Some careers burn bright and fade fast. Others last so long that they end up touching several completely different eras of music without ever really pausing. Paul Anka’s career is firmly in the second category, and understanding how he got there says a lot about what it actually takes to stay relevant across seven decades in the entertainment business.
This article traces Paul Anka’s path from a fifteen year old with a hit single to one of the most successful songwriters in popular music, and looks at his personal life along the way, including his later relationship with Lisa Pemberton. Whether you grew up on his early teen idol records or only know him as the man who wrote Frank Sinatra’s signature song, there is more to the story than most people realize.
From Ottawa To Overnight Stardom
Paul Albert Anka was born on July 30, 1941, in Ottawa, Canada, to Camelia and Andrew Anka, who ran a restaurant called the Locanda. Growing up around that restaurant meant he was exposed early to performance, hospitality, and the kind of confidence it takes to hold a room, all skills that would later define his stage presence.
He began performing publicly at the age of twelve and was writing his own songs by his early teens. Determined to break into the music business, he made trips to both Hollywood and New York while still a teenager, chasing any opportunity that might get his music heard.
That persistence paid off in 1957. Anka secured a meeting with Don Costa, an A&R representative at ABC-Paramount Records, and played him a batch of original songs, including one called “Diana,” written about an older girl he had admired. Costa immediately saw the potential, and the song became Anka’s first number one hit, making him a star at just fifteen years old. “Diana” eventually sold more than twenty million copies, numbers that were extraordinary for any artist at the time, let alone a teenager.
Building A Career Beyond One Hit Song
A single massive hit can just as easily be the peak of a career as the start of one. Paul Anka avoided that trap by following “Diana” with a run of songs that captured the emotional world of teenage life with real honesty: “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” “You Are My Destiny,” “Lonely Boy,” and “Puppy Love” all became hits during this same stretch of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
What set him apart from many of his teen idol peers was his willingness to evolve. As musical tastes shifted through the 1960s, Anka made a deliberate move from performer to songwriter, and it is here that his influence became genuinely lasting.
Writing For Sinatra And Beyond
In the late 1960s, Anka took a French pop song and rewrote its English lyrics into what became “My Way,” the song that would go on to define Frank Sinatra’s later career and become one of the most recorded songs in popular music history. It is hard to overstate how significant that single songwriting credit became. Sinatra performed it as something close to a personal anthem, and the song has since been covered by dozens of artists across genres.
Anka did not stop there. He wrote “She’s a Lady,” which became one of Tom Jones’s biggest hits, composed the instantly recognizable theme song for “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” and, decades later, co-wrote “This Is It,” a posthumous single released after Michael Jackson’s death. Across his career, Anka has been credited with writing more than 400 songs, a body of work that stretches across generations of popular music.
A Return To The Spotlight In The 1970s
By the mid 1970s, Anka had relocated to Las Vegas and found renewed commercial success as a performer in his own right. His 1974 single “(You’re) Having My Baby” became a controversial but commercially massive hit, reaching number one on the charts despite drawing criticism from some feminist commentators over its lyrical content at the time.
Las Vegas suited Anka’s style of performance well. The city’s showroom circuit rewarded exactly the kind of polished, crowd-pleasing stagecraft he had honed since his teenage years, and it gave him a stable, high profile platform at a moment when the broader music industry was shifting rapidly toward rock and later disco. Rather than compete directly with those trends, Anka carved out his own lane as a headliner, building a reputation as a dependable, high energy live performer that lasted well beyond that decade.
That willingness to release material that generated conversation, rather than simply chasing safe, familiar territory, became something of a pattern throughout his career. Anka has often described his approach to music in practical terms, saying that understanding what an audience wants and delivering it was central to how he built such a long lasting career.
Family Life And Later Relationships
Paul Anka’s personal life has been almost as well documented as his professional one. In 1962, while traveling in Puerto Rico, he met Anne de Zogheb, a model of Parisian and Egyptian descent. The couple married in Paris in 1963, and Anne set aside her own career to raise their family. Together they had five daughters: Amelia, Anthea, Alisia, Amanda, and Alexandria. Their marriage lasted 37 years before ending in 2001.
Anka later had a son with Anna Aberg, a Swedish model and actress roughly thirty years his junior. The couple married in 2008, but the relationship was short lived, ending in divorce in 2010.
