Daily Mail - 01.08.2019

Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1, 2019 Page 29

He begged for threesome,

but British 60s pop icon

‘didn’t find him attractive’

Elvis’s indecent

proposal to me

and Karen

Carpenter, by

Petula Clark

she was a sixties pop star

known for her wholesome

image. But Petula Clark says

that did not stop elvis Pres-

ley trying to seduce her.

according to the British

actress and singer, now 86, The

King tried to persuade Miss

Clark and Karen Carpenter into

a threesome when they visited

him in his dressing room after a

concert in the early seventies.

While elvis was ‘raring to go’, she

rejected his amorous advances as

she didn’t find Presley attractive

and wanted to preserve Miss

Carpenter’s innocence.

‘Karen was lovely, but she was

kind of innocent,’ Miss Clark told

The Guardian.

‘I felt sort of responsible for her,

so I got her out of there.’

she had been friends with Miss

Carpenter since 1969, when the

american singer, then 19, per-

formed at a party after the Los

angeles premiere of Goodbye, Mr

Chips, in which Miss Clark starred

opposite Peter O’Toole.

Miss Clark said she felt like a big

sister to Miss Carpenter – who

died in 1983 as a result of compli-

cations resulting from anorexia.

Trying to protect her from elvis’s

charms, Miss Clark made efforts

to persuade her to leave but ended

up shoving her out of the room, to

The King’s amusement.

‘Then I looked around, and elvis

was at the door, and he looked at

me, like, “I’m going to get you one

day”. some people think he did. I

think he put out the rumour that

he did. But he didn’t. I didn’t find

him that attractive,’ she said.

By that stage Miss Clark was

already a showbusiness veteran.

she had first sung on BBC radio

shows aged nine during the sec-

ond World War and in her teens

appeared in a string of films.

she struggled initially to break

away from the child star image

and sing ‘grown-up’ songs on

themes such as love.

‘I think it was part of a moment

in people’s wartime lives that they

wanted to keep precious. Me

becoming a woman – they didn’t

want to see that,’ she said.

But she succeeded in finding

worldwide fame as a singer, record-

ing in German, French Italian and

spanish as well as english. she

went on to have a succession of

Rainbow, with Fred astaire, and

then Goodbye, Mr Chips.

In October she will return to the

West end when she appears as the

Bird Woman in Mary Poppins.

Miss Clark married French pub-

licist Claude Wolff in 1961 and they

have three children but she has

admitted they have ‘drifted apart’

and now lead mostly separate

lives, despite still being married.

They live in Geneva but she has

described their relationship as

‘difficult to explain’, adding: ‘he

has his life and I have mine.’

Last year Miss Clark revealed

that she had found love again with

another man, but does not appear

to be set to divorce Mr Wolff any

time soon.

‘There is someone and it’s very

nice and Claude knows about it.

There’s no secret,’ she said on

ITV’s Loose Women. ‘We became

friends first and the romantic side

happened later. I think that’s

pretty good too, because it’s not a

frantic passion thing.’

Of Karen Carpenter’s death,

Miss Clark told The Guardian: ‘It

was awful. I remember from the

first time I met her, I saw the dif-

ferent phases of this thing, I could

sense that something was going

on. she got into that Beverly hills

thing, of being skinny.’

‘I got her out

of there’

By Jennifer Ruby Senior

Showbusiness Correspondent

Angry OAP tips water on diners keeping him awake

Innocent: Karen Carpenter

Top: Petula Clark in 1969.

Above: With husband Claude

A SLEEP-deprived pensioner emptied a

bucket of water on to diners eating outside

a trendy restaurant below his bedroom.

Patrick Cahill, 73, showered a man having

a meal with his family because he was ‘fed

up’ with being kept awake by the noise

from a tapas bar in a trendy London

street, a court heard. Cahill, who lives in a

third-floor flat, claimed he hadn’t slept

properly for three months because of the

nightly din from La Bodega, just off Porto-

bello Road in Notting Hill.

He admitted common assault when he

appeared before Westminster magis-

trates this week. Misha Majid, prosecut-

ing, said the incident happened at 9.50pm

on Friday, July 12.

‘The victim was having dinner with his

family when all of a sudden he felt liquid

pour down on him,’ she said.

‘When he looked up, he saw that the

defendant had thrown a bucket of water

from the flat above.’ Cassan Lindsay, miti-

gating, said that although Cahill’s flat is

double glazed, he has to sleep with a win-

dow open during hot weather.

‘He accepts his behaviour was inappro-

priate. He said he just wants one night’s

sleep,’ Mr Lindsay said. Cahill will be

sentenced later.

Daily Mail Reporter

r Amorous: Elvis Presley

worldwide hits in the sixties –

including Downtown, I Couldn’t

Live Without Your Love, This Is

My song and Don’t sleep In The

subway – becoming one of the

bestselling British female solo art-

ists of all time.

she had her own TV shows in

Britain and the Us and revived

her film career, first in Finian’s

V1