Paul Anka - Biography
Paul Anka is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor. Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hits like “Diana,” “Lonely Boy,” and “Put Your Head on My Shoulder.” He went on to become a major figure on the Las Vegas scene and wrote numerous hits for others.
Paul Albert Anka was born July 30, 1941 in Ottawa, Ontario in Canada. His parents, Andy and Camelia Anka, were Lebanese restaurateurs who operated an establishment called The Locanda. Anka first began singing with the St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church choir under the direction of Frederick Karam, who also taught him music theory. Anka also studied piano with Winnifred Rees. At twelve, Anka began writing and performing his own songs locally. By just thirteen, he was a regular act at nightclubs in the Gatineau region in Quebec.
Anka’s uncle, who lived in Culver City, California, convinced him to travel there to record one of his compositions, “Blau-Wile Deveest Fontaine,” at Modern. In 1955, at just fourteen years old, Paul Anka became the only white performer on the label and released, “I Confess,” with “Blau-Wile Deveest Fontaine” as the B-side the following year. The same year, Paul Anka entered a contest for IGA food stores. The prize for collecting the most soup wrappers was a trip to New York. After he won, he auditioned for Don Costa at ABC. The resulting single, “Diana,” about a girl in his church congregation (Diana Ayoub), reached the top of the charts in both the US and his homeland.
His next four singles all made the Top 20 in 1958 and he toured the UK and Australia with Buddy Holly. He released his full-length debut the same year, Paul Anka (1958 ABC). The following year, he provided “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” for Holly, which he recorded shortly before he died. That year Anka also released My Heart Sings (1959 ABC).
Never content to merely succeed in the Anglosphere, Anka made several attempts to crack various foreign markets. In 1959 he made first attempt to crack the French market, with “Faibles femmes,” and the Italian market, with “Dovei Sei.” The latter reached number four. Anka ultimately released fifteen Italian language singles.
Anka also wanted to move into film and TV. His first television appearance was as himself on NBC’s crime drama Dan Raven and he had film appearances in Girls Town and The Private Lives Of Adam And Eve. That year he also signed with RCA and released “Puppy Love,” written for his girlfriend at the time, Annette Funicello. He also scored Look in Any Window in 1961 and The Longest Day in 1962. He was also the subject that year of Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor’s Cinema Direct classic, Lonely Boy. On a sad note, during this period of success, in 1961, his mother died of liver complications from diabetes at just 37-years-old.
Anka’s success was scuppered the British Invasion but he continued to find work, writing the theme for The Tonight Show, Tom Jones’s “She’s a Lady” and the English lyrics to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and in general focusing on an older crowd, penning songs for Wayne Newton, Sammy Davis Jr., Engelbert Humperdinck and others. He never completely lost sight of teens, however, and in 1963, he married teen model Marie-Anne De Zogheb, the daughter of a Lebanese diplomat whom he’d met the previous year in Puerto Rico.
In the the ‘60s, Anka continued to focus his energy on the still loyal Italian scene and in Vegas. In Italy, “Ogni volta” was a number one in 1962 and provided him with his biggest Italian hit. After its success he performed at the Festival di San Remo of 1964. In 1968, he returned to San Remo to sing “La farfalla impazzita.”
In the ‘70s, Anka’s career further slowed and he moved to Buddah Records. In 1973, after ten years without a solo hit, he moved to United Artists. His career began to ascend again in 1974, when he and Odia Coates recorded “(You're) Having My Baby,” followed by “I Don't Like to Sleep Alone” and “One Man Woman/One Woman Man” all of which were Top 10 hits. In 1975, he recorded a jingle for Kodak, “Times of Your Life” which, after being released as a single, peaked at number seven. In 1977, he duetted with Régine with another crack at the French market, “Je dis tu, tu dis you” b/w “Rattrapons le temps perdu,” which was followed by a duet with Mirielle Mathieu on “Andy” b/w “Comme Avant.”
Although in Canada, Ottawa City Council named the26th August, 1981 “Paul Anka Day” to celebrate his 25th anniversary in show business, his output slowed considerably during the decade. In addition, after receiving mostly negative reviews for his Ottawa performance, he swore he’d never perform there again. In 1983, he released Walk a Fine Line (Columbia) and collaborated with Michael Jackson on the song, “I Never Heard,” which was released years later (in 2009) as “This is It.” Two years later he wrote and performed music for the Canadian Christmas cartoon, George and the Christmas Star.
The ‘90s saw Anka continue to branch into other enterprises. When, on September 6, 1990, Anka became a naturalized citizen of the US, it may’ve been seen as another move to distance himself from his homeland. However, that impression may’ve been softened for some when the following year he signed an investment agreement with the Ottawa Senators… although he did end up suing the franchise for $41 million. In 1992, Anka returned to acting, for the first time playing someone other than himself alongside fellow Canadian Martin Short in Captain Ron. He also appeared in the Canadian film, Ganesh. In 1993, he was inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1995, he appeared in The Simpsons episode, “Treehouse of Horror VI.” After a tooth fell into the audience at a 1996 performance of “Diana” at Bally’s in Las Vegas, Anka sued his dentist. Anka returned to recording in 1998, with his album A Body of Work (Epic), his first album in fifteen years. It featured duets with fellow Canadian Celine Dion as well as Kenny G, Patti LaBelle and “One Kiss” with R&B star Tevin Campbell.
On September 28th, 2000, Anka divorced his wife of 37 years and the mother of his five daughters. In April 2002, he mended a different dissolved relationship when he performed for Tim Horton’s convention delegates at the Ottawa Congress Centre, the first time he’d performed in Ottawa for nearly twenty years. The following year, his new girlfriend, a thirty-year-old Swedish model and first runner up in the Miss Sweden 1994 pageant named Anna Yeager (nee Anna Åberg) gave birth to Anka’s son, Ethan. In 2005, he released Rock Swings (2005 Verve) and was awarded a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto. A street in Ottawa was later named Paul Anka Drive in his honor. He was also honored by the CW series, The Gilmore Girls, on which a dog bore his name. He returned the compliment by appearing as himself in the episode “The Real Paul Anka” in 2006. Two years later, Anka and Åberg were married but their relationship was both rocky and short-lived. In 2008, his new wife was arrested for throwing a piece of ice at Anka’s head. The following year, she called the police, claiming that Anka had pulled a gun on her after she fired the family’s maid. Afterward, they divorced. After the October release of “This is It,” Anka successfully sued for fifty percent of the songwriting royalties. Another of his and Jacko’s collaborations, “Love Never Felt So Good,” was discovered shortly after. Meanwhile, Anka returns to Canada several times a year, regularly playing to sold out crowds at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario in Canada. Anka still works several weeks a year in Las Vegas at The Trump Plaza Casino. In 2011 he released Songs Of December.
