Norm Clarke

Clarke was born on July 8, 1942, in Terry, Montana. He had two brothers and a sister. Their father died of cancer when Clarke was about 10 years old. When Clarke was a young child, one of his suspenders snapped loose and struck his right eye as he was playing. There were no effects until several years later when the eye became discolored; this, along with the family's history of cancer, prompted their doctor to encourage the eye's removal, which occurred around the age of 10. Clarke used a prosthetic eye into adulthood before adopting what would become his trademark eyepatch.

In 1955, Clarke was working as a paperboy for the Miles City Star newspaper. He graduated from Terry High School in 1960. Clarke subsequently attended Northern Montana College, but later dropped out, briefly bagging groceries thereafter.

Clarke began his writing career in 1963,{{cite news |last=Mansch |first=Scott |date=May 20, 2017 |title=Famed writer Norm Clarke has always made us proud |url=https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/sports/2017/05/20/famed-writer-norm-clarke-always-made-us-proud/101947980/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922153013/https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/sports/2017/05/20/famed-writer-norm-clarke-always-made-us-proud/101947980/ |archive-date=September 22, 2021 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Great Falls Tribune}} as a sportswriter for the Terry Tribune, a weekly newspaper. He moved on to newspaper jobs in Miles City, Helena and Billings, Montana.

In 1973 he went to work for the Associated Press (AP) in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he covered the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in neighboring Southgate, Kentucky, in which 165 people perished.{{Cite news |last=Clarke |first=Norm |date=June 8, 2014 |title=Reporter Recalls 1977 Beverly Hills Fire |url=https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2014/06/08/reporter-recalls-beverly-hills-fire/10192417/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814034606/https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2014/06/08/reporter-recalls-beverly-hills-fire/10192417/ |archive-date=August 14, 2020 |work=Cincinnati Enquirer}} In 2014, Clarke revisited the incident and wrote his account of interviewing the 18-year-old bus boy, Walter Bailey, who interrupted the comedians on stage to try to warn the nearly 1,300 people in the room about the fire. As authorities were controlling the scene in the immediate aftermath, Clark was the first to be able to interview Bailey. Clarke's reporting on the Willow Island Disaster, a 1978 collapse of a power plant in West Virginia, garnered him and his colleagues a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. He also covered the 1980 MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas.{{cite news |date=May 14, 2015 |title=Norm Clarke On Covering The Beautiful People On The Strip |url=https://knpr.org/show/knprs-state-of-nevada/2015-05-14/norm-clarke-on-covering-the-beautiful-people-on-the-strip |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241212054114/https://knpr.org/show/knprs-state-of-nevada/2015-05-14/norm-clarke-on-covering-the-beautiful-people-on-the-strip |archive-date=December 12, 2024 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Nevada Public Radio/KNPR}} He eventually transferred to San Diego, California and then Los Angeles, where he helped coordinate the AP's coverage of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Clarke next went to Denver's Rocky Mountain News to work as a sportswriter, eventually covering the Major League Baseball team the Colorado Rockies. During the 1989 World Series held in San Francisco, Clarke was in the stadium as the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the San Francisco Bay Area and the Stadium. In 1996, he switched to writing a lifestyle column for the paper.

In 1999, Clarke wound up meeting the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal while visiting one of his brothers, who worked as a photographer for the newspaper. The discussion led to Clarke joining the newspaper as its celebrity gossip columnist. His column, eventually known as "Vegas Confidential," launched on September 17, 1999.{{cite news |last=Clarke |first=Norm |title=Wanted: Fascinating people in the ultimate city of entertainment |url=http://lvrj.com/lvrj_home/1999/Sep-17-Fri-1999/news/11969269.html |work=Las Vegas Review-Journal |date=September 17, 1999 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000119130227/http://lvrj.com/lvrj_home/1999/Sep-17-Fri-1999/news/11969269.html |archive-date=January 19, 2000}} The column ran until July 28, 2016,{{cite news |last=Crosby |first=Rachel |date=July 27, 2016 |title=Norm Clarke's career was 'an ongoing love letter' to Las Vegas |url=https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/norm-clarkes-career-was-an-ongoing-love-letter-to-las-vegas/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241207210126/https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/norm-clarkes-career-was-an-ongoing-love-letter-to-las-vegas/ |archive-date=December 7, 2024 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Las Vegas Review-Journal}}{{cite news |last=Horgan |first=Richard |date=August 3, 2016 |title=John Katsilometes Takes Over at the Review-Journal for Norm Clarke |url=https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/las-vegas-review-journal-john-katsilometes/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250322124725/https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/las-vegas-review-journal-john-katsilometes/ |archive-date=March 22, 2025 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Adweek}} when health challenges required additional medication, producing side effects which interfered with his work.{{cite news |last=Clarke |first=Norm |title=Review-Journal gossip columnist Norm Clarke calls it a day after 17-year run |url=https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/celebrity/review-journal-gossip-columnist-norm-clarke-calls-it-a-day-after-17-year-run/ |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Las Vegas Review-Journal |date=July 27, 2016}} Within a year, he had come out of retirement and joined the Vegas Stats & Information Network as a contributing columnist.

