Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English television presenter, journalist, and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes Top Gear and The Grand Tour alongside Richard Hammond and James May. He also currently writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun. Since 2018, Clarkson has hosted the ITV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
From a career as a local journalist in northern England, Clarkson rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s, he has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows for BBC and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. In 1998, he hosted the first series of Robot Wars, and from 1998 to 2000 he also hosted his own talk show, Clarkson.
In 2015, the BBC elected not to renew Clarkson’s contract after he assaulted a Top Gear producer while filming on location.[3][4] That year, Clarkson and his Top Gear co-presenters and producer Andy Wilman formed the production company W. Chump & Sons to produce The Grand Tour for Amazon Prime Video.
Clarkson’s opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often provoked a public reaction. His actions, both privately and as a Top Gear presenter, have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups, and the public. He also has a significant public following, being credited as a major factor in the resurgence of Top Gear as one of the most popular shows on the BBC.
Early life
Childhood
Clarkson was born in Doncaster, (then in the West Riding of Yorkshire), the son of Shirley Gabrielle Clarkson (1934–2014), a teacher,[5] and Edward Grenville Clarkson (1932–1994), a travelling salesman.[6] His parents, who ran a business selling tea cosies, put their son’s name down in advance for private schools, with no idea how they were going to pay the fees. However, shortly before his admission, when he was 13, his parents made two Paddington Bear stuffed toys for Clarkson and his sister Joanna.[7] These proved so popular that they started selling them through the business.[8] Because they were manufacturing and selling the bears without regard to intellectual property rights, upon his becoming aware of the bears Michael Bond took action through his solicitors. Edward Clarkson travelled to London to meet Bond’s lawyer. By coincidence, he met Bond in the lift, and the two struck up an immediate rapport. Consequently, Bond awarded the Clarksons the licensing of the bear rights throughout the world, with the family eventually selling to Britain’s then leading toystore, Hamleys.[9] The income from this success enabled the Clarksons to be able to pay the fees for Jeremy to attend Hill House School, Doncaster, and later Repton School.[8]
Repton School
Clarkson has stated he was deeply unhappy at Repton School, saying that he had been a “suicidal wreck” there, having experienced extreme bullying. He alleged that:
I suffered many terrible things. I was thrown on an hourly basis into the ice plunge pool, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and beaten, made to lick the lavatories clean and all the usual humiliations that… turn a small boy into a gibbering, sobbing, suicidal wreck… they glued my records together, snapped my compass, ate my biscuits, defecated in my tuck box and they cut my trousers in half.[10]
According to his own account, he was expelled from Repton School for “drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of himself.”[11] He famously left with one C and two U (fail) grades at A level.[12] Clarkson attended Repton alongside Formula One engineer Adrian Newey[13] and former Top Gear Executive Producer Andy Wilman.
He played the role of a preparatory school pupil, Atkinson, in a BBC radio Children’s Hour serial adaptation of Anthony Buckeridge‘s Jennings novels until his voice broke.[14][15]
Career
Writing career
Clarkson’s first job was as a travelling salesman for his parents’ business, selling Paddington Bear toys.[16] He later trained as a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser, before also writing for the Rochdale Observer, Wolverhampton Express and Star, Lincolnshire Life, Shropshire Star and the Associated Kent Newspapers.
When writing in 2015 in his final column for Top Gear magazine, he credited the Shropshire Star as his first outlet as a motoring columnist: “I started small, on the Shropshire Star with little Peugeots and Fiats and worked my way up to Ford Granadas and Rovers until, after about seven years, I was allowed to drive an Aston Martin Lagonda… It was 10 years before I drove my first Lamborghini.”[17]
In 1984, Clarkson formed the Motoring Press Agency (MPA), in which, with fellow motoring journalist Jonathan Gill, he conducted road tests for local newspapers and automotive magazines. This developed into articles for publications such as Performance Car.[18] He has regularly written for Top Gear magazine since its launch in 1993.
In 1987, Clarkson wrote for Amstrad Computer User and compiled Amstrad CPC game reviews.[19]
Clarkson writes regular columns in the tabloid newspaper The Sun, and for the broadsheet newspaper The Sunday Times. His columns in the Times are republished in The Weekend Australian newspaper. He also writes for the “Wheels” section of the Toronto Star. He has written humorous books about cars and several other subjects, with many of his books being collections of articles that he has written for The Sunday Times.
