Continued from part 1

Paul Anka doesn't live here anymore: Part 2

Near year's end in 1956, he pestered his father for permission to travel to New York City and visit more record companies. While his parents were supportive of Paul, especially Camelia, who would take some of the money she earned as a clerk at Sears to help support her son's dreams, his father, Andy, was stricter. Although initially refusing to let Paul go, Andy Anka eventually relented, but not without a warning: This would be Paul's last shot at stardom - if it didn't work out, he'd be coming home to do something else.

Anka took a bus to New York and as soon as he arrived, began making the rounds. He eventually snagged an interview with Don Costa, an executive at ABC/Paramount Records who agreed to give the young Canadian a few minutes of his time. Paul sat down at a piano and played some of his songs for Mr. Costa, who was so impressed he immediately called in other executives. They all agreed the kid had talent. Days later, Andy Anka was in New York signing a contract on his son's behalf.

And Paul Anka, 15 years old, would never come home again.

Don Costa decided Diana would be Anka's breakthrough hit. Excited about a possible hit record, Paul wrote to Diana in May 1957, enthusiastically describing his upcoming recording. ``Well, in twenty-hours I'll be recording my next record. I have picked all the material and all the arrangements are made. You want me to tell you .... it's Diana. It's favoured as the hit record by everyone, they said it is a different sound and it'll be the big one. You should hear the arrangement on it. Now listen, don't you say a word or I'll ... never mind I won't do anything. I'll just kiss you if it sells, cause you started it,'' he said in the letter.

Within weeks, Diana was the number one song in the world and would eventually become the second-biggest-selling song ever recorded, behind Bing Crosby's White Christmas. The kid from Bayswater Avenue, Andy and Camelia's kid, was a success.

It was a bit of a shock for his hometown when Paul's song put Ottawa on the musical map. He was the first pop star from the capital to make it big, and the city went wild for their hometown boy.

Reporters descended on Diana Ayoub who struggled to hold onto even a little bit of her normal life. She was badgered by the press and constantly snooped upon. She had gone from Paul's friend, the object of his schoolboy affection to his ``babysitter,'' the older woman Paul could only love from afar, his forbidden love.

``I had reporters waiting for me when I graduated from high school,'' says Diana. ``Guys would not ask me out because their picture would be in the newspaper the next day. People were showing up at my house all the time. One time my father found a stepladder rising to my bedroom.''

Shortly after Diana stormed up the charts, Irving Feld, the legendary New York-based manager long associated with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus, became Anka's manager. Feld, who two years earlier had thrown Anka out of that Fats Domino concert, quickly began reshaping the teenager from a chubby, baby-faced boy singer into a sophisticated entertainer. This was exactly the push Anka needed to get to the next rung in showbusiness.

``Many nights we sat down together and discussed this thing into the wee hours of the morning and I told him, `Paul, you no longer belong to yourself,''' Feld said in Lonely Boy, the 1962 NFB documentary on Anka's life. ``You belong to the world.''

Laying thick the hyperbole, Feld continued: ``God gave you something that I don't think he's given anyone in the past 500 years. But he's given it you to make other people throughout the world happy.''

According to Feld at the time: ``I truthfully believe that Paul will be the biggest star with an overall career that this world has ever known.''

It was just this kind of bragging that earlier seemed to annoy people in Ottawa. At a 1956 concert at the YMCA Auditorium, Anka was booed by a throng of teenagers who threw flashbulbs, chairs and fruit onto the stage in an effort to embarrass the brash young singer who had bragged to them he would make it one day in showbusiness.

``It was just some friends of mine trying to attract my attention,'' Anka says today, brushing aside the incident in an interview. Still, he was hurt and he vowed never to play Ottawa again.

For three years, Anka worked hard to overcome the ``boy singer'' label. By 1961, he played the famed Copacabana in New York City, at 20, the youngest performer to do so. About the same time, Anka wrote a theme song for Johnny Carson, who was about to debut as the host of the Tonight Show. He appeared in a few forgettable teen films - Look In Any Window and Girls Town - but a big break came with a small role in the 1962 war drama The Longest Day which he wrote the theme song for and for which he would receive an Oscar nomination.

