MY MISSION
This site began because my friends were always asking me how my legal life was progressing. Now, with this new technology, I could just say "go read my blog". However, the word "blog" has become totally tarnished by a million egos out there looking for personal identity, so now I prefer to say "go read my johnclarkprose site".
THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE (maybe)
Yes, there's a bigger reason. I have been attacked in the world media unfairly since my wife's abandonment of me back in February 1999 after 32 years of marriage became big news.
My wife was no ordinary person. She was Lynn Redgrave, a celebrity, considered a good icon of sorts perhaps because she was often used to counterbalance her controversial sister Vanessa. A "good guy, bad guy" act, not that they wanted to be seen that way.
Then it was understandable, the press didn't know it, but I was keeping a deep dark secret, that she and our son had broken the law, and the statute of limitations had not yet expired. When it did and the true story came out, the gossip mavens weren't about to give up. The lie was too juicy, and so they continued to ignore the record, and would not give up hitting on me. The secret was revealed in PUBLICLY AVAILABLE court documents in my defense to baseless lawsuits filed against me by my wife and others. My patience at an end, this train of events led to my filing a lawsuit for defamation against the American Larry King and CNN, and also a complaint to the British Press Complaints Commission for articles appearing in the British Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. No one has ever contacted me since this came out, there is no interest.
It's been 8 years since the breakup. Much has happened, and I've learned a lot from my adventures in the American court system, and how it's reported, mostly that there are horrifying cracks in it.
If there is any ulterior purpose at all to my revelations, other than to correct the record, it is because my cases, being unique because of the celebrity factor, become a pattern, a template, a model, a broad canvas, from which others may learn and benefit. There is no algorithm in the courts to ensure that the truth comes out, and I believe it is my duty to expose what I can demonstrate is wrong with the system, and to try and change it - and be a watchdog. I hope that will be kept in mind.
And so my mission is, because I am 74 years old and statistically not a lot of time left to enjoy life with my new wife, I've decided to impart what I know in this way, which has never before been possible. Approach this as you would "Anatomy of a Murder", except this time it is "Anatomy of a Lawsuit", where most of the action is, again, inside a courtroom. With the special circumstance of the Celebrity Factor, and a hostile celebrity wife, hostile old friends, hostile witnesses, hostile fans, and a hostile press/television media, and their collective unwillingness to read, much less examine, the record. And here you won't find drugs, or alcohol, or domestic abuse, or violence, or guns. At least, not in this family. Good sex, yes, both parties, but not where it belonged.
Being also a teacher, I know I have the space and time left to also populate this site with information, observation (mordant though it is), and ideas gathered through my time in the LEGALBIZ, and while I'm at it, share what I know from a lifetime in the SHOWBIZ of England, Canada, and the United States. And take a few potshots at life in general as it passes by, listed under COMMENTARY.
A U.S. citizen since 1965 (and I bet the only actor who, in his faith for the goodness of his new country, renounced his British citizenship), I have to confess my eyes have remained British.
I've been rich and I've been poor, I've been famous and, I'm told, infamous. You'll find out what I've been up to, and my intentions, in the way I've used this site. I have nothing to hide, and I can afford to be honest, unlike some others I've come across.
And, I no longer intend to be Lynn's whipping boy in the public's eye. She, and my grown children, refuse to correct the record, so I will.
Three sections, then, PERSONAL, SHOWBIZ and LEGAL. Keep reading.
Much of this will be controversial, it just is, but it needn't have been . . .