Television
Clarkson’s first major television role came as one of the presenters on the British motoring programme Top Gear, from 27 October 1988 to 3 March 1999,[20][21] in the programme’s earlier format. Jon Bentley, a researcher at Top Gear, helped launch his television career.[22] Bentley shortly afterwards became the show’s producer, and said about hiring Clarkson:
He was just what I was looking for – an enthusiastic motoring writer who could make cars on telly fun. He was opinionated and irreverent, rather than respectfully po-faced. The fact that he looked and sounded exactly like a twenty-something ex-public schoolboy didn’t matter. Nor did the impression there was a hint of school bully about him. I knew he was the man for the job. […] Clarkson stood out because he was funny. Even my bosses allowed themselves the odd titter.[23]
Clarkson then also presented the show’s new format from 20 October 2002 to 8 March 2015.[24] Along with co-presenters James May and Richard Hammond, he is credited with turning Top Gear into the most-watched TV show on BBC Two,[25] rebroadcast to over 100 countries around the world.[26] Clarkson’s company Bedder 6, which handled merchandise and international distribution for Top Gear, earned over £149m in revenue in 2012, prior to a restructuring that gave BBC Worldwide full control of the Top Gear rights.[27][28]
Clarkson presented the first series UK version of Robot Wars.[29] His talk show, Clarkson, comprised 27 half-hour episodes aired in the United Kingdom between November 1998 and December 2000, and featured guest interviews with musicians, politicians and television personalities. Clarkson went on to present documentaries focused on non-motoring themes such as history and engineering, although the motoring shows and videos continued. Alongside his stand-alone shows, many mirror the format of his newspaper columns and books, combining his love of driving and motoring journalism, with the examination and expression of his other views on the world, such as in Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld, Jeremy Clarkson’s Car Years and Jeremy Clarkson Meets the Neighbours.
After Trinny and Susannah labelled Clarkson’s dress sense as that of a market trader, he was persuaded to appear on their fashion makeover show What Not to Wear to avoid being considered for their all-time worst dressed winner award.[30] Their attempts at restyling Clarkson were rebuffed, and Clarkson stated he would rather eat his own hair than appear on the show again.[31][32]
For an episode of the first series of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast in November 2004, Clarkson was invited to investigate his family history. It included the story of his great-great-great-grandfather, John Kilner (1792–1857), who invented the Kilner jar, a container for preserved fruit.[33][34]
Clarkson’s views are often showcased on television shows. In 1997, Clarkson appeared on the light-hearted comedy show Room 101, in which a guest nominates things they hate in life to be consigned to nothingness. Clarkson dispatched caravans, houseflies, the sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, the mentality within golf clubs, and vegetarians. He has made several appearances on the prime time talk shows Parkinson and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross since 2002. By 2003, his persona was deemed to fit the mould for the series Grumpy Old Men, in which middle-aged men talk about any aspects of modern life which irritate them. Since the topical news panel show Have I Got News for You dismissed regular host Angus Deayton in October 2002, Clarkson has become one of the most regularly used guest hosts on the show. Clarkson has appeared as a panellist on the political current affairs television show Question Time twice since 2000. On 2 October 2015, he presented Have I Got News for You again for the first time since his dismissal.[35]
.jpg)
Clarkson received a BAFTA nomination for Best Entertainment Performance in 2006. Jonathan Ross ended up winning the award.[36] He won the National Television Awards Special Recognition Award in 2007, and reportedly earned £1 million that same year for his role as a Top Gear presenter, and a further £1.7 million from books, DVDs and newspaper columns.[37] Clarkson and co-presenter James May were the first people to reach the North Magnetic Pole in a car also in 2007, chronicled in Top Gear: Polar Special.[38]
He sustained minor injuries to his legs, back and hand in an intentional collision with a brick wall while making the 12th series of Top Gear in 2008.[39]
In 2014, he received a £4.8 million dividend and an £8.4 million share buyout from BBC Worldwide, bringing his estimated income for the year to more than £14 million.[40]
On 30 July 2015, it was announced that Clarkson, along with former Top Gear hosts Richard Hammond and James May would present a new show on Amazon Prime Video. The first season was made available worldwide in 2016.[41][42] On 11 May 2016, Clarkson confirmed on his Twitter feed that the series would be titled The Grand Tour, and air from a different location each week.[43]
On 9 March 2018, it was announced that Clarkson would host a revamped series of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on ITV. The show had previously been presented by Chris Tarrant.[44]
