Petula Clark: ‘Elvis angled for a threesome – he was raring to go’

From child star to superstar, the singer is still performing at 86. She talks about being consoled by John Lennon, her friendship with Karen Carpenter – and her close encounter with the King

Petula Clark does not like to look back. She does not celebrate birthdays – hates nostalgia. So spending several hours in a studio, listening to her early records – as she was recently forced to do, for a compilation of songs from her seven-decade career – was “kind of torture”, she says. She affects a groan, eyes rolling beneath their spidery lashes.

Clark is among the bestselling British female artists of all time, with one of the largest chart spans of any artist in history. She has been on Desert Island Discs three times: in 1951 (when she was just 18); 1982; and 1995. She made her debut as a child entertainer shortly before her tenth birthday in 1942; this October, the month before she turns 87, she will return to the West End as the bird lady in Mary Poppins.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2yqK1mi