John Clark (actor/director)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Clark (born in London, England on November 1, 1932) is an actor, director and producer but is perhaps best known as the ex-husband of actress Lynn Redgrave, who divorced him December 22, 2000, after thirty-two years of marriage.
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[edit] Early career
Clark's career commenced in 1944 as a child actor in England playing schoolboy D'arcy Minor, a comedy stooge to Will Hay, on BBC radio's The Will Hay Programme [1], and on stage at the Victoria Palace in London's West End, in the thick of the falling V2's. Following that, he became a star as the original Just William both on stage and radio in 1947, and became the BBC's stock juvenile in radio plays such as Worzel Gummidge and Vice Versa. Following that, he starred in Treasure Island with Harry Welchman at the St. James's Theatre.
Clark emigrated to Canada after a 3 year stint in the British Merchant Navy as an anonymous indentured apprentice on the Silverwalnut with the Silver Line, becoming the original host of his TV interview show Junior Magazine on the CBC's coast to coast network for five years. He had married actress Kay Hawtrey in 1956 and appeared on stage and in television shows. He moved to New York in 1960, playing roles on the American stage with Ray Milland in the Broadway production of Hostile Witness (1966), Stacy Keach in MacBird, Cedric Hardwicke in An Inspector Calls, and Luther Adler in A View from the Bridge, as well as in a few television episodes. His wife returned to Toronto with their son, but Clark remained in New York.
[edit] Marriage to Redgrave and later years
Clark soon met his new wife-to-be during a brief visit to London when he appeared in a television play starring Lynn Redgrave, What's Wrong with Humpty Dumpty, where she played a trendy antiques store owner, and he played her very gay assistant. They married soon after he obtained his divorce, in 1967, when she came to New York to promote her film Georgy Girl. Clark and Redgrave had 3 children together, and he became her manager, director, co-writer, and co-actor. He appeared with her in Love Letters on Broadway (1989-90) and produced and directed shows for her on the stage, among them Thursday's Girls (1972), The Two of Us (1975), Saint Joan (1977-78 on Broadway), California Suite, and his last co-venture with her, the award-winning Shakespeare For My Father, which played on Broadway (1993-94) and at The Haymarket Theatre in London, and toured Australia and Canada. He also created a website to promote her and the Redgrave family[2]. Also on Broadway, he appeared in Comedians (1976-77). In addition, during his marriage to Regrave, he appeared in a number of films, including Jagged Edge (1985), Blood Frenzy (1987), and The Lords of Magick (1989).
Lynn Redgrave divorced Clark in 2000 after he revealed that he had fathered a child for a shunned and disfellowshipped Jehovah's Witness family friend. He created a blogsite, the John Clark Pro Se Blog, designed to assist people representing themselves (pro se) in court. He married again in 2002, and met his current wife Miyuki Tsunoda via an online dating service. In 2005, he appeared in the film Charlie's Death Wish.
On December 13, 2006, Clark suffered a heart attack. After angioplasty surgery using the latest Rotational Atherectomy techniques by a Glendale surgeon educated in the Punjab, Clark is making a good recovery.
