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Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019. Clive James — writer, TV broadcaster and critic — dies aged 80 ABC News, 28 November 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2019. He began his career specialising in literary criticism before becoming television critic for The Observer in 1972, where he made his name for his wry, deadpan humour.
During this period, he earned an independent reputation as a poet and satire. He achieved mainstream success in the UK first as a writer for television, and eventually as the lead in his own programmes, including ...on Television.
James' father, Albert Arthur James, was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. Although he survived the prisoner-of-war camp, he died when the American B-24 carrying him and other freed Allied POWs ran into the tail of a typhoon en route from Okinawa to Manila, and crashed into the mountains of southeastern Taiwan. He was buried at Sai Wan War Cemetery in Hong Kong. James would later state that his life's works originated in his father's death.
James, an only child, was brought up by his mother (Minora May, née Darke), a factory worker, in the Sydney suburbs of Kogarah and Jannali, living some years with his English maternal grandfather.Decca Aitkenhead "Clive James: 'I would have been an obvious first choice for cocaine death. I could use up a lifetime's supply of anything in two weeks'" , The Guardian, 25 May 2009.
He was educated at Sydney Technical High School (despite winning a Bursary to Sydney Boys High School) and the University of Sydney, where he read English and Psychology from 1957 to 1960, and became associated with the Sydney Push, a libertarian intellectual subculture. At university, he contributed to the student newspaper, Honi Soit and directed the annual students' union revue. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English in 1961. After graduation, James worked for a year as an assistant editor for the magazine page at The Sydney Morning Herald.
In 1962, James emigrated to Britain, which became his home for the rest of his life. During his first three years in London, he shared a flat with the Australian film director Bruce Beresford (disguised as "Dave Dalziel" in the first three volumes of James's memoirs), was a neighbour of Australian artist Brett Whiteley, became acquainted with Barry Humphries (disguised as "Bruce Jennings") and had a variety of occasionally disastrous short-term jobs: sheet metal worker, library assistant, photo archivist and market researcher. During one summer holiday, he worked as a circus roustabout to save enough money to travel to Italy.
In 1964, James gained a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read English literature. Whilst there, he contributed to all the undergraduate periodicals, was a member and later President of the Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on University Challenge as captain of the Pembroke team, beating St Hilda's College, Oxford, but (according to him) losing to Balliol on the last question in a tied game. His contemporaries at Cambridge included Germaine Greer (known as "Romaine Rand" in the first three volumes of his memoirs), Simon Schama and Eric Idle. Having, he claimed, scrupulously avoided reading any of the course material (but having read widely otherwise in English and foreign literature), James graduated with a —better than he had expected—and began a PhD thesis on Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Metropolitan Critic (1974), his first collection of literary criticism, was followed by At the Pillars of Hercules (1979), From the Land of Shadows (1982), Snakecharmers in Texas (1988), The Dreaming Swimmer (1992), Even As We Speak (2001), The Meaning of Recognition (2005) and Cultural Amnesia (2007), a collection of miniature intellectual biographies of over 100 significant figures in modern culture, history and politics. A defence of humanism, liberal democracy and obscurantism, the book was listed among the best of 2007 by The Village Voice. Another volume of essays, The Revolt of the Pendulum, was published in June 2009. He also published Flying Visits, a collection of travel writing for The Observer. Until mid-2014, he wrote the weekly television critique page in the "Review" section of the Saturday edition of The Daily Telegraph.
He published four mock-heroic poems: The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media: a moral poem (1975), Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage Through the London Literary World (1976), Britannia Bright's Bewilderment in the Wilderness of Westminster (1976) and Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne (1981), and one long autobiographical epic, The River in the Sky (2018). During the 1970s he also collaborated on six albums of songs with Pete Atkin and one album with Julie Covington:
Atkin and James toured together to promote both the final album, a "contractual obligation" collection consisting of parodies and humour numbers written over the years, and James's own Felicity Fark epic poem. James wrote the album sleeve notes, which mostly linked the songs with thinly disguised jibes at popular artists and trends. On stage James both read from his poem, and introduced the album songs. Despite the success of the tour, there were no more recordings by Atkin, who pursued other opportunities and eventually became a BBC radio producer.