Some years later, Anka’s personal life took another turn when he met Lisa Pemberton at a friend’s wedding. Unlike his previous, more public relationships, Lisa Pemberton had largely stayed out of the spotlight throughout her life. The two built a relationship over several years before marrying when Anka was in his seventies. Lisa stepped into a role that included his existing family, and the marriage lasted around four years before the couple divorced.
Consistent with how she had lived before the relationship, Lisa Pemberton did not seek public attention during or after the marriage, choosing to let that chapter of Anka’s life remain a relatively private one compared to his earlier, more widely covered relationships.
That contrast is worth sitting with for a moment. Anka’s first marriage played out over 37 years and produced five daughters who have occasionally appeared alongside him at public events. His marriage to Anna Aberg drew media attention partly because of their age difference. His years with Lisa Pemberton, by comparison, followed a much quieter pattern, with neither party giving interviews about their relationship or its ending, which is part of why so little concrete detail about that period has ever entered the public record.
Why Paul Anka’s Career Has Lasted So Long
It is worth pausing on just how unusual Anka’s longevity actually is. Most performers who become famous as teenagers struggle to translate that early fame into a lasting career once their original audience grows up. Anka managed it by repeatedly reinventing his role in the industry, moving from teen idol, to songwriter for other major stars, to Las Vegas headliner, to a respected elder statesman of popular music whose songwriting catalogue continues to generate new recordings decades after it was written.
That kind of career path rarely happens by accident. It requires a genuine understanding of how audiences and musical trends shift over time, along with the discipline to keep working at a craft rather than resting on early success.
His songwriting catalogue offers the clearest evidence of that discipline. Writing more than 400 songs over several decades meant continually studying what made a song work for a given artist and a given moment, whether that was crafting a teenage love song for himself in 1957 or translating a French melody into lyrics sturdy enough to carry Frank Sinatra’s voice more than a decade later. Few songwriters manage that range, and fewer still stay commercially relevant across as many distinct musical eras as Anka has.
Common Misconceptions About Paul Anka’s Career
That “My Way” is one of his own performances rather than a song he wrote for someone else. While Anka has performed the song himself over the years, its cultural significance comes primarily from Frank Sinatra’s recording, with Anka credited as the writer of its English lyrics.
That his career peaked in the 1950s and never recovered. In reality, his songwriting career, including hits for Tom Jones and the Tonight Show theme, along with his 1970s comeback as a performer, arguably outlasted and outweighed his initial teen idol fame in terms of long term industry influence.
That his personal life has always played out in the public eye. While his first marriage and family were well documented over nearly four decades, his later relationship with Lisa Pemberton was noticeably quieter, reflecting her own preference to stay out of public attention.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Paul Anka’s most famous song?
“Diana,” released in 1957, remains his most famous performance as a recording artist, having sold more than twenty million copies. As a songwriter, “My Way,” written for Frank Sinatra, is arguably his most culturally significant contribution to music.
Who is Lisa Pemberton?
Lisa Pemberton is a private individual who married Paul Anka after meeting him at a friend’s wedding. Unlike his earlier, more public relationships, she largely stayed out of the media throughout their marriage, which lasted about four years before ending in divorce.
How many times has Paul Anka been married?
Paul Anka has been married three times: to Anne de Zogheb from 1963 to 2001, to Anna Aberg from 2008 to 2010, and later to Lisa Pemberton, a relationship that also ended in divorce after roughly four years.
Did Paul Anka write songs for other famous artists?
Yes. Beyond “My Way” for Frank Sinatra, Anka wrote “She’s a Lady” for Tom Jones, the theme song for “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” and co-wrote “This Is It,” released after Michael Jackson’s death.
How many children does Paul Anka have?
Paul Anka has six children in total: five daughters, Amelia, Anthea, Alisia, Amanda, and Alexandria, from his marriage to Anne de Zogheb, and one son from his marriage to Anna Aberg.
Is Paul Anka still active in music?
Anka has continued performing and remains a recognized figure in popular music, with a catalogue of more than 400 songs that continues to be recorded and referenced by other artists decades after it was written.
A Career Built On Reinvention
Paul Anka’s story is really a lesson in adaptability. A teenager who scored one of the biggest hits of the 1950s could easily have faded once that particular sound went out of style. Instead, he became one of the defining songwriters of the twentieth century, penning a song that would become inseparable from Frank Sinatra’s legacy, while also building a personal life that included both deeply public chapters and quieter ones, like his years with Lisa Pemberton. That combination of professional reinvention and a personal life lived on his own terms is a large part of why his name still carries weight in music today.
