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.

[UPDATE: Jan. 1, 2012. Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times Magazine’s London-based senior editors contacted me. They wanted to publish my advice to Arnold Schwarzenegger on the subject of having babies out of wedlock.  So on October 5, 2011, I sat down with their top guy in Hollywood, John Harlow, and submitted to a long detailed interview. I gave my advice for Arnold. This is what I said:

Q. Given the revelations about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelity perhaps you might offer him some advice.
A. Certainly, not only to him, but also to Weiner, Spitzer, Edwards, Clinton, Kennedy (Jack and Robert and Ted), Gingrich, Letterman, Strauss-Kahn, Woods, Boehner, Craig and a host of others yet to come (pardon the double entendre). Men are men, and if their sex drives were limply less, none of us would be here. Public people have a special burden, however. Explaining themselves doesn’t help, because whatever they say will be twisted in a way that hurts them.
These men are merely displaying an inability to control what Bernard Shaw dubbed the “Life Force”.  It was Mark Twain who wrote, not so famously, “The very thought of it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he will risk life, reputation, everything … to make good that opportunity and ride it to the overwhelming climax.”
Some, like Clinton perhaps, needed a BJ to get his day started. Others had their own good reasons of a deeper nature that we’ll never know, but could have rendered their actions completely understandable.
But this must be remembered above all: When it effects the lives of others in a bad way, it’s no good. My advice is that celebrities need to be seen to be GOOD PEOPLE (note “seen to be”). How do they go about that? Very easy. Be super nice to everyone, in big and little ways. At the flower shop, or the news agent’s, or the local grocery store, greet them as though you were their special friend. The same goes for strangers down the street. And your personal assistant, hairdresser, makeup artist, nanny, help, gardener, cook, bodyguard, chauffeur, temporary help, even your illegal immigrant help. Start a charity, “Mine Clearance” for example, or “World Hunger”, or “Clean the Oceans” – that’s always safe – but try to pick one that nobody else thought of. The choices are smaller now. Better get professional advice.

Then fund your charity out of your huge income. It’s a fair tax deduction anyway, and will please your accountant, because it will take you out of that soiled 1%. Join a church group, if you haven’t, then give them money. If you donate big money, make sure your name is attached. Found something to benefit Education, Health, the Arts, and especially struggling artists and students. You might get your name on a college building, or a theatre even. Give your services for free (your accountant won’t care, the value is not deductible). In the entertainment industry, the Actors Fund is a good place to start. And finally, give BIG to political personalities and their parties.If you care about your name after you pass (ok, die,) then leave decent amounts in your will to the same places shown above. I promise you that you will be remembered forever as a GOOD PERSON. Believe me, all transgressions will be forgiven and forgotten.

Then I was asked for more. I gladly supplied many documents and photographs, including personal letters, for their review. Several weeks went by. What happened to their promise to publish in exchange for this free “exclusive”? Nothing. It never appeared! No explanation, no follow-up, which speaks for itself.  I guess it wasn’t racy enough. Rupert could have hacked into my phone, I wouldn’t care, I have nothing to hide.

It’s been 8 years since these women’s lawsuits against me. 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 to my revelations, other than to correct the record, it is because my cases are unique due to the celebrity factor. I was the “disadvantaged male partner”, I was screwed by my lawyers, and this became a pattern, a model, a broad canvas, from which others may learn and benefit. There is no honest blueprint  or template 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 79 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 a hostile celebrity wife, hostile old friends, hostile witnesses, hostile fans, hostile 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 and observation, mordant though it is. I look to examine reality as it is, not in accordance with some prevailing paradigm. Makes me unpopular in some quarters, which is just too bad.  I wish to share what I know from a lifetime in the SHOWBIZ of England, Canada, and the United States, (incorporating the LEGALBIZ), and take a few potshots at the passing parade of life.

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.

Four sections, then, PERSONAL, SHOWBIZ , LEGAL and COMMENTARY. Keep reading.

Much of this will be controversial, it just is, but it shouldn’t be . . .