- Born
- Died
- Birth nameVivian Leopold James
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- While at Cambridge, Clive began a fruitful songwriting partnership with Pete Atkin. With Clive's lyrics and Pete's vocals and musical settings, they released six critically-acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful albums in the early 70s before Pete moved on to audio production at the BBC. Clive toured with Pete in a words and music show promoting the final album. They have recently re-united on stage and in the studio for more of their trademark songs, which have been described as "somewhere between The Kinks and Steely Dan" (quote from NY Times).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Dave Jones
- SpousePrue Shaw(1968 - November 24, 2019) (his death, 2 children)
- Studied Civil Engineering at Sydney University. After graduating, he went to England to study at Cambridge University. While at Cambridge, he became a member of the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club and, later, President of the Footlights Club.
- December 1989: Paid special tribute to Kylie Minogue in his New Year's Eve 1989 "Review of the Decade" on BBC-TV, and presented her with the award for "Woman Of The Decade".
- He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2012 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to Literature and the Media. He is an author, poet, and broadcaster.
- Diagnosed with emphysema in 2010.
- His parents gave him the first name Vivian, but he changed this to Clive after Vivien Leigh appeared in Gone with the Wind (1939) and the name became almost exclusively a woman's name.
- I had a great time as a critic. It was like writing a poem, actually. Writing a column and writing a poem are very similar. The essay and the poem are very close forms, you really, really try to pack it tight. And the column was packed tight. It had a joke paragraph and a serious paragraph. I write poems the same way; I think, "What comes next? How do I end this?"
- There's no question that the center of television has been hollowed out by reality shows, which I never watch. It was just a complete accident that I saw Abigail Titmuss and Rebecca Loos in those lounge chairs beside the swimming pool in the Caribbean, adjusting each other's bikinis. It was a complete accident I watched that for four nights.
- The Americans are the ones who've surprised us. When I was a TV critic, it was just axiomatic that American TV was worthless. Now the box sets coming out of America, I've got a room full of them. I watch them all the time.
- Television talked about everything, so I thought if I talk about television I'll be talking about everything too.
- Stop worrying, nobody gets out of this world alive.
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