      British servicemen who had listened to the singing of "Vera Lynn" during that war were resentful later when she appeared as a grown up. Her fans, apparently, had wanted her to remain a child.
      Along the way, Miss Clark worked in 25 British motion pictures, none of them memorable. She did work, however, with

performers such as the late comedienne Kay Kendall, the gifted actor Sir Alec Guinness and the talented Peter Ustinov.
      The hostility of her former fans sent Petula Clark to France and she arrived in Paris without knowing a word of French. There, helped by her husband, a new and successful recording career was launched.
      Her clear, precise diction added a new dimension to the big beat rock `n' roll recordings. She had added a soothing ballad sound and the huge success of "Downtown" was followed quickly by "I Know a Place." She explained: "I have never considered myself a rock `n' roll singer."
      The self-image didn't matter. Petula became part of the new beat. She could communicate it. And what matter if the words often were close to meaningless? Noel Coward, she reasoned, had been a master of sophisticated lyrics. "But," declared Petula, "Noel Coward couldn't write a hit song today. He isn't part of the new scene. Scenes for "Portrait of Petula" will include on-location filming in London, Paris, New York and in NBC-TV color studios in Burbank, California.
      Miss Clark's return to motion pictures was'expected when she arrived in the United States, despite her conviction, "I don't see myself on a beach with Elvis Presley." Instead, she has co-starred with Fred Astaire in "Finian's Rainbow" and in a soon to be released film, "Good- bye Mr. Chips" with Peter O'Toole.
      "Portrait of Petula," then, should be a picture of a rich, serene and competent professional entertainer.