Paul Anka FanSite
Welcome to Paul Anka .org - Paul Anka's Bio
Paul Anka was born on 30th July in Ottawa, Canada. Paul grew up in a family of Lebanese Christian descent. The family attended the St. Elijah Syrian Antiochian Orthodox Church in Ottawa, and this was where Paul was exposed to music and joined the choir. Paul proved to be a child prodigy and under the guidance of Frederick Karam and Winnifred Rees became a precocious talent.
By the age of 14 Paul was writing his own songs and entering amateur singing contests. At this age, he recorded his first single, 'I Confess', which appeared on the Jules and Joe Bihari's Label. Paul usual break came when he went on a trip to New York with some of friends that were on tour singing as the Rover Boys, while in New York with time to kill he went for an audition with the famed ABC producer Don Costa. Anka sang a song that he wrote, named 'Diana, which was penned for a former babysitter. Costa was impressed and recorded the song with Paul. The result was a massive number one hit, that catapulted Paul Anka to stardom. Building on this success he release four more songs the following year,including "You Are My Destiny" and "Crazy Love," each making it into the Top 20, Paul was still aged just 17 and was the biggest teen idol of the time.
As well as a great singer, Paul was also an amazing songwriter and is responsible for writing Buddy Holly's mega-hit 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore'. Paul then decided to have a go at movies, and starred in 'Let's Rock' and 'Girls Town', the latter producing a second massive hot for him, 'Lonely Boy'. 1959 brought more chart success with "Put Your Head on My Shoulder," "It's Time to Cry," and "Puppy Love", the last song being written about an old girlfriend named Annette Funicello. Also of note was his theme song for the hit film 'The Longest Day'.
By the early 1960's the teen idol fad had lost some of it's steam. Even at this point Paul Anka had achieve so much and it left him wealthy and he created his own record label named Spanka. Anka went to do shows in Las Vegas being one of the first stars to show regularly. During this period he also hosted many television variety shows, most notably Hullabaloo, The Midnight Special, and Spotlite. Later, he took his act to a more global market, touring in Europe and Asia. On one of his tours around Europe he met his wife Anne de Zogheb, the daughter of a Lebanese diplomat, in Paris. Paul also continued his songwriting, and wrote the song 'My Way' for Frank Sinatra, and launched Tom Jones into stardom with his hit song 'She's A Lady'. Anka was commissioned more work for theme songs, and the most notable of this period was the theme to 'The Tonight Show'.
Anka's career then stagnated for about a decade and it wasn't until he teamed up with Odia Coates in 1974 to record the song 'Having My Baby' that Paul returned to the number one spot. The collaboration with Coates was fruitful with two more Top 10 singles, "One Man Woman/One Woman Man" and "I Don't Like to Sleep Alone". A year later Anka was commissioned to write a jingle for Kodak, the jingle was entitled 'The Times Of Your Life' and it received so much attention that the jingle was expanded into a full tune and Anka had another hit on his hands and reached Number 7 in the charts. Anka was awarded a membership of the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame in 1980, as well as a star on both the Hollywood and Canadian Walk of Fame.
Anka's focus now turned to the adult contemporary audience, playing a regular spot in Las Vegas and touring internationally, including his parents home country of Lebanon. He didn't produce many albums in the '80's and '90's, only concert recordings from his tours. however, he did return to the studio in 2005 to make the album 'Rock Swings'.
Paul and Anne, had five daughters : Amelia, Anthea, Alicia, Amanda and Alexandra.