SHE APPEALS TO the kids, their parents and their grandparents. Because she does. Petula Clark is the world's most popular female recording artist.
      Tuesday night she stars in her own television special-her first in America -when Harry Belafonte joins her for an hour of song on NBC.
      Although she is pressing 35 years of age, her 100 pounds are spread over her 60 inches so attractively that Petula Clark doesn't appear much older than her youngest fans.

SANG FOR SOLDIERS

The British girl, who scored a hit in America with her "Downtown" in 1964, had heen one of Europe's higgest singing stars for seven sears before that. With 25 million records in four languages, she has become a singing favorite all over the world.
     

Her name (pronounced peh tyou la) was given to her by her whimsical father, who managed Petula's early career. She began as a singer at the age of seven and two years later Petula was singing to the British soldiers over the BBC during World War 11.
      "I was a sort of British Shirley Temple," she recalls. "I had long blond hair and I sang Negro spirituals. It was all very ghastly."
      Years later, her style and repertoire much improved, Petula followed her records across the English Channel to France, where her fans called her Petulant Petula. It was there she met and married a French recording executive, Claude Wolff. He became the hard-working manager who guided her career to a point where she could demand-and get! - a quarter-million dollars for making her American movie debut in "Finian's Rainbow."