Clive James

Clive James
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Name	Clive James
Birth name	Vivian Leopold James
Birth date	1939-10-07
Birth place	Kogarah, New South Wales, Australia
Death date	2019-11-24
Death place	Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Occupation	Critic; Broadcaster; Poet; Translator; Essayist
Nationality	Australian, British

Clive James was an Australian-born critic, broadcaster, essayist and poet who became a prominent cultural commentator in Britain. He wrote literary criticism, television criticism, memoirs and verse, and became widely known for presenting television programmes and producing translated poetry. His work intersected with figures from T. S. Eliot and Dante Alighieri to David Bowie and Russell Crowe, and he won recognition from institutions such as the British Academy and the Order of Australia.

Early life and education

He was born in Kogarah, New South Wales and grew up in Sydney during the era of World War II and post-war reconstruction, attending Caringbah High School before earning scholarships to Fort Street High School and the University of Sydney, where he studied English literature and encountered texts by William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Milton, Samuel Johnson, and Samuel Beckett. After moving to United Kingdom in the 1960s, he completed postgraduate work and was associated with literary circles that included Harold Pinter, Kingsley Amis, Iris Murdoch, Philip Larkin, and Elizabeth Jennings.

Career

His early career combined work as a television critic and freelance writer for publications such as The Observer, The New Statesman, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Sydney Morning Herald, while he also contributed to magazines including Granta and Encounter. He held broadcasting roles at BBC Television and worked on programmes that brought him into contact with producers and presenters from Granada Television, ITV, Channel 4, Les Dawson, Michael Parkinson, Jonathan Miller, and Clive Anderson.

Writing and journalism

As a journalist and critic he produced collections of essays and cultural commentary that engaged with subjects ranging from Virginia Woolf and George Orwell to Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso, writing about film figures such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Jean-Luc Godard. He reviewed books, television and theatre for editors at The Observer and penned long-form criticism in the tradition of Hazlitt and Leavis, while his journalism intersected with reportage on events like the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the rise of postmodernism. His autobiography series examined his life alongside cultural histories that referenced Sydney Opera House, Cambridge University, Oxford University Press, Faber and Faber, and the Royal Society of Literature.

Television and broadcasting

He became a television presenter and critic for BBC Two and other channels, creating programmes such as review shows and arts documentaries that featured interviews with figures including Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, John Cleese, and Dame Judi Dench. His television work often blended satire and erudition, engaging with series and formats associated with Saturday Night Live, This Is Spinal Tap, Monty Python, Not the Nine O'Clock News, and discussions on broadcasting policy involving Ofcom and the Independent Television Commission. He also appeared on panel shows and specials that connected him to presenters like Terry Wogan, Michael Palin, Stephen Fry, and Melvyn Bragg.

Poetry and translation

He published volumes of verse and translations, most notably translations of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, which brought him into dialogue with translators and scholars at Cambridge University Press, Penguin Books, and Princeton University Press, and with poets and critics such as Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Ted Hughes, Andrew Motion, and Carol Ann Duffy. His poetry collections addressed themes that recalled John Keats, Lord Byron, W. H. Auden, Robert Frost, and Philip Larkin, while his translations prompted discussion in journals like Poetry Review and Times Literary Supplement and among members of the International Dante Society.

Personal life

He maintained friendships and professional relationships with writers and entertainers including Claudia Roden, Barry Humphries, Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg, Evelyn Waugh (posthumously as influence), and critics from The Guardian and The Telegraph. He married twice and his family life intersected with residences in London and Cambridge, social circles that included attendees of events at the Hay Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and fundraising occasions for the Royal National Theatre and English PEN.

Illness and death

Later in life he publicly chronicled a period of illness, including a diagnosis that involved issues with renal failure, leukaemia-related complications, and respiratory problems that drew commentary in newspapers including The Guardian, The Telegraph, The New York Times, The Times, and The Independent. He died in Cambridge in 2019, and his death prompted tributes from institutions such as the British Library, the Royal Society of Literature, Penguin Random House, Faber and Faber, and public figures including Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, and Zadie Smith.

Category:Australian poets Category:British broadcasters