He replaced singer Steve Lawrence on Broadway in the title role of Sammy Glick in What Makes Sammy Run. The play, about a ruthless young man, partly mirrored Anka's own rise in showbusiness and eerily shadowed his life. The play, says Anka, ``was totally up my alley'' but soon he found Broadway, with its regimen of rehearsals, nightly performances and strict adherence to script, unsatisfying. It left no room for improvisation or for Anka to impose his own stamp on the show. He stayed with the play for only a month.

Roman Kroitor, who was co-director of NFB's Lonely Boy and followed Anka on his early tours in the U.S. where he was mobbed by adoring girls, says Anka was an ``interesting phenomenon.''

``He was just a kid from Ottawa who decided he wanted to be a music star and he did it. That's kind of remarkable.''

Mr. Kroitor says Anka agreed to the cinema-vertite-style filmmaking in which a cameraman filmed him onstage, in his dressing rooms and on the Atlantic City boardwalk with hordes of young fans.

``He was not uptight about anything and he never found us obtrusive. He said he wanted us to show an unbiased picture of him. I think we did.''

At the height of his popularity in the '60s, Anka's mother, Camelia, died. She and paul's father had left Ottawa and were living in Tenafly, New Jersey. The 37-year-old woman collapsed at the wheel of her car and died later from complications from diabetes. It was 1961.

``At first I was kind of stunned. But her death motivated me and I had to really rise up and take care of the family. She was always in my mind because she was the one who had helped me at the beginning,'' says Anka.

Paul's uncle, Frank Tannis, says her death was a blow to the young singer. ``Paul was very sorrowful and took it very hard at the time because he was close to his mother,'' says Mr. Tannis, 74, Camelia's brother. He says Paul tried to remain close to his brother and sister after their mother's death, but his tour schedule always prevented that.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1962, Anka met Anne de Zogheb, daughter of Count Charles de Zogheb. Of Parisian and Egyptian descent, she was a fashion model on assignment and Anka was smitten by the tall blond, slim woman who was under contract to the Eileen Ford Agency. She was married and in the midst of a divorce, and Paul was vacationing in Puerto Rico with another woman.

They were married the following year in a lavish ceremony at Orly Airport in Paris. His wife gave up her modeling career after they married, saying in an interview: ``I believe a wife's place is with her husband. That is the way we both want it to be and I always accompany Paul wherever he goes.''

The couple's five daughters, Amelia, Anthea, Alicia, Amanda and Alexandra are a staple of his nightclub act. A photo-montage of his family are projected on a large screen while Anka sings Times of Your Life, the Kodak song. Women, his wife Anne, and his five daughters, have always surrounded Anka. In his nightclub act, he often jokes about the abundance of women in his life, saying ``at our house, PMS means Paul Must Suffer.''

The late 60s were not kind to Anka and singers of his ilk. The Beatles invasion in 1964 virtually wiped him and other teen singers off the pop charts, but Anka showed some of the savvy that would earn him a reputation as a shrewd businessman.

``I had enough credentials to break away from the pack. Other singers were not as fortunate and their careers suffered because they did not diversify.''

He retreated to the showrooms of Las Vegas and Europe. He moved to Italy in 1964, recorded nine albums in Italian, and was dubbed ``Polunka'' by his Italian fans. His song Ogni Volta, (Every Time) sold more than four million copies and won Italy's San Remo Song Festival.

Save for a brief CBC taping here in 1965, Anka would not return to Ottawa until 1972, 16 years after the Auditorium concert fiasco. He was booked to play the Ottawa Ex at Lansdowne Park. The Ex concert was a hit and a surprise. Fans lined up almost two hours before the show and, backed by a 32-piece orchestra, Anka dazzled the audience. He received a standing ovation and encore calls.

``It's damn good to be home. Here's a few songs I've written while I was away,'' he said in the show, which opened to rave reviews.

In 1974, he returned for a sold-out, 10-day run at the National Arts Centre. Frank O'Leary, a former NAC property master, remembers Anka's NAC engagement for its precision-like format.

``Paul was staying at the Skyline Hotel (Lyon and Queen streets). His band is onstage playing his intro and his manager or somebody, phones him at his hotel room and tells him they're ready. A limo is waiting for him downstairs and it rushes to the National Arts Centre. We're talking about six or seven minutes here, but if there was traffic or elevator problems it could have taken much longer - it was dangerous. He had the attitude, `I'll come around when you are ready for me.'''

