Clark, Colin (MacArthur) 1932-2002

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CLARK, Colin (MacArthur) 1932-2002

PERSONAL:

Born October 9, 1932, in England; died, December 12, 2002, in England; son of Kenneth (an art historian) and Jane Clark; married Violette Verdy (divorced); married Faith Shuckburgh (divorced); married; wife's name, Helena; children: one son. Education: Attended Christ Church, Oxford.

CAREER:

Film producer, television director, and writer. Military service: Served in British Royal Air Force; became an officer and pilot.

WRITINGS:

The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on the Set with Marilyn and Olivier, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Younger Brother, Younger Son, HarperCollins (London, England), 1997.

My Week with Marilyn, HarperCollins (London, England), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

In a lifetime spanning seven decades, Colin Clark mingled closely with the rich, royal, and famous. In his youth, he frequently encountered the British royal family at lavish parties at his castle home. He grew up in the pampered setting of English high society and enjoyed the benefits of wealth and position. During his long career in film, he worked with stars who have since become legendary, including Sir Lawrence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. Despite these advantages, his life was not idyllic; his parents had marriage problems; his father seemed in many ways indifferent to him; the majority of the family estate was bestowed upon his older brother, Alan; and his own life included two failed marriages.

Clark was born on October 9, 1932, along with his twin sister, Colette. The birth of the twins "had a dramatic effect" on their elder brother, "the previously doted-upon Alan," wrote a biographer in an obituary on the London Telegraph Online. Alan became difficult and demanding of his parents' attention, while "In contrast to his brother, Colin grew up nervous and difficult, looked after by governesses and servants and rarely seeing his parents," the Telegraph biographer wrote.

Clark's father, Lord Kenneth Clark, was a close associate of British royalty; he served as keeper of the King's pictures and later as director of the National Gallery. The elder Clark also received a knighthood. His mother "began to drink and became hysterical when she realized that her husband was being unfaithful," the Telegraph biographer wrote. Yet Lord and Lady Clark maintained at least the outward veneer of a high-society family. Growing up at Saltwood, the family's castle in Kent, England, Clark encountered a continuous stream of famous guests, from well-known figures in politics, literature, and entertainment to the Queen Mother herself.

Clark attended Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics, and economics. He served as an officer and pilot in the Royal Air Force. When he left the military, Clark pulled a brief stint as a keeper at the London Zoo.

At age twenty-four Clark became an assistant to famed actor Lawrence Olivier on the film The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Olivier and the most popular actress of the day, Marilyn Monroe. In The Prince, the Show-girl, and Me: Six Months on the Set with Marilyn and Olivier Clark recounts in detail his tenure as third assistant director of a major feature film. But his job was not a high-prestige one, and he served as more of a "gofer" than a "go-to guy." Part of his job, wrote Roger Lewis in Spectator, was to "arrive before the dawn and stand in the cold to greet the stars" as they arrived for the day's filming. He arranged chauffeurs and security, servants and caterers. At the end of each work day, Clark made detailed and voluminous diary entries, capturing the daily activities and ever-shifting mood on the set. Those diary entries form the basis of The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me.

Clark's job brought him into direct contact with Monroe and Olivier, and his book provides telling, unglamorized details of the lives and behaviors of the two stars. Clark is "brilliantly insightful into their quirks and methods," Lewis wrote. Olivier did not especially like Monroe, as the starlet was famous for flubbing lines, being late, and being difficult to work with. "But if the unprofessionalism enraged Olivier, what he never understood was how—or why—this chaos succeeded on the screen, where she gave off magic," Lewis remarked. "Required to ascend a staircase, she needed twenty-nine takes." Yet when the scene was viewed on film, Monroe "looked lovely, acted well, and stole the scene," Clark wrote.

