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Petula Clark |
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- Lana Morris, Trouble in Store, 1953. A star (singer) at eleven, Pet fought the UK's Rank Organisation (and her father) to act her age (21) and refused being yet another comic's innocent girlfriend (in Norman Wisdom's debut). She was suspended until doing much the same with The Gay Dog. Then, Rank dropped her and she only had her father to fight.
- Suzanna Leigh, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, 1965. One blonde Brit for another as Petula backed away from more Elvis Presley crap. Suzanne refused to co-star with him again the following year in Easy Come, Easy Go - the reason, she said,, was his manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker. He’d anticipated that Paradise would equal the triumph of his boy’s 1960 Blue Hawaii. Hah! But what did he know about movies, agreeing, for example, to three Presley pix in the same year! For Elvis, Paradise meant meeting Tom Jones on-set… and The Beatles at his Bel Air home.
- Vanessa Redgrave, Camelot, 1966. Julie Andrews followed her Broadway success in My Fair Lady with Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s next musical about King Arthur and Guenevere. She naturally looked forward to filming both. Except (a) head brother Jack Warner stupidly chose the non-singing Audrey Hepburn in MFL and (b) Julie had no wish to put up with Richard Harris again after Hawaii, which is when he started his big push for what had been (the now too pricey) Richard Burton’s throne. The full Warner list for (a British queen, remember) ranged from sublime Brits (Julie Christie, Petula Clark, Marianne Faithfull, Elizabeth Taylor, Jan Waters) to the ridiculous Ann-Margret, Polly Bergen, Cher, Audrey Hepburn and Liza Minnelli. Plus Mitzi Gaynor and Shirley Jones, nine and 12 years after their all-American South Pacific and Oklahoma! triumphs.
- Patty Duke, The Valley of the Dolls, 1967.
- Nancy Sinatra, Speedway, 1968. Pet would have been a more believable IRS agent. Fortunately for her, Elvis decided to repay Old Blue Eyes for his Welcome Home TV show. Sure enough, Nancy's fame went South, too.
- Jacqueline Bisset, Airport, 1969. Dean Martin did his best to win Clark as his girl. Bisset, however, was the flavour of the hour. This was her fifth LA film in succession since Frank Sinatra OKed her to replace his wife, Mia Farrow, in The Detective in 1967.
- Carol Lynley, The Poseidon Adventure, 1972. A case of hey, Nonnie... No! “At midnight on New Year's Eve, the S.S. Poseidon, en route from New York to Athens, met with disaster…” The UK singer survived by passing Nonnie Parry to Lynley - who did not get on with her screen lover, Red Buttons, at all. Being, poor kid, 23 years younger!
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