By then, Anka was in absolute control of all aspects of his show and his attention to detail was total. In the early part of his career, he used to be herded with other performers on the concert bill and forced by slick promoters to arrive several hours before a show and wait, a practice that Anka detested.

``My commitment and dedication was a lot different than the other singers. There were guys around me shooting heroin and so whacked out we could barely get them onstage. I had great parents and there were a lot of people looking out for me.''

The NAC concerts came at the height of Anka's new-found popularity. He was back on the charts with (You're) Having My Baby, a love song written for Anne who was pregnant at the time. The song was a No. 1 hit, but angered feminists and prompted America's National Organization of Women to present him with the ``Keep Her In Her Place'' award.

The next time Anka played Ottawa - at the Ex in 1981 - it marked another strained chapter between performer and hometown. Music had then taken yet another twist as bands such as the Sex Pistols (whose guitarist Sid Vicious would eventually interpret Anka's song My Way), Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band rode the New Wave that was rawer, wilder and often more angry than the music of the '70s.

Trouble started with Anka's Ex show when Michael Ameen, his publicity manager, suggested that Ottawa declare August ``Paul Anka Month'' and proposed that a street be named for Anka and that he be presented with the Entertainer Of The Decade award. The city balked.

Officials reminded Mr. Ameen that a street in Hunt Club was already named after the singer, and that Anka had been made a honourary citizen and given a key to the city in 1972. Instead, they arranged a luncheon honouring Anka's 25 years in showbusiness and presented him with a commemorative medal. As well, the city declared the day of his concert Paul Anka Day.

Still, the concert only drew about 8,000, far short of the Grandstand's 15,000 capacity. Most fans loved the show, but newspaper reviews were not kind to him.

``I watched him perform in what I thought was a brilliant concert,'' says Harold Levin, the promoter who booked Anka into the Ex. ``The man has great talent. He's not a trendsetter. He just knows how to take care of his audience.''

Bill Provick, who reviewed the concert for the Citizen, called the show a ``bit of a clunker'' and criticized Anka for ``merely going through the motions.'' Mr. Provick wrote: ``Next to the likes of a Neil Diamond or Kenny Rogers, this guy simply sounded like some rank amateur singing in the shower while his forgiving neighbours cheered for the local boy who made good.''

Says Anka today: ``I've played every major city and I never got a review like that. I realized it was kind of a hometown thing. I intellectualize it and say, `it's no big deal, life goes on.' You have to make decisions based on experiences. The experience was not a good one because it wasn't really fair.''

But it was Anka's last public show in Ottawa, although he did attend a private sendoff for Pierre Trudeau in 1984. ``It was a very exciting night and I remember it well,'' says Anka. ``The ambience in the hall was just incredible. He was very gracious and he wrote me a wonderful letter afterwards thanking me profusely.''

Anka had reworked My Way for the occasion but many in attendance thought the adaptation was cheesy, self-serving and, frankly, embarrassing:

Anka would never again have a monster hit like 1974's (You're) Having My Baby - his first No. 1 hit since 1959. He was pretty much written off as a former teen idol who had resorted to playing big casino showrooms. Even in his hometown, Anka had faded from memory, at least until 1991 when his name came up as a possible investor in the newly franchised Ottawa Senators.

The team's backers, looking for solid financing and credibility for the team, turned to Ottawa's hometown boy. Legend has it that former mayor Jim Durrell, who was the Senators' president, was brainstorming a list of investors when he looked outside and came up with Anka. The punchline is that Durrell lives on Paul Anka Drive.

Mr. Durrell was dispatched to talk with Anka, who while a hockey fan, was primarily interested in the proposed arena and surrounding land, rather than becoming a principal investor in the franchise. Don Abraham, Anka's cousin (his mother Jessie is Andy Anka's sister), is a longtime friend of the singer. For much of the early '90s, Mr. Abraham was Anka's financial adviser, even moving from Ottawa to Los Angeles where he took care of the singer's vast financial portfolio.

Mr. Abraham, who brokered the original agreement with the Senators, says the deal was conceived in good faith. It promised Anka: $547,000 worth of units in the hockey club; the option to buy 50 per cent of the 100-acre arena site for $4 million, a $450,000 performance contract for three months and three appointments including a $50,000-a-year-salary as an alternate NHL governor, an annual Paul Anka Award and a position on the team's advisory board.

