Clive James

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Template:Short description Template:Use Australian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer

Clive James Template:Postnom (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.<ref name="McCrum"/><ref name="ABCobit">Clive James — writer, TV broadcaster and critic — dies aged 80 Template:Webarchive ABC News, 28 November 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2019.</ref> 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 satirist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.

Early life

James was born Vivian Leopold James in Kogarah, a southern suburb of Sydney. He was allowed to change his name as a child because "after Vivien Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara the name became irrevocably a girl's name no matter how you spelled it".<ref name="James, C. 1981, p.29">James, C., Unreliable Memoirs, Pan Books, 1981, p. 29.</ref> He chose "Clive", the name of Tyrone Power's character in the 1942 film This Above All.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was buried at Sai Wan War Cemetery in Hong Kong.<ref name="Guardian obituary">Template:Cite news</ref> James would later state that his life's works originated in his father's death.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref name="Aitkenhead">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'" Template:Webarchive, The Guardian, 25 May 2009.</ref><ref name="James, C. 1981, p.29"/><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

He was educated at Sydney Technical High School (despite winning a bursary award 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.<ref name="Guardian obituary"/>

In 1962, James emigrated to Britain, which became his home for the rest of his life.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Guardian obituary"/> During one summer holiday, he worked as a circus roustabout to save enough money to travel to Italy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1964, James gained a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read English literature.<ref name="Pembroke">Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name="Pembroke"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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 2:1—better than he had expected—and began a PhD thesis on Percy Bysshe Shelley.<ref name="Guardian obituary" />

Career

Critic and essayist

James became the television critic for The Observer in 1972, remaining in the role until 1982.<ref name="Aitkenhead"/> Mark Lawson described a James review as "so funny it was dangerous to read while holding a hot drink".<ref name="BBC obituary">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He was at times merciless and selections from the column were published in three books – Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket and Glued to the Box – and finally in a compendium, On Television.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He wrote literary criticism for newspapers, magazines and periodicals in Britain, Australia and the United States, including, among many others, the Australian Book Review, The Monthly, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The Liberal and The Times Literary Supplement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> John Gross included James's essay "A Blizzard of Tiny Kisses" in the Oxford Book of Essays (1992, 1999).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A defence of humanism, liberal democracy and literary clarity, 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name="Guardian obituary"/>

Poet and lyricist

James published several books of poetry, including Poem of the Year (1983), a verse-diary; Other Passports: Poems 1958–1985, a first collection and The Book of My Enemy (2003), a volume that takes its title from his poem "The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During the 1970s he also collaborated on six albums of songs with Pete Atkin and one album with Julie Covington:<ref name="Atkin"/>

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.<ref name="Atkin"/> 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.<ref name="Atkin">Template:Cite web</ref>

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".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2013, he issued his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. The work, adopting quatrains to translate the original's terza rima, was well received by Australian critics.<ref>Craven, Peter, "Master craftsman's crowning glory" Template:Webarchive, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 2013.</ref><ref>Goldsworthy, Peter. "Clive James's Dante is simply divine" Template:Webarchive, The Australian, 1 June 2013.</ref> 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.<ref>Luzzi, Joseph."This Could Be 'Heaven', or This Could Be 'Hell'" Template:Webarchive, The New York Times, 19 April 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2019.</ref>

Novelist and memoirist

In 1980 James published his first book of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, which recounted his early life in Australia and extended to over 100 reprintings. It was followed by four other volumes of autobiography: Falling Towards England (1985), which covered his London years; May Week Was in June (1990), which dealt with his time at Cambridge; North Face of Soho (2006); and The Blaze of Obscurity (2009), concerning his subsequent career as a television presenter. An omnibus edition of the first three volumes was published under the generic title of Always Unreliable. James also wrote four novels: Brilliant Creatures (1983); The Remake (1987); Brrm! Brrm! (1991), published in the United States as The Man from Japan; and The Silver Castle (1996).<ref>Wallace, Arminta. "The Silver Castle, by Clive James". Irish Times, 17 January 1998. Retrieved 28 November 2019.</ref>

In 1999, John Gross included an excerpt from Unreliable Memoirs in The New Oxford Book of English Prose.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> John Carey chose Unreliable Memoirs as one of the 50 most enjoyable books of the 20th century in his book Pure Pleasure (2000).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Television

James developed his television career as a guest commentator on various shows, including as an occasional co-presenter with Tony Wilson on the first series of So It Goes, the Granada Television pop music show. On the show when the Sex Pistols made their TV debut, James commented: "During the recording, the task of keeping the little bastards under control was given to me. With the aid of a radio microphone, I was able to shout them down, but it was a near thing ... they attacked everything around them and had difficulty in being polite even to each other."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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 Endurance. 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.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

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.<ref name="GuardianObit">Template:Cite news</ref>

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."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A fan of motor racing, James presented the Template:F1, Template:F1 and Template:F1 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 Template:F1.<ref name="GuardianObit"/>

Radio

In 2007, James started presenting the BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with transcripts appearing in the "Magazine" section of BBC News Online. In this programme James discussed various issues with a slightly humorous slant. Topics covered included media portrayal of torture,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> young black role models<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and corporate rebranding.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Three of James's broadcasts in 2007 were shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize.<ref>"Shortlist 2008" Template:Webarchive, The Orwell Prize</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.

