Marcia Clark

Marcia Rachel Clark (' Kleks, formerly Horowitz'''; born August 31, 1953) is an American prosecutor, author, television correspondent and television producer.

She is perhaps best known for having been the lead prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson murder case.

Clark was born Marcia Rachel Kleks in Alameda, California, the daughter of Rozlyn (née Masur) and Abraham Kleks.

Her father was born and raised in Israel and worked as a chemist for the FDA.

Because of her father's job, the family moved many times, living in California, New York, Michigan and Maryland.

Kleks graduated from Susan E. Wagner High School, a public school in the Manor Heights section of Staten Island, New York City.

She studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating in 1976 with a degree in political science, and then earned a Juris Doctor degree at Southwestern University School of Law.

Clark was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1979.

She worked in private practice and as a public defender for the city of Los Angeles before she became a prosecutor in 1981.

She worked as a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, California and was mentored by prosecutor Harvey Giss.

Prior to the Simpson trial, Clark's highest-profile trial occurred in 1991 when she prosecuted Robert John Bardo for the murder of television star Rebecca Schaeffer.

Clark said that the media attention that she received during the trial was "the hell of the trial," calling herself "famous in a way that was kind of terrifying."

Clark was advised by a jury consultant to "talk softer, dress softer, wear pastels" in order to improve her image.

She subsequently changed her hairstyle into a perm, and the Los Angeles Times described her as resembling "Sigourney Weaver, only more professional."

The New York Times commented that "the transformation was not entirely seamless."

Clark resigned from the district attorney's office after she lost the Simpson case.

She and Teresa Carpenter wrote a book about the Simpson case, Without a Doubt, in a deal reported to be worth $4.2 million.

Since the Simpson trial, Clark has made numerous appearances on television, including as a special correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. She provided coverage of high-profile trials and reported from the red carpet at awards shows such as the Emmy Awards.

She was a guest attorney on the short-lived television series Power of Attorney and was also featured on Headline News analyzing the Casey Anthony trial.

Clark is perhaps best remembered as the lead prosecutor in the 1995 trial of O. J. Simpson for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

Her "Rachel Knight" series centers on a prosecutor in the Los Angeles district attorney's office, and includes Guilt By Association (2011), Guilt By Degrees (2012), Killer Ambition (2013) and The Competition (2014).

In July 2013, Clark provided commentary for CNN during the Florida trial of George Zimmerman.

Clark wrote a pilot script for a television series called Borderland, centering on "a very dark version of the DA's office."

The series was purchased by FX but was never produced.

Clark has contributed true-crime articles to The Daily Beast.

Clark has written several novels.

In August 2013, Clark appeared as attorney Sidney Barnes in the Pretty Little Liars episode "Now You See Me, Now You Don't".

Guilt by Association was adapted as a television pilot for TNT in 2014.

Clark's "Samantha Brinkman" series features a female defense attorney.

In 2015, Clark was parodied on the sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in the form of the character Marcia, implied to be Marcia Clark in a relationship with Chris Darden, portrayed by Tina Fey.

Fey was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for the role.

It includes Blood Defense (2016), Moral Defense (2016) and Snap Judgment (2017), and was planned as a television adaptation series for NBC that Clark would cowrite.

Clark did not expect to become an author, saying, "As a lawyer, I came to understand early that storytelling plays a very important part when you address a jury. So I guess my instincts have always kind of been there when it comes to weaving a narrative."

She read Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys mystery fiction as a child and said "I have been addicted to crime since I was born. I was making up crime stories when I was a 4 or 5-year-old kid."

Clark appears in the 2016 documentary miniseries O.J.: Made in America.

She is played by Sarah Paulson in the 2016 television series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which focuses on the Simpson trial.

Paulson's performance as Clark earned wide acclaim, and she earned a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the role.

Clark attended the Emmy Awards with Paulson on September 18, 2016.

Katey Rich wrote in Vanity Fair that the series positions Clark as a "feminist hero."

In 2019, Clark appeared in the 18th season finale of Gordon Ramsay's reality series Hell's Kitchen as a VIP guest diner for winner and Season 6 veteran Ariel Contreras-Fox.