``Paul was excited about it. He had the ability to buy a small part of it (the team) or a large part and there was an option to buy the building and land. Of course, it was all conditional (subject to financing and inspection),'' says Mr. Abraham, 57, an Ottawa real estate agent. ``It's like buying a watermelon. It's based on trust, because they all look good from the outside.''

Little did the two parties know this ``watermelon deal'' was flawed. When it appeared nothing was going to happen as they had envisioned, both parties launched lawsuits, dragging out a legal battle for almost two years.

``Everybody had good intentions, but at the end of the day, things did not materialize the way both groups thought they would. I have my opinion why it did not come about but it's best left to myself,'' says Randy Sexton, 40, former Ottawa Senators CEO, who is now vice-president of sales for webPLAN Inc.

The duelling suits were settled in mid-1993. Terrace Corp. was instructed to pay Anka $525,000 in cash over a two-year period and had an option to buy Anka's shares in the hockey team for $547,000. Both sides agreed to drop their lawsuits.

``The hockey situation was not fun,'' says Anka. ``It's very simple. I was trying to do something for the town and I think I was instrumental in getting people (to invest in the team). What was stinging about it was that they behaved in a very different way (than from the initial meetings) and it was compounded by the fact it was my hometown. People have come and gone on that team and that's the truth. I only got involved because it was Ottawa. They brought the deal to me. I'm not interested in sports teams, it's a big ego trip.''

In April, 1993, in the middle of the acrimonious dealings between Anka and the hockey club, Andy Anka died following a long illness in a Las Vegas hospital. He was 74. Andy had moved to Las Vegas in the early 1970s and managed Paul's restaurant-disco, Jubilation.

Nothing from this time left Anka feeling particularly good about his hometown. The business deals going sour were one thing, but he was hurt by the characterization of him as a ``lounge lizard'' (as former Ottawa Sun sports editor Jane O'Hara called him).

``If I was a lounge lizard, I could live with it. But I don't work lounges and I get paid more than 80 per cent of the people in my business. I have long-term deals in these hotels and she still thinks I work lounges.''

Anka believes many Canadians still have a provincial attitude about their performers, something never encountered in other countries he visits. ``Even after I made it down here (in the U.S.), I had trouble convincing my people. We always live in the shadow of the United States and we don't have that American slickness for things.''

It is this, says Anka, that has kept him away for almost 20 years. Although there are signs a detente, brokered by aging baby boomers anxious to salvage a little of their youth, may be underway.

In April, 1998, Anka was a guest on Gary Michaels' show AfterMidnight on CFRA. That same year he released A Body of Work, his 123rd album, which features duets with Celine Dion (It's Hard To Say Goodbye), Patti LaBelle (You Are My Destiny) and with his daughter Anthea, (Do I Love You). It received considerable airplay in the United States, although it failed to snag a Top-10 hit, which would have made him one of a handful of singers to land a Top-10 record over five decades.

On the Gary Michaels' show, the phone lines buzzed from fans, well wishers and even relatives (that in Ottawa number more than 50) who called to say hello or to beg him to come home. Anka, who did the interview from his home in Los Angeles and was scheduled for just 30 minutes airtime, stayed on the show for two hours.

One caller, Scott Voelzing, a teacher at Fisher Park High School, told Paul the school was planning a 50th anniversary reunion for the following June. ``We would really like it if you could come up (for the reunion) or, could we get some kind of communication from you for this thing?'' Mr. Voelzing expected a flat ``no.''

``Communication you will have and I will certainly really try and work that out,'' Anka answered.

But like all detentes, the outcome is not a sure thing. In a December, 1998 story in the Citizen, Paul says ``there's a good chance'' he could attend the school reunion. The story about Paul's possible return to Ottawa after nearly 20 years is big news.

In the same Citizen story, I quote Diana Ayoub as saying: ``I think he needs to come back and make amends with the city, for his own satisfaction.'' A day after that story appeared, a furious Anka calls me to say: ``I don't need to come back and make amends.'' Anka is not happy that his intention to return home is tainted by Diana's remarks. He goes on to tell me that it's doubtful now he'll visit the school.

Anka's reunion appearance was then in limbo. School officials hoped he might still visit Fisher Park after all and purposely scheduled the reunion for the day after Anka's May 30 concert in Montreal (a benefit for the Israel Cancer Research Fund which would raise about $175,000).

One week before, a representative from Anka's office called to say prior commitments would keep Anka from attending.

