Petula Clark

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the seventh verse of L'anguille (The Eel) by Boris Vian. There are three verses left to stuff in my head but the last one is almost identical to the sixth.

            I memorized the second verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos before breakfast, which would be the lightest I’ve been since December 20 if the scale is right. 

            I had to skip song practice because I had an 11:00 appointment with Dr. Max Xia at the U of T School of Dentistry. I left at 10:00 and got there at 10:45. It was my last time seeing Dr. Xia because he’s graduating. My bone graft looks fine so far. He cleaned some plaque from the inside of some of my teeth. He said the next step towards getting the implant will be another CT scan in about a month. If the scan shows the bone graft is healthy under the gums then perhaps in August my next student periodontist will put in the screw. Then after about four months the crown will be mounted on top. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home to buy five bags of cherries. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea with limeade. 

            I took a siesta from 14:30 to 16:16. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos at 16:50. 

            I was still behind on my journal so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with black olive paste, marinara, tomato pesto, two sliced cheese sausages, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 7, episode 9 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks who is Carol’s favourite actor. She says James Stewart. 

            Carol did a play with Rock Hudson last summer called I Do I Do, and in it she did a bump and grind. 

            Two children give Carol a koala piggy bank because she’s taking the show to Australia. In Australia she’ll be meeting the queen who will be visiting there at the same time. Good Housekeeping has hired Carol to interview Elizabeth II. Apparently though that meeting never took place. Elizabeth however reportedly enjoyed Carol’s parodies of her. 

            A Funt and Mundane sketch has the married acting couple about to perform in a theatre with a big movie producer in the audience. But Mundane breaks her contact lenses and her glasses before going on. Their play is a disaster as she stumbles around the stage either breaking things or facing in the wrong direction. In the end she knocks down the back wall of the set. 

            Petula Clark sings the 1973 song “Silver Spoon” by Judi Pulver. 

            In an airport Tim Conway is behind the security desk stamping boarding passes. Harvey Korman has five minutes until his flight. Harvey is going to Los Angeles and Tim uses a different stamp for every letter of the name of the city. Harvey has one suitcase containing some toiletries and a reel of film. The film is a documentary and he’s taking it to the major studios because he has hopes of winning an Oscar. Harvey gives Tim the key but it breaks in the lock. He uses various damaging tools to break open the suitcase, he sees what’s in it and closes the case but he has lest Harvey’s shaving cream upright and the pressure from the top of the case causes shaving cream fill it up and cover Harvey’s film. Tim tries to wipe it off but sends the reel flying while he’s still holding on to one end. 

            Carol and Vicki play Bernice and Sally co-workers lunching at the Nosh and Rye when Harvey comes in and sits down at a nearby table. Carol says his name is Jerry. Vicki asks if it’s the famous Jerry who dumped her. Carol fantasizes that as she’s leaving Jerry calls her name and asks her to sit down. In her fantasy she’s elegant, confident and not wearing glasses. He says he’s often dreamed of her and is miserable without her. She is cool and says she feels nothing. When the dream is over and Bernice really leaves she walks by Jerry’s table and tries to subtly get his attention. He looks up from his newspaper and asks indifferently, “How ya been?” She sits down without an invitation and it turns out he doesn’t even know who she is. When he finally does remember that they dated he’s still indifferent. Bernice leaves thinking that she just destroyed him. 

            In As The Stomach Turns, Marian is depressed because nobody has any problems to share with her. Arnold W. Minty, Canoga Falls’ second handsomest attorney who never married comes to see her. Harvey plays him as very effeminate and so the implication is he never married because he’s gay. She hopes he’s bringing bad news but he’s there to tell her to her disappointment that she’s inherited $50,000 ($338,000 today). The phone rings and she hopes it’s her obscene caller but it’s someone else’s obscene caller and it’s a wrong number. Her daughter (played by Vicki) arrives but for the first time she doesn’t have a baby. She’s reformed and joined the Girl Scouts. Lyle and Petula arrive and cheer Marian up by telling her they’ve come to contest the will. Lyle says Petula is Marian’s twin sister, identical in every way except for her appearance. Lyle says he is Hilton Obrien, Olympic weightlifter and freelance bellhop. Marian asks Petula for proof that she’s her sister. Petula says she has the same birthmark as Marian. Marian says only the brass section of the Tommy Dorsey band knows where that birthmark is located. Then Marian’s heavy breather calls and she invites him over. He arrives immediately and he’s played by Tim Conway in his old man character. The heavy breathing is mostly because he’s out of breath. He gives Marian his card which reads Obscene Phone Call Unlimited: Marvin Peterson and Son. He says he’s the son. Marian gets another obscene phone call and this one is fantastic. Peterson Jr. listens and it’s his father. Junior tells dad he’s making a house call. He listens to his father and laughs a ridiculous laugh for a long time that causes Carol to crack up and turn away. The father invites Marian and her sister to go skinny breathing by the lake and Marian agrees because then she can check if Petula really has the same birthmark. Marian’s daughter comes down to show she’s just had a baby and she’s married Hilton, who performed the ceremony in his capacity as a freelance rabbi. But he confesses to also be married to Petula. Petula confesses she’s not Marian’s sister but whispers in her ear who she is, which changes who Vickie is. 