A revival of interest in the songs in the late 1990s, triggered largely by the creation by Steve Birkill of an Internet mailing list "Midnight Voices" in 1997, led to the reissue of the six albums on CD between 1997 and 2001, as well as live performances by the pair. A double album of previously unrecorded songs written in the seventies and entitled The Lakeside Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2 was released in 2002 and Winter Spring, an album of new material written by James and Atkin was released in 2003. This was followed by Midnight Voices, an album of remakes of the best Atkin/James songs from the early albums, and, in 2015, by The Colours of the Night, which included several newly completed songs.
James acknowledged the importance of the Midnight Voices group in bringing to wider attention the lyric-writing aspect of his career. He wrote in November 1997, "That one of the midnight voices of my own fate should be the music of Pete Atkin continues to rank high among the blessings of my life".
In 2013, he issued his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. The work, adopting to translate the original's terza rima, was well received by Australian critics.Craven, Peter, "Master craftsman's crowning glory" , The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 2013.Goldsworthy, Peter. "Clive James's Dante is simply divine" , The Australian, 1 June 2013. Writing for The New York Times, Joseph Luzzi thought it often failed to capture the more dramatic moments of the Inferno, but that it was more successful where Dante slows down, in the more theological and deliberative cantos of the Purgatorio and Paradiso.Luzzi, Joseph. "This Could Be 'Heaven', or This Could Be 'Hell'" , The New York Times, 19 April 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
In 1999, John Gross included an excerpt from Unreliable Memoirs in The New Oxford Book of English Prose. John Carey chose Unreliable Memoirs as one of the 50 most enjoyable books of the 20th century in his book Pure Pleasure (2000).
James subsequently hosted the ITV show Clive James on Television, in which he showcased unusual or (often unintentionally) amusing television programmes from around the world, notably the Japanese TV show Za Gaman. After his move to the BBC in 1988, he hosted a similarly formatted programme called Saturday Night Clive (1989–1991), which began on BBC2 but was popular enough to move to BBC1 in 1991. It returned in 1994 on Sunday nights, under the title Sunday Night Clive.
In 1995 he set up Watchmaker Productions to produce The Clive James Show for ITV, and a subsequent series launched the British career of singer and comedian Margarita Pracatan. James hosted one of the early chat shows on Channel 4 and fronted the BBC's Review of the Year programmes in the late 1980s ( Clive James on the '80s) and 1990s ( Clive James on the '90s), which formed part of the channel's New Year's Eve celebrations.
In the mid-1980s, James featured in a travel programme called Clive James in... (beginning with Clive James Live in Las Vegas) for LWT (now ITV) and later switched to the BBC, where he continued producing travel programmes, this time called Clive James's Postcard from... (beginning with Clive James's Postcard from Miami) – these also eventually transferred to ITV. He was also one of the original team of presenters of the BBC's The Late Show, hosting a round-table discussion on Friday nights.
His major documentary series Fame in the 20th Century (1993) was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, in Australia by the ABC and in the United States by the PBS network. This series dealt with the concept of "fame" in the 20th century, following over a course of eight episodes (each one chronologically and roughly devoted to one decade of the century, from the 1900s to the 1980s) discussions about world-famous people of the 20th century. Through the use of film footage, James presented a history of "fame" which explored its growth to today's global proportions. In his closing monologue he remarked, "Achievement without fame can be a rewarding life, while fame without achievement is no life at all."
A fan of motor racing, James presented the , and official Formula One season review videos produced by the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA). He attended most F1 races during the 1980s and was a friend of former FOCA boss Bernie Ecclestone. He also presented The Clive James Formula 1 Show for ITV to coincide with their Formula One coverage in .
In October 2009, James read a radio version of his book The Blaze of Obscurity on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week programme. In December 2009, James talked about the P-51 Mustang and other American fighter aircraft of World War II in The Museum of Curiosity on BBC Radio 4.
In May 2011, the BBC published a new podcast, A Point of View: Clive James, which features all sixty A Point of View programmes presented by James between 2007 and 2009.
He posted vlog conversations from his internet show Talking in the Library, including conversations with Ian McEwan, Cate Blanchett, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Miller and Terry Gilliam. In addition to the poetry and prose of James himself, the site featured the works of other literary figures such as Les Murray and Michael Frayn, as well as the works of painters, sculptors and photographers such as John Olsen and Jeffrey Smart.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010. He was an honorary fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge (his alma mater). In the 2015 BAFTAs, James received a special award honouring his 50-year career. In 2014, he was awarded the President's Medal by the British Academy.
James is celebrated with a plaque on the Sydney Writers Walk on Circular Quay. It includes an excerpt on Sydney Harbour from Unreliable Memoirs.