``On the day of the reunion, we were on red alert,'' says Mr. Voelzing. The staff, choir and the music teacher were on standby if Anka showed up unexpectedly, he says. But he never did.

Anka's no-show at the Fisher Park reunion surprised Gordie Brown, an Ottawa actor and comedian, who has opened dozens of time for the singer.

``Paul is a major star and he does not sacrifice or lower his standards in any way. He demands respect and Ottawa should respect what he's done in his career,'' says Mr. Brown, star of CTV's Twice In A Lifetime.

The actor said that when he was 22 years old he saw the film Lonely Boy and said ``that's who I want to be.''

Much like Anka, Gordie Brown followed his showbusiness dream and drove to Las Vegas in the late '80s to visit his idol. He stood outside Anka's house for days, hoping for a chance to meet him.

Mr. Brown did become Anka's opening act, off-and-on from 1991 through to 1993. Anka saw in him the same chutzpah and talent he himself had exhibited as a teenager.

The actor remembers one memorable concert in Atlantic City in 1991 when Anka called him up after the show.

``He said `hey kid, what are you doing.' I said `nothing.' `You want to hang out, it's my birthday.' I said `sure.'''

The up-and-coming Brown hanging out with Anka, the Lonely Boy and his boyhood idol. Gordie was overwhelmed.

``We went to Trump Plaza and had dinner. That was so amazing to me that Paul would ask me to go with him on his 50th birthday.''

Anka is relaxing in his hotel suite after a show at Foxwoods. He has changed from his crisp, black tuxedo into a loose-fitting leisure outfit. He swings his legs off the arm of a leather chair and reaches for a cup of coffee. It's well past midnight and he's tired and looks pale, although he's promised to meet friends in the casino.

``I'm just not ready (to play Ottawa),'' says Anka, eating a slice of pineapple he has plucked from a fruit platter.

He sips a glass of red wine and tries to relax. He shows no irritation when asked for the hundredth time to explain his long absence from Ottawa.

``I don't want to take the chance of going back and opening up an event or an incident again. I only play protective situations, I work where I want to work, when I want to work,'' says Anka.

He can play Toronto, Montreal or even Peterborough and Sudbury, without any hassles, he says. He still gets calls from promoters in Ottawa to do a concert, but he has no plans to return. He outlines his career in five-year blocks and says Ottawa doesn't figure into it. Ottawa is the one city that opens up too many old wounds for him.

Anka is emphatic: ``I don't want to experience the hometown syndrome.''

Instead, he talks passionately about his music and future projects. During the interview there are interruptions, hotel maintenance is in his suite adjusting his fireplace, friends are calling to meet him downstairs in the casino and the Fax machine hums in the background.

A new CD, Paul Anka Live 2000 recorded in Japan and the U.S. last year, should be available soon in Canada. A PBS special, airing March 11 and 13, was filmed last fall at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas and this week he's hitting the talk-show circuit to promote it.

He usually travels with an assistant and about 19 musicians in his backup band. His wife, Anne, rarely travels with him, preferring instead to remain at their 7,700 square-foot home in Beverly Hills, which was recently put on the market for $4.6 million U.S.

``I enjoy the business side of the entertainment business, but the moment I get on stage is the best moment of my day. There are no phone calls, no interruptions, no responsibilities other than doing a good show.''

Anka says he's been getting ``feelers'' from Las Vegas hotels to stage an original, full-length musical based on his life. The idea is to tell the Paul Anka story, from the early days in Ottawa, to the breakthrough hit Diana, right up to his nightclub concerts, recordings, film and television work. All the important moments in his life.

``We're in discussion and it's one of the things I may be doing,'' says Anka. ``There would be a franchise to that. It's not so bad if someone puts up a few million bucks and you do a show for two years in Las Vegas. It's safer than Broadway where they can kill you with one review.''

If the show gets off the ground, he sees it as an exciting new direction in his career.

``You want to change. You want to be on the cutting edge every now and then. The show would be a wonderful package with the different elements of music and film.''

He says the show is not merely a repackaging of events from a past life for newer audiences.

``Everything has been done. There is nothing new anymore. Just look at the TV shows today. They've all been recycled. If you take something of substance, why not? If someone makes the Paul Anka Story one day, it's not recycling.''

Coming soon, The Paul Anka Story in theatres and nightclubs everywhere, everywhere but in Ottawa.

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