Sally "Petula" Clark (born 15 November 1932) is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She started her professional career as a child performer and has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 80 years.

Clark's professional career began in November 1942 as a child entertainer on BBC Radio. In 1954, she charted with "The Little Shoemaker", the first of her big UK hits, and within two years she began recording in French. Her international successes have included "Prends mon cœur", "Sailor" (a UK number one), "Romeo", and "Chariot". Hits in German, Italian and Spanish followed.

In late 1964, Clark's success extended to the United States with a five-year run of career-defining, often upbeat singles, many written or co-written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. These include her signature song "Downtown" (US number one), "I Know a Place", "My Love" (US number one), "A Sign of the Times", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "Who Am I", "Colour My World", "This Is My Song" (by Charlie Chaplin; a UK number one), "Don't Sleep in the Subway" and "Kiss Me Goodbye". Between January 1965 and April 1968, Clark charted with nine US top 20 hits in the US, where she was called "the First Lady of the British Invasion". Her international chart success was unequalled in recording history. In 1968 she was the recipient of the MIDEM international award for the highest worldwide sales by a female artist. This followed on from her 1967 MIDEM award for most sales in Europe by a European artist.

It is estimated that Clark has sold 100 million records. She also enjoyed success in the musical film Finian's Rainbow, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a musical, and in the stage musicals The Sound of Music, Sunset Boulevard and Mary Poppins, for which she received BAFTA nominations. Clark, along with David Cassidy, has also been credited with rescuing Blood Brothers from failure in her Broadway debut.

Petula Clark was born Sally Clark on 15 November 1932 in Ewell, Surrey, England to Doris (née Phillips) and Leslie Noah Clark. Both of Clark's parents were nurses at Long Grove Hospital in Epsom. Clark's mother had Welsh ancestry and her father was English. Clark's stage name, Petula, was invented by her father, who joked that it was a combination of the names of his two former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla.

Clark grew up in Abercanaid, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Her grandfather was a coal miner. Her first ever live audience was in 1939 at the Colliers' Arms in Abercanaid. She also recalls living just outside London during the Blitz, watching the dogfights in the air and running to air-raid shelters with her sister. Later, when she was eight, she joined other children to record messages with the BBC to be broadcast to members of their families in the forces. The recording event was in the Criterion Theatre, an underground theatre that was safe. When the air-raid siren sounded other children were upset and a call went out for someone to step forward and sing to calm them. Clark volunteered, and they liked her voice so much in the control room that they recorded her. Her song was "Mighty Like a Rose".

As a child, Clark sang in the chapel choir and showed a talent for mimicry, impersonating Vera Lynn, Carmen Miranda and Sophie Tucker for her family and friends. Her father introduced her to theatre in 1944 when he took her to see Flora Robson in a production of Mary Stuart. She later recalled that after the performance, "I made up my mind then and there I was going to be an actress. ... I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman more than anything else in the world." However her first public performances were as a singer. In 1945, she performed with an orchestra in the entrance hall of Bentall's Department Store in Kingston upon Thames for a tin of toffee and a gold wristwatch.

From a chance beginning at the age of seven, Clark appeared on radio, in film, in print, on television and on recordings. In October 1942, the nine-year-old Clark made her radio debut while attending a BBC broadcast with her father. She was trying to send a message to an uncle who was stationed overseas, but the broadcast was delayed by an air raid. During the bombing the producer requested that someone perform to settle the jittery theatre audience and she volunteered a rendering of "Mighty Lak' a Rose" to an enthusiastic response. She then repeated her performance for the broadcast audience, launching a series of some 500 appearances in programmes designed to entertain the troops.