1. Clive James 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.
47 Facts About Clive James
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Clive James achieved mainstream success in the UK first as a writer for television, and eventually as the lead in his own programmes, including.
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Clive James 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".
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Clive James chose "Clive", the name of Tyrone Power's character in the 1942 film This Above All.
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Clive James was buried at Sai Wan War Cemetery in Hong Kong.
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Clive James was educated at Sydney Technical 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.
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Clive James graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English in 1961.
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In 1962, Clive James emigrated to Britain, which became his home for the rest of his life.
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Clive James became the television critic for The Observer in 1972, remaining in the role until 1982.
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Clive James 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.
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Clive James published Flying Visits, a collection of travel writing for The Observer.
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Clive James published four mock-heroic poems: The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media: a moral poem, Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage Through the London Literary World, Britannia Bright's Bewilderment in the Wilderness of Westminster and Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne, and one long autobiographical epic, The River in the Sky.
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Atkin and Clive James toured together to promote both the final album, a "contractual obligation" collection consisting of parodies and humour numbers written over the years, and Clive James's own Felicity Fark epic poem.
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Clive James wrote the album sleeve notes, which mostly linked the songs with thinly disguised jibes at popular artists and trends.
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On stage Clive James both read from his poem, and introduced the album songs.
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Clive James acknowledged the importance of the Midnight Voices group in bringing to wider attention the lyric-writing aspect of his career.
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Clive James 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".
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In 1980 Clive James published his first book of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, which recounted his early life in Australia and extended to over 100 reprintings.
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Clive 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.
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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.
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Clive James was one of the original team of presenters of the BBC's The Late Show, hosting a round-table discussion on Friday nights.
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Clive James attended most F1 races during the 1980s and was a friend of former FOCA boss Bernie Ecclestone.
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Clive James presented The Clive James Formula 1 Show for ITV to coincide with their Formula One coverage in 1997.
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In 2007, Clive James started presenting the BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View, with transcripts appearing in the "Magazine" section of BBC News Online.
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In October 2009, Clive James read a radio version of his book The Blaze of Obscurity on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week programme.
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In December 2009, Clive 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.
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Clive James 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.
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Clive James took the latter show on a limited tour of the UK in 2009.
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In 1992, Clive James was made a Member of the Order of Australia.
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Clive James was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to literature and the media.
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Clive James received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sydney and East Anglia.
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Clive James was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010.
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Clive James was an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
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Clive James is celebrated with a plaque on the Sydney Writers Walk on Circular Quay.
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Clive 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".
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In 2017, Clive James contributed a chapter to a book on climate change published by the Institute of Public Affairs, advocating climate denialism.
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Clive James was a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, an organisation that campaigns for human rights and democracy in Burma.
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In 1968, at Cambridge, James married Prudence A "Prue" Shaw, Australian, a graduate of the University of Sydney, the University of Florence and Somerville College, Oxford.
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Clive James is the author of Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity.
40.
Clive James was able to read, with varying fluency, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Japanese.
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Clive 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.
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Clive James guest presented one episode of The Footy Show in 2005.
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For much of his life, Clive James was a heavy drinker and smoker.
44.
Clive James smoked 80 cigarettes a day for a number of years before giving up in 2005.
45.
Clive James said that he was diagnosed with emphysema and kidney failure in early 2010.
46.
Clive James wrote the poem "Japanese Maple" which was published in The New Yorker in 2014 and described as his "farewell poem".
47.
Clive James died at his home in Cambridge on 24 November 2019.