I wanted children
--not showbiz kids
Petula Clark, England's gift to international
entertainment, stars in the first
of the new Wednesday at Eight series this week.
A past winner of our award
as the most exciting female singer on TV,
Petula has a French husband
three children, a home in Switzerland and
another in France. Stewart Knowles went
to the Alpine chalet to spend a day with them
THE SOUND OF MUSIC high in the shimmering Alps near Mont Blanc is Petula Clark reflectively doodling at the piano, while four-year-old
Patrick masterminds another multiple pile-up on the russet carpet.
"Accient!" he cries in alarmed Enslish, then relying on French to express concern for his toy car.
Born in Genera, 45 miles across the Swiss border, where his British mother and French father have a 12th floor apartment-- Greek speaking Nana Mouskouri lives on the same block--one day he will be is biglingual as his sisters, Barbara (15 next month) and Kate(13).
The girls in jeans and tan boots, are speaking French and playing backgammon for Swiss centemes. On the balcony, with its spectacular view, Claude Wolff. Petula's husband and business manager for the past 6 years, talks skiing. With snow covered slopes all around the lovely chalet they built as a weekend retreat at Megeve, France, three years ago, skiing for this family is as natural as Petula singing.
Claude with a touch of Gallic chavinism is, perhaps, a little "braver" and faster on skiis than Petula who broke an ankle recently. Of couse he is faster, Petula says later. He is heavier.
"You can see there is a little rivalry here," his wife adds. "He is faster but my style is better."
Lunch at 5,0000 feet above sea level, is a jolly, family afffair. Good simple French food prepared by the North African cook, is served amibly her
"Accient!" he cries in alarmed Enslish, then relying on French to express concern for his toy car.
Born in Genera, 45 miles across the Swiss border, where his British mother and French father have a 12th floor apartment-- Greek speaking Nana Mouskouri lives on the same block--one day he will be is biglingual as his sisters, Barbara (15 next month) and Kate(13).
The girls in jeans and tan boots, are speaking French and playing backgammon for Swiss centemes. On the balcony, with its spectacular view, Claude Wolff. Petula's husband and business manager for the past 6 years, talks skiing. With snow covered slopes all around the lovely chalet they built as a weekend retreat at Megeve, France, three years ago, skiing for this family is as natural as Petula singing.
Claude with a touch of Gallic chavinism is, perhaps, a little "braver" and faster on skiis than Petula who broke an ankle recently. Of couse he is faster, Petula says later. He is heavier.
"You can see there is a little rivalry here," his wife adds. "He is faster but my style is better."
Lunch at 5,0000 feet above sea level, is a jolly, family afffair. Good simple French food prepared by the North African cook, is served amibly her
will never forgive me-had been at work as a professional entertainer for five years by the time she was Kate's age. Now just 44 she continues her love-hate relationship with showbusiness and is determined to protect her children from its pressures.
"I am in this business because I like singing and I like music. The rest of it I do not like very much, and I suppose my children have been protected more because of those feelings.
From the beginning, Claude and I decided we didni want the children to become 'showbiz' kids. We did not want them to be over-hip. The girls are quite hip, of course, but in a natural way. At weekends, this place is full of their friends and there is no feeling that our kids know more or are more aware. None of it has rubbed off on them," says Petula, obviously with some relief.
They are different from most families in that Barbara was born in London, Kate in Paris and Patrick in Geneva, and they travel more. Last year, they spent six months in Los Angeles where Petula was working. "Professionally,Los Angeles is where I should be living, because although I am now in semi-retirement, most of my work is out there. We rented a house and put the girls into the French school there and it was really a kind of test to see how everyone would enjoy it. The girls don't like America very much. I can't say I like Los Angeles but certainly, from a work point of view, it is very exciting."
"I am in this business because I like singing and I like music. The rest of it I do not like very much, and I suppose my children have been protected more because of those feelings.
From the beginning, Claude and I decided we didni want the children to become 'showbiz' kids. We did not want them to be over-hip. The girls are quite hip, of course, but in a natural way. At weekends, this place is full of their friends and there is no feeling that our kids know more or are more aware. None of it has rubbed off on them," says Petula, obviously with some relief.
