John Clive

John Clive (January 6, 1933 – October 14, 2012) was an English actor and author, known internationally for his historical and social fiction, such as KG200 and Barossa.

Clive was also an established British television and film actor. Beginning his career at the age of fourteen touring in rep, he went on to star on the West End stage, in plays such as Absurd Person Singular, The Wizard of Oz, Under Milk Wood, The Bandwagon at the Mermaid Theatre, The Winslow Boy, Young Woodley and Life with Father.

As a character actor he appeared in comic and straight acting roles in films, such as The Italian Job, Yellow Submarine, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, A Clockwork Orange and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He was a member of the Carry On Team appearing in two of the Carry on series of comedy films; Carry On Abroad, and Carry On Dick Clive was initiated into the Grand Order of Water Rats in 1988.

Acting
Other film appearances include the Ealing Studios comedy The Magnet, credited as Clive Kendall. In the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine he provided the voice of John Lennon. His television appearances also included Robert's Robots, Rising Damp, The Dick Emery Show, The Perils of Pendragon, The Sweeney, Great Expectations and The History of Mr Polly. He appeared in the first Wednesday Play, Wear a Very Big Hat, broadcast by BBC 1 in 1964. Clive also featured in Lady Windermere's Fan, One Way Out and The Ten Percenters. He featured in a 1970s advert for Jacob's Coconut Cream Biscuits.

Author
In 1977, he co-wrote the historical novel KG 200 with J.D. Gilman, a story about a secret Luftwaffe unit during the Second World War. This book was an international best-seller. The Last Liberator, followed in 1980 and was well received by literary critics. Barossa  also achieved critical acclaim. Broken Wings was published in 1983 and matched the international success of KG 200. Other fictional titles written by Clive followed including Ark co-written with Nicholas Headin, in 1986 which also received good reviews  and The Lions' Cage which was published in 1988.

Death
John Clive died after a short illness on 14 October 2012 in England aged 79. In 2023, his daughter appeared on the BBC TV show The Repair Shop, to which she brought a model of the yellow submarine by Corgi Toys. This had been given to her father at the premiere of the film in which he voiced John Lennon. Steve Fletcher on The Repair Shop restored the model.

Animated Films

 * Asterix the Gaul (1967) - Caligula Minus, Narrator
 * Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969) - Thomson