Theatre

In 2008 James performed in two eponymous shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Clive James in Conversation and Clive James in the Evening. He took the latter show on a limited tour of the UK in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Honours

James's plaque on the Sydney Writers Walk

In 1992, James was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). This was enhanced to Officer level (AO) in the 2013 Australia Day Honours. James was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to literature and the media.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> In 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature. He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Sydney and East Anglia. In April 2008, James was awarded a Special Award for Writing and Broadcasting by the judges of the Orwell Prize.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was an honorary fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge (his alma mater).<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In the 2015 BAFTAs, James received a special award honouring his 50-year career.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2014, he was awarded the President's Medal by the British Academy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

James is celebrated with a plaque on the Sydney Writers Walk on Circular Quay. It includes an excerpt on Sydney Harbour from Unreliable Memoirs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Political views

James's political views were prominent in much of his later writing. While critical of communism for its tendency towards totalitarianism, he identified with the left for much of his life. In a 2006 interview in The Sunday Times, James said of himself: "I was brought up on the proletarian left, and I remain there. The fair go for the workers is fundamental, and I don't believe the free market has a mind."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In a speech given in 1991, he criticised privatisation, saying: "The idea that Britain's broadcasting system—for all its drawbacks one of the country's greatest institutions—was bound to be improved by being subjected to the conditions of a free market: there was no difficulty in recognising that notion as politically illiterate. But for some reason people did have difficulty in realising that it was economically illiterate too."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2001, James identified as a liberal social democrat.<ref name=artstoday>Template:Cite web</ref>

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".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2017, James contributed a chapter to a book on climate change published by the Institute of Public Affairs, advocating climate denialism.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref name="abc.net.au">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, an organisation that campaigns for human rights and democracy in Burma.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

In 1968, at Cambridge,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> James married Prudence A. "Prue" Shaw,<ref name="McCrum"/> also Australian, a graduate of the University of Sydney, the University of Florence and Somerville College, Oxford. Shaw taught Italian language and literature at the University of Cambridge, and at University College London where, since retirement in 2003, she has been emerita reader in Italian studies. She is the author of Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity.

James and Shaw had two daughters, one of whom is the artist Claerwen James.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In April 2012, the Australian Channel Nine 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Shaw evicted her husband from the family home following the revelation.<ref name="McCrum">Robert McCrum "Clive James – a life in writing", The Guardian, 5 July 2013</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

After the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, James wrote a piece for The New Yorker entitled "Requiem", recording his overwhelming grief.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> From then he mainly declined to comment about their friendship, apart from some remarks in his fifth volume of memoirs, Blaze of Obscurity.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

James was able to read, with varying fluency, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Japanese.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A tango enthusiast, he travelled to Buenos Aires for dance lessons and had a dance floor in his house.<ref name="abc.net.au"/>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He guest presented one episode of The Footy Show in 2005.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Health and death

For much of his life, James was a heavy drinker and smoker. He recorded in May Week Was in June his habit of filling a hubcap ashtray daily.<ref>Clive James, May Week Was in June,(1990) Picador 1991 p.230'I also installed my ashtray: a hubcap off a Bedford van, it could hold the stubs of eighty cigarettes, so I only had to empty it once a day.'</ref><ref>Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador 2006 p.141:'I smoked so much that I needed the hubcap of a Bedford van as an ashtray. I had found the hubcap lying in the gutter of Trumpington Street, and thought: 'That will make an ideal ashtray.'</ref><ref>Contrary to this, Clive James stated in BBC Radio's The Museum of Curiosity Series 2: Episode 6, "I once used the hubcap of a British Bedford DorMobile as an ashtray because I smoked a lot, but not even I could fill up the hubcap of a British Bedford DorMobile..."</ref> At various times he wrote of attempts, intermittently successful, to give up drinking and smoking.<ref>Smoking the Memory | clivejames.com Template:Webarchive In A Point of View he notes that this account of giving up smoking needed updating as he had gone back to it.</ref> He smoked 80 cigarettes a day for a number of years before giving up in 2005. (Prior to this, he had been successful in giving up smoking for 13 years, beginning in his early 30s.)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 2011, after media speculation that he had suffered kidney failure,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> James confirmed in June 2012 that B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia "had beaten him" and that he was "near the end".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He said that he was also diagnosed with emphysema and kidney failure in early 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 3 September 2013, an interview with journalist Kerry O'Brien, Clive James: The Kid from Kogarah, was broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.<ref name=KerrOABCSep2013>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name=KerrOABCSep2013/> James wrote the poem "Japanese Maple" which was published in The New Yorker in 2014 and described as his "farewell poem".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The New York Times called it "a poignant meditation on his impending death".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In a BBC interview with Charlie Stayt, broadcast on 31 March 2015, James described himself as "near to death but thankful for life".<ref name="Stayt">Template:Cite AV media</ref> In October 2015, he admitted to feeling "embarrassment" at still being alive thanks to experimental drug treatment.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Until June 2017, he wrote a weekly column for The Guardian entitled "Reports of My Death...".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> James died at his home in Cambridge on 24 November 2019.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bibliography

Memoir

Criticism

Travel

Novels

Poetry

Poetry collections

Epic poems

Translation

Anthology

List of selected poems

Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
The book of my enemy has been remaindered 1983 Template:Cite journal
Beachmaster 2009 Template:Cite journal
Early to bed 2013 Template:Cite journal
Leçons de ténèbres 2013 Template:Cite magazine
Rounded with a sleep 2014 Template:Cite journal
Star system 2015 Template:Cite magazine
Visitation of the dove 2015 Template:Cite magazine
Initial outlay 2016 Template:Cite journal
I was proud of these hands once 2016 Template:Cite journal
Splinters from Shakespeare 2016 Template:Cite journal

See also

Notes

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