David Frost

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Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE (7 April 1939 31 August 2013) was an English journalist, comedian, writer, media personality and daytime TV game show host. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, Frost rose to prominence in the UK when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on US television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them The Nixon Interviews with former United States President Richard Nixon in 1977, which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost was one of the 'Famous Five' who were behind the launch of ITV breakfast station TV-am in 1983. For the BBC, he hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost from 1993 to 2005. He spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012 he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English and from 2012, the weekly programme The Frost Interview. Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth, on which he had been engaged as a speaker.[1]

Sir

David Frost
OBE

Frost during an interview with Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 Born David Paradine Frost 7 April 1939 Tenterden, Kent, England Died 31 August 2013 (aged 74) (MS Queen Elizabeth)

Contents
1 Early life 2 That Was the Week That Was (TW3) 3 From the mid 1960s to 1980 4 After 1980 5 Achievements 6 Frost/Nixon 7 Personal life 8 Death 9 Selected awards and honours 10 Bibliography 11 References 12 External links

Nationality English Alma mater Occupation Television presenter journalist comedian writer Known for That Was the Week That Was Through the Keyhole Breakfast with Frost Frost on Sunday TV-AM Religion Spouse(s) Methodist Lynne Frederick (m. 19811982; divorced) Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard (m. 19832013; his death) Children 3 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Early life

David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939 as the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent,[2] the Rev. W. J. Paradine Frost, and his wife Mona, and with two elder sisters.[3] While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete. He attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, then Gillingham Grammar School and finally while residing in Raunds Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player,[3] and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C.[4] For two years before he went up to Cambridge University. Frost was a lay preacher following his witnessing of an event presided over by the Christian evangelist Billy Graham.[2] He studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, later graduating from the university with a degree in English. At Cambridge, Frost was editor of both the student newspaper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society,[3] which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period, Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio, he once remembered, it felt like home. It didnt scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world.[5] According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has effectively been confirmed by Barry Humphries.[6] Christopher Booker though, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, has commented that he was impossible to dislike.[7] Reportedly according to the satirist John Wells, the Old-Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.[6] After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub during the evenings.[8]

That Was the Week That Was (TW3)

Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3. This caught the wave of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. TW3 was the last piece of scheduled programming broadcast by the BBC on a Saturday, and regularly overran its time slot.[citation needed ] On 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.

From the mid 1960s to 1980

Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch. Frost

signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Sir Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, and ITV executives were worried that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial.[2] Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, which bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy which was considered 'highbrow' and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence.[9][10] He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A.J.P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr.[11] In 1968 he signed a contract worth 125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality[5] at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the United States.[12] His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.[13] In the same period he began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Productions in 1968,[5] he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship.[14][15] During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.[15] In 1977, The Nixon Interviews, a series of five 90-minute interviews with former US President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the US television networks described them as "chequebook journalism". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over a period of four weeks. The interviews were syndicated on American television, and screened internationally. The interviews were noted for Nixon's first apology to the American people for his role in the Watergate scandal.[16][17] After the 1979 Iranian Revolution Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.[18] Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, Frost was hired as the anchor of the new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks, and then-ABC News reporter Bill O'Reilly was recruited as his replacement.

After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983 but, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992.

Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before its later Sunday morning rebroadcast on BBC 1.[citation needed ] Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown on prime time and daytime television in its later years.[citation needed ] Following the end of the BBC series Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Benazir Bhutto and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.[19] During his career as a broadcaster Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.[20][21] In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country.[22] In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire. Prominent satirists who were interviewed for the programme include Rory Bremner, Ian Hislop, John Lloyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Will Ferrell and Tina Fey.

Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2010 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and all seven US presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush).[2] He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, the Hearing Trust,[23] East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.[24][25][26]
Frost interviewing Vladimir Putin for the BBC's Breakfast with Frost in March 2000

After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth 200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006.[27] The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.

