The Downtown era

Neither Clark, who was performing in French Canada when the song first received major airplay, nor Hatch realized the impact the song would have on their respective careers. Released in four different languages in late 1964, Downtown was a success in the UK, France (in both English and French versions), Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Italy, and even Rhodesia, Japan, and India. During a visit to the Vogue offices in Paris, Warner Brothers executive Joe Smith heard it and acquired the rights for States. Downtown went to number 1 on the US charts in January 1965 and sold three million copies in America. It was the first of fifteen consecutive Top 40 hits Clark scored in the US, including I Know a Place, My Love, A Sign of the Times, I Couldn't Live Without Your Love, This Is My Song (from the Charles Chaplin film A Countess from Hong Kong), and Don't Sleep in the Subway. The American recording industry honoured her with Grammy Awards for Best Rock & Roll Record for Downtown in 1964 and for Best Contemporary Female Vocal Performance for I Know a Place in 1965. In 2003, her recording of Downtown was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In 1964, Clark wrote the musical score for the French crime caper A Couteaux Tir?s (Daggers Drawn) and played a cameo as herself in the movie. Although it was only a mild success, it added a new dimension — that of film composer — to Clark's career.


Ad for the NBC-TV special that sparked controversy even before it airedClark's recording successes led to frequent appearances on US variety programs hosted by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin, guest shots on Hullabaloo, Shindig!, The Kraft Music Hall, and The Hollywood Palace, and inclusion in musical specials such as The Best on Record and Rodgers and Hart Today.

In 1968, NBC invited her to host her own special in the USA, and in doing so she inadvertently made television history. While singing a duet of On the Path of Glory, an anti-war song she had composed, with guest Harry Belafonte, Clark touched his arm, to the dismay of a representative from Chrysler, the show's sponsor, who feared the brief moment would offend Southern viewers when racial conflict was still a major issue in the US. When he insisted they substitute a different take, with Clark and Belafonte standing well away from each other, she and husband Wolff, producer of the show, refused and delivered the finished programme to NBC with the touch intact. It aired on 8 April 1968 to high ratings and critical acclaim, and marked the first time a man and woman of different races exchanged friendly bodily contact on American television.

Clark subsequently hosted two more specials, another for NBC and one for ABC, which served as a pilot for a projected weekly series. She declined the offer in order to appease her children, who disliked living in Los Angeles.


Memphis LPThroughout the 1960s and 70s, Clark toured in concert extensively throughout the States, and often appeared in supper clubs such as the Copacabana in New York City, the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where she consistently broke house attendance records. During this period, she also appeared in print and radio ads for Coca Cola, television commercials for Plymouth, print and TV spots for Burlington Industries in the US, television and print ads for Chrysler Sunbeam, and print ads for Sanderson Wallpaper in the UK.

Clark revived her film career in the late 1960s, starring in two big musical films: Finian's Rainbow (1968) opposite Fred Astaire (for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe Award), and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) with Peter O'Toole. (Her last film to date is the British production Never Never Land, released in 1980.) After this, her output of hits in the States diminished markedly, although she continued to record and make television appearances into the 1970s. By the mid-1970s, she scaled back her career in order to devote more time to her family.

Herb Alpert and his A&M record label benefitted from Clark's interest in encouraging new talent. In 1968, she brought French composer/arranger Michel Colombier to the States to work as her musical director and introduced him to Alpert. (He went on to co-write Purple Rain with Prince, composed the acclaimed pop symphony Wings, and a number of soundtracks for American films.) Richard Carpenter publicly has credited her with bringing him and his sister to Alpert's attention when they performed at a premiere party for her film Goodbye, Mr. Chips.