Songfacts®:

• This was the first hit song written by Tony Hatch, who would go on to become a top songwriter, composing Petula Clark's hits. Using the pseudonym "Mark Anthony," he wrote the first version of this song as "Follow a Star" for use in a 1959 film of the same name starring the British comedian Norman Wisdom. The song wasn't used in the film, but the following year, re-worked as "Look For a Star," it was recorded by a young singer named Gary Mills and used in the movie Circus of Horrors, a film about a plastic surgeon who repairs deformities in exchange for service in his deranged circus.
• When this song appeared in the movie Circus of Horrors, there was no version of it available in America, so Liberty Records set out to make one... quickly. Producer Snuff Garrett was assigned to the task. At the time, he was working with a vocal group called the Statues, but he needed just one singer on "Look For a Star." Group member Buzz Cason was chosen to record it; they cut the track in Nashville on a Saturday with the top session musicians, including bass player Bob Moore, drummer Buddy Harman and piano player Floyd Cramer.
  
  At the session, Liberty head Si Waronker spoke with Garrett about what to call Cason. Since the British singer was Gary Mills, they named Cason "Gary Miles." In our interview with Cason, he said: "It was a plagiaristic thing that you would never get away with in today's world, but they certainly did and it did fairly well for us. I wrote the B-side, 'Wishing Well,' a little ole song I had."
• In the summer of 1960, four different versions of this song were on the US Hot 100 at the same time, since various labels were all rush recording it. The Gary Miles version was the most successful, peaking at #16. An instrumental by Billy Vaughn made #19, and a US release of the Gary Mills version on Imperial Records made #26. The other charting version was by Deane Hawley, who made #29. Hawley's only other chart appearance would be "Pocketful Of Rainbows," which came in at #93.