David Frost (broadcaster)

This article is about the British television personality. For other people of the same name see: David Frost.

. Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE (born April 17, 1939) is an English television presenter. He was born at Tenterden, Kent, the son of a Methodist minister and attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, Medway, England, then Gillingham Grammar School and finally Wellingborough Grammar School. He obtained a degree at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.

He is married to Lady Carina Frost, a daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. He was previously married 1981-82 to Lynne Frederick (widow of Peter Sellers).

Early career

Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, England, United Kingdom on April 17, 1939. From early on, Frost allegedly declared his ambition to become a TV personality, despite attending Cambridge. Frost's well-known ability to network with the right people was in evidence there, where he edited the literary magazine Granta and was the secretary of the famous Footlights drama society, which included people of note such as Peter Cook and John Bird.

After leaving university, he became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion and worked for Anglia Television. At the same time, he kept up his cabaret performances.

That Was The Week That Was (TW3)

After several others declined the role (including Peter Cook, John Bird, and Brian Redhead), he was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host a pioneering satirical programme called That Was The Week That Was. This caught the wave of the satire boom in 1960s Britain and became enormously popular as well as influential, although it often riled politicians. TW3 was put on as the last piece of scheduled programming broadcast by the BBC on a Saturday, and regularly overran its time slot. But by the second series it was followed by Repeats of 'The Third Man', starring Michael Rennie. Frost took note of this, and at the end of each edition of TW3, Frost would reveal the plot featuring the key twists and turns of each episode to show that there would be very little point in watching the programme. After three weeks the BBC took note; 'The Third Man' was taken off the air and TW3 got its full hour (and a bit) back.

After TW3

Frost also fronted many programmes imitating the success of TW3, most notably The Frost Report (1966-67). On ITV's The Frost Programme, he interviewed a number of controversial characters such as Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith (he accused Smith of denying promotion to black members of Rhodesia's army, navy and air force, only to be told by Smith that landlocked Rhodesia didn't have a navy).His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra was generally regarded as the first example of 'trial by television' in the UK.

In 1963 a moving tribute to recently-assassinated President John F. Kennedy on That Was The Week That Was saw Frost's fame spread to the USA. LP recordings of TW3 became best sellers and so began an intensely busy period for Frost, including his practically commuting across the Atlantic (mostly by Concorde). His show Frost On America featured guests such as Jack Benny, Tennessee Williams and, in 1977, Richard Nixon. He was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979.

He is perhaps best known to most ordinary people in the UK for presenting various panel games, including Through the Keyhole, which featured house expert Loyd Grossman and, more recently, Catherine Gee. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until May 29, 2005.

Frost was instrumental in starting up two important TV franchises: LWT in 1967, and as one of the Famous Five who launched TV-am in 1982. He owns a production company called Paradine Productions, after his middle name.

Frost is the only person to have interviewed all of the past six British prime ministers and the past seven US presidents. He was also the last person to interview HIM Mohammad Reza Shah, the last Shah of Iran.

He received a BAFTA Fellowship at the 2005 BAFTA Television awards ceremony. The highest accolade that the British Academy gives. Sir David's latest project is to present a live weekly current affairs programme for Al-Jazeera International, the English-language version of the Arab broadcaster, starting when the network launches in the spring of 2006 (see ^*).

Criticism

Frost has had numerous critics throughout his career. The satirist and contemporary Peter Cook disliked him, perhaps because he stole his act on Beyond The Fringe, impersonating UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. (Whilst Cook was performing the act at one theatre, Frost was performing exactly the same act at another.)

Though Frost demonstrated a great deal of respect for Cook, Cook was critical of Frost's career, feeling he had done little more than stolen Cook's early image. Cook often claimed, tongue-in-cheek, that the biggest mistake he ever made was saving Frost from drowning in a swimming pool. Further borrowing of comedy material from others caused Beyond The Fringe performer Jonathan Miller to dub Frost 'the bubonic plagiarist'. For these reasons and others, the satirical magazine Private Eye has been a persistent critic of Frost, particularly during the 1970s.

In the early-1970's, Simon Dee was critical of Frost and accused him of sabotaging his own chat show, Dee Time, for the benefit of Frost's own. Frost was a share-holder at London Weekend Television and his show aired immediately before Dee Time.

In addition, Frost's interview style of late has been described as sycophantic, and markedly different to his performance in the 1960s and 1970s, which almost bordered on verbal bullying; it was from such fiery encounters that the phrase "trial by television" was popularised.

External links

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Early career

That Was The Week That Was (TW3)

After TW3

Criticism

External links