Clark, J. Kent 1917-2008 (Justus Kent Clark)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 29, 1917, in Blue Creek, UT; died of heart failure, March 6, 2008, in Pasadena, CA. Educator, biographer, novelist, and playwright. Clark taught English literature at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he was known as a specialist in seventeenth-century England and was appreciated, perhaps even more, as a creator of parodies in the genre of musical theater. From 1947 to 1986, Clark amused students and faculty alike with his lampoons of life on a campus seriously dedicated to science. His poems, songs, and skits poked good-natured fun at the scientists and would-be scientists who called the university home. No one, including the highly respected scientist Linus Pauling, was exempt. Clark wrote, produced, and directed musical satires featuring the student actors in his Caltech Stock Company, offering them an occasional counterpoint to life in the laboratory. In his formal capacity he promoted literature and the other components of the humanities to science majors whose academic preferences often lay in the opposite direction. Clark published a historical novel, The King's Agent (1949), but his scholarly writing found drama in the lives of historical figures. Goodwin Wharton (1984) explores the life of a seventeenth-century British adventurer and treasure seeker, and Whig's Progress: Tom Wharton between Revolutions (2004) offers a portrait of Goodwin's brother, who pursued his own adventures in the field of politics. His students, however, may remember Clark more for his irreverent musicals, such as Take Your Medicine (1958) or Organization Woman (1962).

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PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2008, p. B10.