Paul Anka

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Paul Anka

Paul Albert Anka, OC (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1990.
Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". He went on to write such well-known music as the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one of Tom Jones's biggest hits, "She's a Lady", and the English lyrics for Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way".

In 1983, he co-wrote with Michael Jackson the song "I Never Heard," which was retitled and released in 2009 under the name "This Is It". An additional song that Jackson co-wrote with Anka from this 1983 session, "Love Never Felt So Good," has since been discovered, and will be released in the near future.

Personal life

He was married to Anne de Zogheb, the daughter of Lebanese diplomat Count Charles de Zogheb, from February 16, 1963 to September 28, 2000. Anka met de Zogheb in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1962. Raised in Egypt, but of English, Lebanese, French, Dutch and Greek descent, she was a fashion model on assignment and under contract to the Eileen Ford Agency. The couple married the following year in a ceremony at Orly Airport in Paris. De Zogheb quit modeling after their second child was born. They have five daughters (youngest to oldest): Amelia, Anthea, Alicia, Amanda (wife of actor Jason Bateman) and Alexandra.

Anka has a son (Ethan, born 2005) with Swedish model and actress Anna Anka (born Åberg and earlier married Yeager), and is the stepfather of Anna Anka's daughter Elli, born 2002. Anka and Anna Åberg (she reverted to her maiden name after the divorce) were married in Sardinia during the summer of 2008. They are currently separated. She is thirty years his junior.
Anna is currently one of the women in the new Swedish TV3 show Svenska Hollywoodfruar (Swedish Hollywood wives). In Canada, Ottawa City Council named 26 August 1981 'Paul Anka Day' to celebrate his 25th anniversary in show business. A street in Ottawa is named 'Paul Anka Drive' in his honour. He attended Fisher Park High School. The woman that inspired 'Diana' lives with her family in Ottawa. After receiving a negative review for a 1981 performance in Ottawa, he swore off performing there and did not play there again for almost twenty years, until an April 2002 fundraiser gala at the Ottawa Congress Centre.
In 1991, he signed an investment agreement with the new Ottawa Senators NHL franchise. The agreement ended up being dissolved in an out-of-court settlement in 1993.
Some sources identify Anka's religion as being Catholic, others as Syriac Orthodox. According to Anna Anka, Paul is non-religious. §ource: Wikipedia

You are my destiny - Paul Anka

Biography

Born: July 30, 1941 Ottawa Ontario Canada

Anka had been writing and performing his own songs since the age of 12 in his hometown of Ottawa and across the river in Quebec. When he was 14 he visited his uncle in Los Angeles and convinced him to drive to Culver City to talk to Ernie Freeman at Modern Records about a new song he had been working on called "Blau-Wile Deveest Fontaine". Freeman signed Anka as the only white act on the label. That song became the flipside to another song, "I Confess", and was released as a single in 1956 and was only moderately successful but Anka was inspired enough to continue writing.

He took in all the big acts who came to Ottawa and even resorted to sneaking backstage at a rock n' roll revue of Fats Domino, the Platters, Chuck Berry, and Clyde McPhatter. He ran into the show's promoter, Irvin Feld, who blatantly told Anka to get out. He left quietly but made certain that Feld took down his name "because one day Feld would have to hire him to be on one of his shows". He also met and befriended such Canadian acts as the Four Lads, the Diamonds and the Rover Boys.

In 1956 Paul's parents gave him $100 to go to New York to visit some record companies and music publisher's with some of the new songs he had written. In New York he stayed with the Rover Boys at their suite in the President Hotel and they introduced him to Don Costa, a producer from ABC/Paramount. Costa was impressed and Anka recorded "Diana" which topped the charts and sold over 10 million copies. He soon got calls from promoters wanting to send him on tour; ironically it was Irvin Feld who put Anka in his newest rock n' roll tour and eventually became his manager.

With hit records through 1958-60, Anka became a household word, playing in all corners of the globe including being the first North American pop star to play behind the Iron Curtain. In 1959 he appeared in "Girls Town" (with Mamie Van Dorn) and "The Private Lives Of Adam And Eve" (with Mickey Rooney). He also did a set of concert dates at the Olympia in Paris, breaking all previous attendance records. It was in 1959 that Anka appeared in Feld's biggest rock n' roll show of all - it featured Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, Dion and the Belmonts, and others. Fate sidestepped Anka when Feld told him the he wanted him to stay because he'd promised his father he'd keep an eye on him, thus missing the fateful plane crash of February 3, 1959 that killed Holly, the Big Bopper and Valens.

At about this time the constant rock n' roll grind was starting to repress Anka's considerable talents; he was aware that he couldn't be a teeny-bop idol forever, but he was afraid there were few places to play as a lounge act. His fears were unfounded after playing the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas and other, eastern clubs and was the youngest performer ever to play the Copa in June 1960. At this point Anka was 20, a millionaire and had already written over 200 songs professionally.

In the early '60's he began scoring songs for films that he appeared in such as "Look In Any Window" (1961) and "The Longest Day" (1962). During this period he was dating Annette Funicello (for whom he wrote "Puppy Love"), but the tight schedules of their careers made it impossible for them to continue their relationship. Anka finally married Anne DeZogheb (one of Europe's top teen models) in Paris, 1963.

Then all hell broke loose as America was invaded by a new musical phenomenon: the Beatles, who put a stranglehold on many of the other teen idols vying for the dollar of teenage girls and boys across North America. Anka had already expected the winds-of-change and was already catering to a much older, and richer audience. During this period he was performing and writing; he only returned to recording after the British Invasion. It was during this time he wrote the theme song for Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show"

. One of his greatest songs, "My Way", was written for Frank Sinatra in 1966 based on a French song, "Comme d'Habitude" by Claude Francois, which Anka had purchased the copyright to. He has also written songs for the likes of Tom Jones, Wayne Newton, Sammy Davis Jr., Engelbert Humperdinck, and others. He has also helped out the careers of other artists such as John Prine, Steve Goodman and Odia Coates (Having My Baby, One Man Woman).

In the early '90's Anka became part owner of the new NHL franchise in his birth town of Ottawa. Anka in turn sued the Ottawa Senators in 1992 for $41 million on an undisclosed breech of contract claim. Also in 1992, Anka starred in and wrote songs for the soundtrack of 'Ganesh', which was his first Canadian movie role. In 1996 Anka sued his dentist after having a tooth fall out and into the audience of a show he was performing at Bally's in Las Vegas during his monster hit "Diana". Paul Anka works as the house entertainer in Las Vegas at The Trump Plaza Casino. and lives with his family in Carmel, California