After 17 years covering the beautiful people in Las Vegas, Las Vegas Review-Journal gossip columnist Norm Clarke announced he's leaving the newspaper.
In May 2015, KNPR's State of Nevada talked to Clarke about his job reporting on the famous and infamous of Southern Nevada.
Norm Clarke might just be the hardest working man in show business. At least he’s the hardest working gossip columnist in Las Vegas.
His “Vegas Confidential” column runs four-days a week in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Clarke started at his hometown newspaper in Montana but decided to take his life in a new direction. After touring Europe, he came back to the States and took a job with the Associated Press in Cincinnati.
One of the first big stories he covered was the return of the Iranian hostages in 1981. During the coverage, he was asked to give his first report for AP radio, which his mother heard in Montana. A story that still makes the veteran journalist choke up with emotion.
The list of big events and larger-than-life characters he’s met seems to go on and on.
He’s been insulted by Jerry Lewis, slapped by both Pete Rose and former Major League Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, ordered out of a party at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics by Prince Andrew, but of course, that is only part of that story, and harangued by Las Vegas Strip performer Criss Angel.
One of the first stories he covered in Las Vegas was the MGM Grand fire in 1980. But when he came to Las Vegas to be a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1999, his focus wasn’t hard news it was celebrity gossip.
“It’s been a great job,” Clarke told KNPR’s State of Nevada.
Norm Clarke, gossip columnist, Las Vegas Review-Journal