David Cassidy in the News
Petula Clark in gritty melodrama about England's divisive society
Pop star of the '60s co-stars with David Cassidy
February 12, 1995
By Sylvia Rubin
San Francisco Chronicle
If you were anywhere near a radio in the mid-1960s, you heard Petula Clark's hit songs. It takes only a minute for the melody of "Downtown" to come back to you, as if the song never left the dial.
The day Clark recorded it was like any other. "I sang it, I thought, `Well, this is a nice song.' " To her, the recording is "this little black thing with a hole in the middle. You can't possibly have any idea how far-reaching it can become, how many lives it can affect."
Her name is synonymous with that upbeat song and a string of Top 40 hits in the mid-'60s that sold tens of millions of copies. But while the name brings instant recognition, hers is not the kind of enduring celebrity that causes people to stop and stare. A walk through the Financial District recently brought no notice from passers-by.
POOR CLEANING WOMAN
She will be in San Francisco for a month, not for a concert, but to play a poor cleaning woman in Willy Russell's musical "Blood Brothers," a gritty melodrama about British class differences. It opens Tuesday at the Golden Gate Theatre.
So, the question may come to mind, what's Petula Clark doing playing the sad but gutsy Mrs. Johnstone, a single mother with nine children and no hope to break out of her class?
In fact, when she first was offered the role, Clark turned it down. Later, she says, she gradually was won over by the challenge. The play, written by Liverpudlian Russell, who wrote "Shirley Valentine" and "Educating Rita," is an attack on Thatcher-era England, telling the story of class differences through the lives of Mrs. Johnstone's twin sons who had been separated at birth. One is raised in privilege, the other in poverty. Years later, they accidentally meet and become friends.
The setting is Liverpool. Clark is from Surrey, in the south. "I didn't honestly think I could play that role," Clark says. "I'm such a Southerner, you see. The Northerners are more friendly, generally. More resilient. I didn't think I could get under her skin."
It's not hard to understand her concerns. Clark, who gives her age as 60, has been married for more than 30 years to a successful French businessman with whom she has three children. Ask her where they live, and she says it's hard to answer. They maintain residences in France, Switzerland, England and Miami, where a son and daughter live. "My son is a Rollerblading, Jeep-driving American football fan," she says with a laugh. "His accent has certainly softened up."
Hers is purely "Masterpiece Theatre," as is her demeanor, which is slightly reserved but not unfriendly. She is petite and blue-eyed, which often leads people to declare her "cute," a description that has always irritated her. "I'm little and blond. I'm not cute," she says with some exasperation.
The frustration goes back to the years when she was forced to be cute as a child star in England during World War II. She started singing professionally on the BBC radio at age 8, had her own radio show, "Pet's Parlour," not long after, and made 25 movies -- she once told an interviewer that they bound her breasts when her figure filled out -- until she hit adolescence. (She says the record books, which list her age as 62, have got it wrong, because she lied about her age when she was a child star so she could perform.) "I worked hard. We did shows here, shows there. Radio, stage, movies. I was a working child, I really was."
By the time "Downtown," "I Know a Place" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway" became international hits, she had long been a star in Great Britain.
WILD SUCCESS IN THE '60S
After her wild success in the '60s, Clark made more films, such as "Finian's Rainbow" with Fred Astaire, and the musical remake of "Goodbye Mr. Chips" with Peter O'Toole. She continued to record and sing live, once playing Las Vegas with Woody Allen as her opening act.
Her most recent album came out two years ago and a new one is in the works. "There's some Nashville album of mine from the '70s I hear they've dug up," she says, shaking her blond curls. "As I remember it, it was never finished. I guess they'll finish it up somehow. I have no say about it."
EUROPEAN TOUR POSSIBLE
After she finishes her run with "Blood Brothers," Clark may go on a concert tour in Europe, or possibly do another play. "You know what sounds like fun? `Shirley Valentine' with music," she says. That would be Russell's play (and movie) about an unhappy housewife who leaves her doltish husband behind and takes an impulsive trip to Greece, where she meets the sexy man of her dreams. "I might have a word with Willy about that," Clark says.
American audiences were largely unfamiliar with Clark as an actress until she made her Broadway debut in "Blood Brothers" in the summer of 1993.
The play opened in London in the mid-'80s, closing after six months -- but it was revived a couple of years later to much acclaim, and has played in the West End for six years.
It did moderately well in New York, where less class-conscious Americans didn't embrace it fully. Frank Rich of the New York Times gave it a lukewarm review, but the show was nominated for six Tonys in 1993. Still, it lost money.
Clark stepped into the Broadway production last summer after a cast overhaul that also brought in real-life brothers David and Shaun Cassidy as the twins. After that, the show began to make a profit. David Cassidy and Clark reprise their roles here; the other brother is played by Tif Luckenbill.
"It took me three months to really get to know the character I'm playing," Clark said recently over lunch. "And now I think I know her very well. As soon as I put on her clothes, I am her."
The Northern dialect came easy, she says, demonstrating how Mrs. Johnstone might speak and sounding every bit as Liverpudlian as Ringo Starr. Playing the mother of grown children was not a stretch either; Clark's eldest is 32.
But playing a woman forever stuck in her class took some work. "I have a responsibility to portray this woman correctly. I'm a British actress here in America, giving American audiences a slice of Liverpool life," she says earnestly. "I really can't slouch through this."
"BLOOD BROTHERS"
The Willy Russell musical-drama starring Petula Clark, David Cassidy and Tif Lukenbill:
-- Plays Tuesday through March 12 at the Golden Gate Theatre, Market and Taylor streets, San Francisco.
-- Show times are 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays; and 3 p.m. Sundays.
-- Tickets, at $25 to $55, are available at the theater box office and at BASS ticket centers. Call (415) 776-1999 or (510) 762-BASS.