His later views were more commonly aligned with the political right. James strongly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying in 2007 that "the war only lasted a few days" and that the continuing conflict in Iraq was "the Iraq peace". He also wrote that it was "official policy to rape a woman in front of her family" during Saddam Hussein's regime and that women have enjoyed more rights since the invasion. In 2017, James contributed a chapter to a book on climate change published by the Institute of Public Affairs, advocating climate denialism.
Describing religions as "advertising agencies for a product that doesn't exist", James was an atheist and saw it as the default and obvious position. He was also a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, an organisation that campaigns for human rights and democracy in Burma.
James and Shaw had two daughters, one of whom is the artist Claerwen James. In April 2012, the Australian Nine Network programme A Current Affair ran an item in which the former model Leanne Edelsten admitted to an eight-year affair with James beginning in 2004. Shaw evicted her husband from the family home following the revelation.Robert McCrum "Clive James – a life in writing", The Guardian, 5 July 2013 Before this, for most of his working life, James divided his time between a converted warehouse flat in London and the family home in Cambridge.
After the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, James wrote a piece for The New Yorker entitled "Requiem", recording his overwhelming grief. From then he mainly declined to comment about their friendship, apart from some remarks in his fifth volume of memoirs, Blaze of Obscurity.
James was able to read, with varying fluency, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. A tango enthusiast, he travelled to Buenos Aires for dance lessons and had a dance floor in his house.
James was a fan of the St George Dragons and wrote admiringly of Rugby League Immortal Reg Gasnier who was a schoolmate at Sydney Technical High School. He guest presented one episode of The Footy Show in 2005.
In April 2011, after media speculation that he had suffered kidney failure, James confirmed in June 2012 that B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia "had beaten him" and that he was "near the end". He said that he was also diagnosed with emphysema and kidney failure in early 2010.
On 3 September 2013, an interview with journalist Kerry O'Brien, Clive James: The Kid from Kogarah, was broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The interview was filmed in the library of his old college at Cambridge University. In the extended interview, James discussed his illness and confronting mortality. James wrote the poem "Japanese Maple" which was published in The New Yorker in 2014 and described as his "farewell poem". The New York Times called it "a poignant meditation on his impending death".
In a BBC interview with Charlie Stayt, broadcast on 31 March 2015, James described himself as "near to death but thankful for life". In October 2015, he admitted to feeling "embarrassment" at still being alive thanks to experimental drug treatment. Until June 2017, he wrote a weekly column for The Guardian entitled "Reports of My Death...". James died at his home in Cambridge on 24 November 2019.
Bibliography
Memoir
Criticism
Travel
Novels
Poetry
Poetry collections
Epic poems
Translation
Anthology
List of selected poems
The book of my enemy has been remaindered 1983 Beachmaster 2009 Early to bed 2013 Leçons de ténèbres 2013 Rounded with a sleep 2014 Star system 2015 Visitation of the dove 2015 Initial outlay 2016 I was proud of these hands once 2016 Splinters from Shakespeare 2016
See also
Notes
External links
Categories: Www.clivejames.com Official Website, 1939 Births, 2019 Deaths, 20th-century Australian Journalists, 21st-century Australian Journalists, Alumni Of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Australian Atheists, Australian Columnists, Australian Humorists, British Humorists, Australian Humorous Columnists, British Columnists, British Humourous Columnists, Australian Essayists, Australian Emigrants To England, Australian Literary Critics, Australian Male Poets, Sports Poets, 20th-century Australian Memoirists, Australian Monarchists, Australian People Of English Descent, Australian Social Democrats, Australian Travel Writers, British Television Presenters, British Mass Media Scholars, Commanders Of The Order Of The British Empire, Edinburgh Comedy Festival, Fellows Of The Royal Society Of Literature, Formalist Poets, Australian Male Essayists, Officers Of The Order Of Australia, People Educated At Sydney Technical High School, Writers From Cambridge, Mass Media People From Cambridge, Writers From Sydney, Quadrant People, Recipients Of The President's Medal, The New Yorker People, Translators Of Dante Alighieri, University Of Sydney Alumni, The Sydney Morning Herald People, Australian Lyricists, Australian National Servicemen, Australian Television Presenters, Australian Television Show Creators, Australian Television Talk Show Hosts, British Television Talk Show Hosts, British Television Show Creators, 20th-century Pseudonymous Writers, 21st-century Pseudonymous Writers, Pseudonymous Television Presenters, Pseudonymous Comedians
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