Ian D. Clark

Ian Douglas Clark (born 7 April 1950) Clark has worked mostly on stage and television, but also in films. He won a Toronto Theatre Critics Award in 2014.

Early life Clark was born in 1950 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, but both of his parents were Scots. His father, Dr Douglas Clark, was a recently-arrived general practitioner in nearby Conisbrough, He had one younger brother,

In October 1966, after a farewell party, the family visited Scotland, immediately before emigrating from Conisbrough to Oshawa in Ontario, Canada, about 35 miles from downtown Toronto. Even before that, Clark had begun to think about acting as a career, after seeing the film Becket (1964), starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. He continued his education at the R. S. McLaughlin Institute, Oshawa, and then at McGill University, Montreal, where he took a bachelor's degree in English and French and an MA in English literature, intended as a first step towards an academic career. In 1986, he had the title role in Larry Shue's play The Foreigner at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto. At the Shaw Festival of 1988, he was noticed in The Voysey Inheritance.

Clark has appeared many times at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. In 2001, he was there playing Inspector Rough in Gaslight. In 2003, he was back at the theatre as Peacey in The Voysey Inheritance, and in 2004 played Sandy Lord in The Philadelphia Story. In 2005, he was there again to star as Finian in a production of the musical Finian's Rainbow. In 2007, he played Frederick Arnott, a comic turn, in Enchanted April, and in 2011 was back as Baron von Swieten in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. In 2013 he played the Earl of Caversham in a Walnut Street production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband.

In 2006, at the Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, Clark appeared as Jim the Gardener in Charlotte Jones's Humble Boy. In 2008 and 2009, he played David Manning and other parts in David Hare’s Stuff Happens at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto. From April to October, 2011, at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, he played Grampa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and was also understudy for the part of Sam in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming.

In 2014, Clark was on stage as both butlers in a Thousand Islands Playhouse revival of The Importance of Being Earnest, with one review calling him "the cast stand-out". Also in 2014, after he had appeared as F in the first Canadian production of Mike Bartlett's play Cock, at the Theatre Centre, Toronto, the part won him the Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play. In 2015, he played the title role in Tuesdays with Morrie at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. In October of the same year, he stepped in at short notice to replace Jamie Farr in Jack of Diamonds at Theatre Aquarius, in Hamilton, Ontario, after Farr had collapsed during a rehearsal. A review noted that the director "had the irrepressible Ian D. Clark waiting in the wings, ready to unleash his own brand of hokum."

In 2020, Clark was at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto, appearing in Jack Thorne's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Screen An early television role for Clark came in The Newcomers: 1847, filmed in 1977.

After performing many parts in television movies and shows, from 1993 to 1996 Clark appeared as a leading character in Road to Avonlea , playing Simon Tremayne, the disinherited son of an British duke and the owner of the White Sands Hotel.

In 2024, Clark appeared in The Apprentice, a biopic film of the early career of Donald Trump, playing Mayor Ed Koch. A Nest of Singing Birds (1988), as David Gore Last Wish (1992) as Dr Kevin Burns Treacherous Beauties (1994) as Barry Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) as Phillip Brennan Bach's Fight for Freedom (1995) as Josef Muller The Michelle Apartments (1995), as Abernathy Lilies (1996) as Father Saint Michel, prison chaplain That Old Feeling (1997), as Rufus The Wishing Tree (1999) as Davies The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer (1999) as Denis Weaire The Chippendales Murder (2000) as Russell Liggott–Jones Cruel Intentions 2 (2000) as Principal Ed Freeman Laughter on the 23rd Floor (2001) as Max's doctor The Piano Man's Daughter (2003) as Coroner's Counsel The Reagans (2003) as Dr. John E. Hutton Jr. Black Widow (2005) as Minister Maneater (2007) as Colonel James Livingston Graham Georgetown (2019) as Carl Mattingly The Apprentice (2024) as Ed Koch

Personal life Clark met his future wife, Beverly, at the R. S. McLaughlin school in Oshawa, and from there they both went on to McGill University. aged 78, and his funeral was at St. George's. His mother died in April 2012, aged 89.