Born Alan James Clarke in Oldham, Lancashire, he left school
aged 15 and began work at the Manchester Evening News as a copy boy. He later
moved onto amateur dramatics and performed at Huddersfield Rep before working
as an actor full time.
Clarke's first television appearance was in the long running
Granada soap opera Coronation Street, initially as Kenny Pickup in 1966 and
then as Gary Bailey in 1968. His first major film appearance was in Stanley
Kubrick's Clockwork Orange (1971) where he played a 'droog' named 'Dim'
opposite Malcolm McDowell. He appeared with McDowell again in the film O Lucky
Man! (1973) and the TV film Gulag (1985).
Clarke appeared in a wide range of roles in television and
film productions including The Breaking of Bumbo (1970), Charlton Heston's
Antony and Cleopatra (1972), S.O.S. Titanic (1979), Hawk the Slayer (1980),
Masada (1981), Enigma (1983), Lassiter (1984), Top Secret! (1984), Ishtar,
(1987) and I.D. (1995). He played a Russian dissident Pavel Upenskoy in Clint
Eastwood's Firefox (1982).
Between 2000 and 2003 Clarke played Brian Addis, a father
who moved his family from the bustle of London to a Devon farm, in the BBC TV
series Down to Earth. Clarke appeared as Mr Boythorn in the BBC One
dramatisation of Bleak House (2005) and starred alongside Anthony Head in the
BBC Drama The Invisibles (2008) and in the Channel 4 trilogy Red Riding (2009).
Around the same time, Clarke appeared as Commander Peters in the ITV production
of Agatha Christie's Marple Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (2009) and the BBC
series Inspector George Gently ("Peace and Love", 2010) and played Mr
Bott in Just William (also 2010). He guested as innkeeper Samuel Quested in
Midsomer Murders ("The Night of the Stag", 2011) and as John Lacey in
Call the Midwife (also 2011). In 2014, he began filming Poldark as Charles
Poldark.
More recently, Clarke had appeared on our TV screens as
Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel in the TV series Dalziel and Pascoe. Clarke died peacefully in his sleep earlier today after a
short illness. RIP
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