Clark's first-hand observations also reveal the some brutal truth behind the humanity of the glamorized sex-symbol. His first reaction to Monroe was not flattering. "She looked absolutely frightful" without makeup and staged glamour. Monroe had a "nasty complexion, a lot of facial hair, shapeless figure and, when the glasses came off, a very vague look in her eye," Clark wrote. But whether the unadorned Marilyn held up in comparison to the polished screen image, or whether or not she even showed up for filming, "she dominated our every waking moment," he wrote. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me "a wickedly entertaining little book" and "a delicious backstage comedy of the clash of two worlds." Gabriele Annan, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, remarked that "not many showbiz memoirs are as entertaining and informative as this" book. Brad Tyer, writing on the Hotwired Web site, found Clark's work a "smug little book, self-satisfied with its observations and small triumphs," but concluded that "if you're looking for old dirt, cleverly dished, The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me is a smart shovel."

Another episode from this eventful movie shoot emerged in Clark's later book, My Week with Marilyn. The book recounts a nine-day period during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl when Clark and Monroe spent an intense but wholly platonic few days playfully cavorting around England. The two engaged in youthful rebellion and risk-taking such as skinny-dipping in the Thames River, visiting Windsor Castle, and smuggling Monroe out while hidden under a blanket. The two even innocently shared a bed—despite the fact that Monroe was newly married and still on her honeymoon with Arthur Miller. Though there are hints that Monroe may have not wanted it to remain innocent, Clark steadfastly and with deadpan earnestness refused to respond to any of her hints. "It's enough to say that it's an absurd tale told absurdly, a schoolboyish crush reheated as a memoir," wrote Sam Leith of the book in the Observer. "A little vain, a little snobbish, but redeemed by candor and full of comedy." Leith and other critics, such as Vicki Weissman in Spectator, pondered why Clark waited so long to bring the story up, or even chose to mention it at all after so long a time. Others, such as a critic writing on the This Is Oxfordshire Web site, noted that, "To Clark's credit there is nothing sordid in his story. It is warm, endearing, and a delightful reminder of someone who is still a star in the hearts of everyone who loves the cinema."

In Younger Brother, Younger Son, Clark addresses the fractured and dissonant relationships between himself and his father and brother. A reviewer in the Observercalled it "a funny, gently biting memoir about his family, career, and love-life," and Byron Rogers, in the Spectator, declared it to be "an extraordinary book." But Rogers also observed that, in terms of Clark's relationships with his mother, father, and brother, the book is "the most orchestrated act of revenge since The Count of Monte Cristo." Clark "attempts to portray himself as an amiable drifter," unaffected and above the slights and what Frederic Raphael, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, called "privileged privations." His brother inherited the majority of the family's lands and treasures; an exquisite collection of books, bequeathed to him by his godmother Edith Wharton, was later found tucked away in the Saltwood castle library. Clark became a womanizer and the possessor of one luxurious high-powered automobile after another; he slipped into alcoholism but still managed to make a career out of television and documentary production. The end result is a book "making light both of his parents' indifference and his brother's superbious eminence," Raphael commented. A biographer in an obituary on the London Times Online noted that Clark's "books reflect a tolerance toward his father's indifference, his unstable mother's hysteria, and his brother's alternating tormenting and protecting of him." Throughout Clark's memoir, Raphael observed, "The author is unremittingly fresh, amusing, and understated."

Clark died on December 12, 2002, at the age of seventy.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Observer (London, England), October 25, 1998, review of Younger Brother, Younger Son, p. 18; April 2, 2000, Sam Leith, review of My Week with Marilyn, p. 13; July 2, 2000, review of My Week with Marilyn, p. 4.

Publishers Weekly, April 22, 1996, review of The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on the Set with Marilyn and Olivier, p. 56.

Spectator, October 7, 1995, Roger Lewis, review of The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me, pp. 49-50; November 22, 1997, Sheridan Morley, review of Younger Brother, Younger Son, p. 46; November 22, 1997, Byron Rogers, review of Younger Brother, Younger Son, pp. 54-55; March 18, 2000, Vicki Weissman, review of My Week with Marilyn, pp. 97-98.

Times Literary Supplement, October 27, 1995, Gabriele Annan, review of The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me, p. 29; December 5, 1997, Frederic Raphael, review of Younger Brother, Younger Son, pp. 6-7.

Washington Post Book World, June 9, 1996, review of The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me, p. 13.