Frost/Nixon
Main articles: The Nixon Interviews, Frost/Nixon (play), and Frost/Nixon (film)

Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from The Nixon Interviews which Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006, and on Broadway in 2007. The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was directed by Ron Howard and released in 2008. It was nominated for five Golden Globe awards: Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score,[28] as well as five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing. In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.[29]

Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Torm; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981 he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year.[3] He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.[30] On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. They had three sons[3] and for many years lived in Chelsea, with their weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.[31]

Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard a Cunard cruise liner, the MS Queen Elizabeth, when he had a suspected heart attack and died.[32] Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean ending in Rome.[33] British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be and certainly was with me - both a friend and a fearsome interviewer."[34] Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival.[35]

Selected awards and honours

1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)[36] 1993: Knight Bachelor[37] 1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex[38] 2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA [38] 2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester[38] 2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards[38]

Bibliography
Non-fiction To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.

The Presidential Debate, 1968 : David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968). The Americans (1970) Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972) "I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007. David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984) The World's Shortest Books (1987) An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993) With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982) Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983) If You'll Believe That (1986) With Michael Shea The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986) The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)

References
1. ^ "Sir David Frost, broadcaster and writer, dies at 74" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts23920336). BBC. 1 September 2013. Retrieved 1 September 2013. 2. ^ a b c d Stuart Jeffries Obituary: Sir David Frost (http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/01/sirdavid-frost), The Guardian, 1 September 2013 3. ^ a b c d e TimeLine Theatre Company, Chicago: Frost/Nixon Study Guide (http://www.timelinetheatre.com/frost_nixon/FrostNixon_StudyGuide.pdf) Retrieved 2 October 2011 4. ^ Duff, Oliver (2 May 2005). "My Life in Media: Sir David Frost" (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/my-life-in-media-sir-david-frost-6146971.html). The Independent. Retrieved 11 August 2013. 5. ^ a b c Obituary: Sir David Frost (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10278859/Sir-David-Frost.html), telegraph.co.uk, 1 September 2013 6. ^ a b Humphrey Carpenter That Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom of the 1960s, London: Victor Gollancz, 2000, p.207 7. ^ Carpenter, p.207-8 8. ^ Carpenter, p.208-9 9. ^ David Frost An Autobiography: Part One From Congregation to Audiences, London: HarperCollins, 1993, p.382 10. ^ "British TV History: The ITV Story: Part 10: The New Franchises" (http://www.teletronic.co.uk/itv_story_10.htm), Teletronic 11. ^ "ITV Moon Landing Coverage" (http://archive.is/yiI4r). British TV History. Archived from the original (http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/html/moon_itv.html) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 18 February 2008. 12. ^ The David Frost Show (http://www.thedavidfrostshow.com/guests.htm) 13. ^ Zajacz, Rita. "FROST, DAVID" (http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/frostdavid/frostdavid.htm). The Museum of Broadcast Communications. 14. ^ Harper, Lauren (19 July 2013). "Henry Kissinger Jokes About Making a Pawn of Bobby Fischer" (http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/henry-kissinger-jokes-about-making-a-pawn-of-bobby-fischer/). National Security Archive. Retrieved 2 August 2013. "The tournament was dramatic enough thanks to Fischer's antics, but a July 3, 1972, telephone conversation capturing British journalist David Frost asking Kissinger to persuade the grandmaster to attend the championship adds more to the story. Kissinger had an intellectual

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27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