Clarke wrote five books. The most recent, a memoir called Power of the Patch, was published in March 2025, just before his death.{{cite news |date=March 20, 2025 |title=Norm Clarke, Las Vegas columnist and ex-Reds reporter, dies at 82 |url=https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/44330977/norm-clarke-las-vegas-columnist-ex-reds-reporter-dies-82 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250409205331/https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/44330977/norm-clarke-las-vegas-columnist-ex-reds-reporter-dies-82 |archive-date=April 9, 2025 |access-date=March 27, 2025 |work=ESPN |publisher= |agency=Associated Press}}

• Sinsational Celebrity Tales: Norm Clarke's Vegas Confidential. Stephens Press, 2009. {{ISBN|978-1-932173-77-2}}. {{OCLC|228370763}}. In the book, Clarke offers remembrances of celebrities who live in, or visit Las Vegas.
• 1,000 Naked Truths: Vegas Confidential: Norm Clarke! Sin City's Ace Insider. Stephens Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-1-932173-26-0|1932173269}} {{OCLC|56545274}}. The book is a compilation of material from old columns, plus a great deal of new material. In the book, Clarke lists (among other things) the ten worst tippers in Las Vegas.
• High Hard Ones: Denver's Road to the Rockies from Inside the Newspaper War. Phoenix Press, 1993. {{ISBN|978-0-9636394-0-0|0963639404}} {{OCLC|28179710}}.
• Tracing Terry Trails: A Chronological History Compiled for Terry County Centennial Celebration. (Montana, [unknown publisher], 1982). {{OCLC|41687226}}.

From 2013 to 2019, Clarke hosted "Conversations with Norm", a stage series in which he interviewed numerous celebrities at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

He published the website Norm Clarke's Vegas Diary, which covered Las Vegas news, celebrity sightings, history, and human-interest stories.{{cite web |url=https://www.norm.vegas/ |title = NORM CLARKE'S VEGAS DIARY}}

Clarke was a resident of Las Vegas from 1999 and onward. On October 12, 2012, at the Smith Center, Clarke married Cara Roberts, whom he had met years earlier in Denver.{{cite news |last=Horgan |first=Richard |title=Norm Clarke's Life Is Once Again All About Journalism |url=https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/norm-clarkes-life-is-still-all-about-journalism/ |work=Adweek |access-date=March 20, 2025 |date=March 10, 2017}}

In 2001, Clarke was diagnosed with prostate cancer and continued to battle it for more than two decades. He ceased cancer treatment and entered hospice care on March 12, 2025, a week after injuring his hip at home.{{cite news |last=Katsilometes |first=John |date=March 20, 2025 |title=Former RJ columnist Norm Clarke in hospice care |url=https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/former-r-j-columnist-norm-clarke-in-hospice-care-3323549/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250321112814/https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/former-r-j-columnist-norm-clarke-in-hospice-care-3323549/ |archive-date=March 21, 2025 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Las Vegas Review-Journal}} He died on March 20, 2025, at the age of 82.{{cite news |last=Seeman |first=Matthew |title=Longtime Las Vegas columnist Norm Clarke dies at 82 |url=https://news3lv.com/news/local/longtime-las-vegas-columnist-norm-clarke-dies-at-82-review-journal-celebrity-columnist-gossip-eye-patch |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=KSNV |date=March 20, 2025}}

Clarke hoped to be remembered as a reporter rather than a gossip columnist, noting his tenure with the AP. He was survived by his wife and siblings.{{cite news |last=Katsilometes |first=John |date=March 20, 2025 |title=Norm Clarke, longtime Las Vegas celebrity columnist, dies at 82 |url=https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/norm-clarke-longtime-las-vegas-celebrity-columnist-dies-at-82-3323796/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250320181855/https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/norm-clarke-longtime-las-vegas-celebrity-columnist-dies-at-82-3323796/ |archive-date=March 20, 2025 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |work=Las Vegas Review-Journal}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name| 3208292}}
• [https://www.norm.vegas/ Norm Clarke's Vegas Diary]
• [https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/norm_clarke_las_vegas.php What happens in Vegas, Norm Clarke knows]. Columbia Journalism Review, March 19, 2017
• [http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/spj/clarke.asp Clarke's keynote address] to the Society of Professional Journalists (University of Florida website, QuickTime)

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Category:1942 births

Category:2025 deaths

Category:American columnists

Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents

Category:Associated Press reporters

Category:Deaths from prostate cancer in Nevada

Category:Journalists from Montana

Category:People from Prairie County, Montana

Category:Rocky Mountain News people

Category:Writers from Montana

Category:Writers from Nevada

Category:Writers from the Las Vegas Valley