Paul Anka (born July 30, 1941, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian-born American singer and songwriter whose wholesome pop songs first achieved wide popularity in the late 1950s and whose diverse songwriting talents produced hits for such artists as Tom Jones and Michael Jackson.
Anka was born to Lebanese and Syrian parents who had immigrated to Canada and were the owners of an Ottawa restaurant that was popular with local entertainers. He taught himself to play guitar and piano as a teen and formed a vocal group called the Bobbysoxers with friends that performed locally in Ottawa.
In 1957 Anka traveled to New York, hoping to get his music recorded. He was quickly offered a recording contract after performing an original song, “Diana,” for an ABC/Paramount Records executive. “Diana” would go on to become a hit, eventually selling more than 20 million copies. Anka continued his success with a string of hits, including “Lonely Boy” (1959), “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” (1959), and “Puppy Love” (1960), which was inspired by his girlfriend Annette Funicello.
Anka acted in a string of movies aimed at teenage audiences, including Girls Town (1959) and Look in Any Window (1961). He played a U.S. Army Ranger in the war film The Longest Day (1962), for which he also wrote the theme music. As young people’s taste in popular music began to turn toward rock and roll and away from the pop music he was known for, Anka began to market himself to more mature audiences. He performed on the nightclub circuit—at the Copacabana in New York, the Sands in Las Vegas, and the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles.
Anka remained a prolific songwriter and penned the theme song for The Tonight Show, hosted by Johnny Carson, as well as classic hits for other artists, including the lyrics for the Frank Sinatra hit “My Way” (1969) and Tom Jones’s “She’s a Lady” (1971). In 1974 Anka again found success as a performer with a duet performed with Odia Coates, “(You’re) Having My Baby,” which proved controversial with both sides of the abortion debate. He had a hit in 1983 with “Hold Me ’Til the Mornin’ Comes,” a duet with Peter Cetera. Anka toured and continued to release compilations and concert recordings throughout the 1980s and ’90s. A successful Spanish-language album, Amigos, was released in 1996.
Anka’s album A Body of Work (1998) included newly composed and remade songs, performed as solos or as duets with such artists as Céline Dion and Patti LaBelle. With the albums Rock Swings (2005) and Classic Songs: My Way (2007), Anka reimagined hit songs originally performed by other artists, ranging from Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” to Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit.” The versatility of Anka’s musical range was demonstrated in 2009 with the success of Michael Jackson’s posthumous “This Is It,” cowritten by Anka. That song was later featured on the album Duets (2013), in which Anka sang with such performers as Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. An autobiography, My Way (cowritten with David Dalton), was published in 2013.