Clive James (Clive Vivian Leopold James) Biography

Australian writer and broadcaster, born in Kogarah, New South Wales, Australia, educated at Sydney University and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Collections of his early work as a literary journalist with the Times Literary Supplement and other leading periodicals include The Metropolitan Critic (1974). Visions Before Midnight (1977) collects samples of his work as television critic for the Observer from 1972 to 1982. During the 1980s he emerged as a well-known television personality and cultural commentator. Other Passports: Poems 1958–1985 (1986) displays his accomplishment in traditional verse forms and contains numerous memorable parodies. His other works include the mock-heroic poem Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne (1981) and the novels Brilliant Creatures (1983), The Remake (1987), and Brrm Brrm! (1991). His three volumes of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs (1980), Falling towards England (1985), and May Week Was in June (1990), have enjoyed considerable success. Fame in the Twentieth Century (1993) is a tie-in for a TV series.