They are different from most families in that Barbara was born in London, Kate in Paris and Patrick in Geneva, and they travel more. Last year, they spent six months in Los Angeles where Petula was working. "Professionally,Los Angeles is where I should be living, because although I am now in semi-retirement, most of my work is out there. We rented a house and put the girls into the French school there and it was really a kind of test to see how everyone would enjoy it. The girls don't like America very much. I can't say I like Los Angeles but certainly, from a work point of view, it is very exciting."
But for Petula there is no lasting conflict of interest since her family comes first. "I had a funny childhood. It was in the war andd I was working. I have always tried to create something comfortable and warm for my family, something I didn't really have as a child. For example, I light fires. Perhaps they don't even need that, but I feel I want to try and make everything warm and cosy for them. Pehaps it is more important that I need to be giving it to them."
Petula, who fights this inner battle between being attracted to music and singing- it is a real turn-on, something quite sexual and sensual"-and repelled by the business itself, says she would not be appalled if her children wanted to be entertainers. But she would not let them start now. There will be no more child stars inher life as far as Petula Clark is concerned.
"I'd like them -to finish their education for one thing. I have never known anything else and never done anything else. I have no memory of anything except being a singer." She talked about her daughters. "Barbara is very beautiful and at the moment just concerned with being beautiful. She has got to that adolescent thing where she cares a lot about her clothes and is beginning to care about boys, although it is not very serious yet. "She speaks English and French perfectly, is studying Spanish, and not thinking of anything more ambitious than being an air hostess, and that's fine.
"Kate looks quite a bit like me. Both girls dance very well, with a great sense of music and rhythm, Kate is a wonderful dancer, in fact, and says she would like to dance for fun and live on a farm the rest of the time to be with animals. It sounds pretty good but I try to tell her that, sadly, it doesn't usually work out that way."
Petula, who fights this inner battle between being attracted to music and singing- it is a real turn-on, something quite sexual and sensual"-and repelled by the business itself, says she would not be appalled if her children wanted to be entertainers. But she would not let them start now. There will be no more child stars inher life as far as Petula Clark is concerned.
"I'd like them -to finish their education for one thing. I have never known anything else and never done anything else. I have no memory of anything except being a singer." She talked about her daughters. "Barbara is very beautiful and at the moment just concerned with being beautiful. She has got to that adolescent thing where she cares a lot about her clothes and is beginning to care about boys, although it is not very serious yet. "She speaks English and French perfectly, is studying Spanish, and not thinking of anything more ambitious than being an air hostess, and that's fine.
"Kate looks quite a bit like me. Both girls dance very well, with a great sense of music and rhythm, Kate is a wonderful dancer, in fact, and says she would like to dance for fun and live on a farm the rest of the time to be with animals. It sounds pretty good but I try to tell her that, sadly, it doesn't usually work out that way."
Petula knows the difficulties better than most. "To be really at the top, to be terrific at my job and get everything out of myself I know is there, I should go at my career 100 per cent. I should be living in the States, working with writers and searching all the time, but, of course, I don't do that..."
Pet turns down 90 percent of the work offered to her. Or, to be more precise, Claude turns it down for her. "He will reject something financially interesting if it means we are not going to be around on one of the children's birthdays. He knows that would be a problem for me. The husband/business manager relationship has worked well, though there are things even Claude cannot understand completely. "I need a couple of hours to unwind after a show. Instead of being very tired, you are really very exhilar- ated. Claude may have been sitting backstage playing cards, and when the show is finished he is ready to go home, but I would like to go out and dance, or sit around with the musicians talking and singing. "Claude is aware of all this, but he is not really part of it because lie hasn't been on stage. He hasn't felt this thing, this heat, coming back from the audience. But that is really the only difficulty between us, although it can be quite heavy at times."
There is another thing, of course. Petula would still like to one back to England. "I would like to live in London and for the children to be educated there and taste everything London has to offer. Claude wou1dn't mind, but there is the tax problem. Since he is also my business manager, he has to think about that."
Claude looked out of the window, at the snow-decked Mont Blanc range, and thought about it. Petula went back to the piano, while Patrick put one of his his cars in for repairs.
There is another thing, of course. Petula would still like to one back to England. "I would like to live in London and for the children to be educated there and taste everything London has to offer. Claude wou1dn't mind, but there is the tax problem. Since he is also my business manager, he has to think about that."
Claude looked out of the window, at the snow-decked Mont Blanc range, and thought about it. Petula went back to the piano, while Patrick put one of his his cars in for repairs.