persuade the grandmaster to attend the championship adds more to the story. Kissinger had an intellectual interest in chess, and the Spassky-Fischer head-to-head alone would have likely piqued his interest in the match, but Frost wanted Kissinger to get involved to ensure Fischer's participation." ^ a b "Declassified transcript of phone call from David Frost to Henry Kissinger" (http://nsarchive.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/kissinger-fischer.pdf). National Security Archive. 3 July 1972. ^ " David Frost Dies Aged 74" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324886704579048602335557942.html). Wall Street Journal. 1 September 2013. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ "David Frost, Who Interviewed Nixon, Is Dead at 74" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/world/europe/david-frost-known-for-nixon-interview-dead-at-74.html? _r=0). New York Times. 1 September 2013. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ " Abdicate? That Does Not Exist in Our Vocabulary." (http://afflictor.com/2011/08/15/david-frostinterviews-the-shah-of-iran-1980/). Afflictor.com. 15 August 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ . "Frost over the World Rafael Moreno and Muhammad Tahir al-Qadri" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoS5w-HVLA8). Youtube.com. Retrieved 26 October 2010. ^ Orlebar, Christopher (2004). The Concorde story. Osprey Publishing. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-85532-667-5. ^ Quest, Richard (3 October 2003). "Why Concorde mattered" (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/why-concorde-mattered-583699.html). The Independent. ^ Overby, Peter (10 March 2011). "U.S. Firm Under Fire For Gadhafi Makeover Contract" (http://www.npr.org/2011/03/10/134411798/mass-firms-libya-work-may-have-violated-fara-act). Npr.org. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ "Hearing Trust" (http://www.hearingtrust.org.uk). Hearing Trust. Retrieved 26 October 2010. ^ "Our patrons" (http://ejaf.com/about/our-patrons/). Elton John AIDS Foundation. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ CaritasData (2006). Who's Who in Charities 2007. ISBN 1-904964-27-3. ^ "Patrons page at Alzheimer's Research UK" (http://www.alzheimersresearch.org.uk/aboutus/whoweare/people.php?type=Patrons). Alzheimersresearchuk.org. Retrieved 4 October 2011. ^ Beresford, Philip, ed. (2006). The "Sunday Times" Rich List 20062007: 5,000 of the Wealthiest People in the United Kingdom. A & C Black Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-7136-7941-7. ^ [1] (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ifcdf033a039397d33af1e1010cab7e66? pn=2) (subscription required) ^ Corcoran, Mark (17 February 2009). "The World According to Frost" (http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2494109.htm). ABC Online. ^ W. Lee Cozad, More Magnificent Mountain Movies: The Silverscreen Years, 1940-2004, page 219 (Sunstroke Media, 2006). ISBN 978-0-9723372-2-9 ^ "For sale: the stunning Hampshire home of Sir David Frost" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buyingsellingandmoving/9899668/For-sale-the-stunning-Hampshirehome-of-Sir-David-Frost.html). Daily Telegraph. ^ "Sir David Frost, broadcaster and writer, dies at 74" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts23920336). BBC News. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ Cruise company pays tribute to Sir David Frost | Meridian - ITV News (http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2013-09-01/cruise-company-pays-tribute-to-sir-david-frost/) ^ Al Jazeera host David Frost dies - Europe - Al Jazeera English (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/09/20139110390232426.html) ^ "David Frost dies aged 74" (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/01/david-frost-dies-74-heartattack). The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2013. ^ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 45117. pp. 63736374 (http://www.londongazette.co.uk/issues/45117/supplements/6373). 5 June 1970. Retrieved 11 August 2013. ^ The London Gazette: no. 53284. p. 7209 (http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/53284/pages/7209). 23 April 1993. Retrieved 11 August 2013. ^ a b c d David Frost Speaker Profile (http://www.gspeakers.com/speaker/?speaker=Frost_David)

External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/737846.stm) TV Cream on David Frost (http://www.tvcream.co.uk/?tag=david-frost) TV Cream on Paradine Productions (http://www.tvcream.co.uk/?p=13290) David Frost (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0296484/) at the Internet Movie Database Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Frost&oldid=571168442" Categories: Al Jazeera people 1939 births 2013 deaths Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge BAFTA fellows BBC newsreaders and journalists British broadcast news analysts British reporters and correspondents British television producers Emmy Award winners English game show hosts English memoirists English Methodists English satirists English political writers English television personalities Knights Bachelor Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent People from Beccles People from Tenterden People who died at sea Deaths from myocardial infarction This page was last modified on 2 September 2013 at 03:12. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.