            Carol and Petula sing the 1973 song “Yesterday Once More” by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis. 

            Harvey plays Harvey the K, a flamboyant and flashy TV DJ with a big pompadour, hosting a dance party. Vicki, in a tight outfit has gotten really hot over the years. She sings a song similar to “Willie and the Hand Jive” by Johnny Otis, based on the same "Bo Diddly" melody. She slaps a rhythm on the behind of one of the dancers as he does to her. This is Vicki’s best performance on the show. 

            Harvey sings and dances to "The Peppermint Twist" with backup from Carol and Petula, also wearing tight dresses. 

            Petula Clark was a music hall and radio star at the age of 10. She made her radio debut on the BBC Overseas Service in October of 1942 singing for the troops. She was known as the Shirley Temple of Britain and British troops would put her picture on their tanks for good luck. She made her film debut in Medal for the General in 1944. She co-starred in London Town, Here Come the Huggetts, Vote for Huggett, Huggetts Abroad, Vice Versa, The Romantic Age, Dance Hall, White Corridors, Madame Louise, The Card, Made in Heaven, The Runaway Bus, The Gay Dog, The Happioness of 3 Women, Track the Man Down, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Her first starring role was in Don’t Ever Leave Me in in 1949. She starred in Never Never Land. She acted in radio comedies such as Life of Bliss. On TV she hosted Petula Clark and Pet’s Parlour. Her first top 10 hit was “The Little Shoemaker” in 1954. She fell for a Frenchman in 1960 and moved to France. By 1962 she was the top female singer in France with hits such as “Chariot” (The original version of “I Will Follow Him”), “Romeo” (her first gold record), “Coeur Blessé”, and “Ya Ya Twist”. She also had hits in German, Italian, and Spanish. Her song “Sailor” was her first #1 hit in the UK. Jacques Brel gave her his song “Un enfant” as a present and her recording charted in Canada. She wrote the scores for several French films. In 1965 she became an international superstar with “Downtown” (for which she won two Grammy awards). Her song “You’re the One” was a hit for The Vogues in 1965. She wrote “Je chant doucement”, “Que fais-tu la Petula”, “L’agent secret”, and “Bleu blanc rouge”, which were hits in Canada and Europe. By 1966 she’d had hits with “I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love”, “This is My Song”, “Sign of the Times”, and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”. She starred in the BBC series This is Petula from 1966 to 1968; and The Sound of Petula from 1972 to 1974. In 1968 she did a TV special in the US with special guest Harry Belafonte. While they did a duet with Belafonte of her own song “Paths of Glory”, during which she touched his arm. This scandalized a lot of southern US viewers but the show aired four days after the Martin Luthor King Jr. assassination and received high ratings as well as an Emmy nomination. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in Finian’s Rainbow in 1968. She was performing in Montreal during John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Sleep in and provided backing vocals for “Give Peace a Chance”. In Canada in the 70s she had a major hit with, "Je Voudrais Qu'il Soit Malheureux". She broke house records starring as Maria in The Sound of Music in 1981 and 82, and Maria von Trapp declared her the best Maria ever. She wrote the music for Someone LIke You. She made her Broadway debut in Blood Brothers in 1993. She’s been a Vegas headliner since 1966. She was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in 1998. In 2000 she debuted her one woman show in Montreal. In 2012 she was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in Paris. In 2018 she released an album of French songs composed by French Canadian songwriters. Her autobiography Is That You Petula? was published in 2025.