Oz Clarke

Robert Owen Clarke OBE (born 1949), known as Oz Clarke, is a British wine writer, actor, television presenter and broadcaster.

Clarke's parents were a chest physician and a nursing sister. He is of Irish descent and was brought up Roman Catholic. His mother was born in Graiguenamanagh. He was brought up near Canterbury with a brother and a sister. Clarke became a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral and subsequently won a choral scholarship to The King's School, Canterbury. He later attended Pembroke College, Oxford where he studied theology and psychology and became Common Room President. He played University hockey, was University punting champion, sang with Schola Cantorum, and acted with the dramatic society and the Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival. He also captained the wine-tasting team.

He claims to have been given his chosen name, Oz, "in the school showers" when he was 13, because he played cricket like an Australian cricketer. The Australian cricket team was touring the UK at the same time. Prior to this, he answered to the name Robbie, or Robin formally. His goal was to educate British people about making wine approachable to the British public, and introduce them to the high quality wines that Australians and most of the Western World enjoys.

Having grown up in Kent, Clarke played cricket for Babes of Kent schoolboys and supports Gillingham. He can be seen wearing a Gillingham scarf in Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas, broadcast prior to Christmas 2009 and James May's Man Lab Christmas Special, broadcast prior to Christmas 2011, both on BBC Two.

After Oxford, Clarke started a career as a full-time actor and singer. His first job was at Northampton, followed by Sheffield, Manchester and Leicester. He then worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Old Vic and Chichester. In the West End, he appeared with Michael Crawford in Billy at Drury Lane, sang Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd, played all the men in The Mitford Girls and General Peron in Evita. It was during this acting period that he was drafted in to the newly formed English Wine Tasting Team, who won competitions against France, Germany and the USA, among others. This proved crucial for his career development.

When a wine expert dropped out of the new BBC show Food and Drink, the acclaimed television producer Peter Bazalgette allegedly shouted, 'Get me the actor who knows about wine'. They did, and Clarke's career began to shift away from theatre towards wine, but not out of the entertainment business. He and Jilly Goolden became the voices and faces of wine in Britain for a generation.

He played one of the first criminals apprehended by Superman in the 1978 film Superman, a terrorist in Superman II, a Special Branch man in Who Dares Wins and Balthasar in Stuart Burge's 1984 film of Much Ado About Nothing. He sang the baritone role – and Sam Gamgee's song – in the BBC adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and recorded Stephen Oliver's A Man of Feeling for Granada TV.

In December 2011, Clarke was one of the team in the BBC Two programme James May's Man Lab Christmas Special.