David Frost | |
|---|---|
 Frost during an interview withDonald Rumsfeld in 2005 | |
| Born | David Paradine Frost (1939-04-07)7 April 1939 |
| Died | 31 August 2013(2013-08-31) (aged 74) |
| Resting place | Holy Trinity Churchyard,Nuffield,Oxfordshire, England |
| Education | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1962–2013 |
| Known for |
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| Spouses | |
| Partner(s) | Diahann Carroll (1970–1973) |
| Children | 3, includingWilfred |
Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was an English television host, journalist, comedian and writer. He rose to prominence during thesatire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programmeThat Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them theNixon interviews with US presidentRichard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted intoa stage play andfilm. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving from 1964 to his death in 2013, fromAlec Douglas-Home toDavid Cameron, and all seven American presidents in office from 1969 to 2008.[1]
Frost was one of the people behind the launch ofITV stationTV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US news magazine programmeInside Edition.[2] He hosted the Sunday morning interview programmeBreakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host ofThrough the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programmeFrost Over the World onAl Jazeera English, and the weekly programmeThe Frost Interview from 2012. He received theBAFTA Fellowship from theBritish Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and theLifetime Achievement Award at theEmmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise shipMS Queen Elizabeth, where he had been engaged as a speaker.[3] His memorial stone was unveiled inPoets' Corner ofWestminster Abbey in March 2014.[4]
Frost was born inTenterden,Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of aMethodist minister ofHuguenot descent,[1] the Rev. Wilfred John Paradine Frost (1900–1967), and his wife, Maude Evelyn ("Mona"; 1903–1991), née Aldrich; he had two elder sisters. The name "Paradine" reflected Huguenot ancestry.[5][6][7]
While living inGillingham, 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 Methodistlocal preacher, which he did not complete.[8]
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham,St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa,[9]Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing inRaunds, Northamptonshire –Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avidfootball andcricket player,[6] and was offered a contract withNottingham Forest F.C.[10] For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelistBilly Graham.[1]
Frost studied atGonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English.[11] He was editor of both the university's student paper,Varsity, and the literary magazineGranta. He was also secretary of theFootlights Drama Society,[6] which included actors such asPeter Cook andJohn Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition ofAnglia Television'sTown And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."[12]
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed byBarry Humphries.[13]Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike.[14] According to satiristJohn Wells, OldEtonian actorJonathan 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.[13]
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee atAssociated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub inBerkeley Square, London during the evenings.[1][15]
Frost was chosen by writer and producerNed Sherrin to host the satirical programmeThat Was the Week That Was, orTW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of thesatire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost inTW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist".[16] The new satirical magazinePrivate Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series ofTW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production ofBeyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995,Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.[17]
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats ofThe Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director GeneralHugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned,TW3 returned to being open-ended.[18] More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to theassassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition ofThat Was the Week That Was.[19] An American version ofTW3 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 onNBC 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.
Frost fronted various programmes following the success ofTW3, including its immediate successor,Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired withWillie Rushton and poetP. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family.[19] More successful wasThe Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers ofJohn Cleese,Ronnie Barker, andRonnie Corbett, who appeared together in theClass sketch. Frost signed forRediffusion, theITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show calledThe Frost Programme. Guests includedOswald Mosley andRhodesian premierIan Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudsterEmil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial.[1] Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became hiscatchphrase and were often mimicked.[3]
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This becameLondon Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that 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, withLew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence.[20][21] Frost, according toKitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."[22]
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during theBritish television Apollo 11 coverage, he presentedDavid Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT'sWembley Studios, on the nightNeil Armstrong walked on the Moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historianA. J. P. Taylor and entertainerSammy Davis Jr.[23] Around this time Frost interviewedRupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, theNews of the World, had just serialised the memoirs ofChristine Keeler, a central figure in theProfumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be.[24] Murdoch confessed to his biographerMichael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".[25]
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting upDavid Paradine Ltd in 1966,[19][12] he part-financedThe Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the Britishmusical filmThe Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story ofCinderella. Frost was the subject ofThis Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised byEamonn Andrews at London'sQuaglino's restaurant.[citation needed]
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[12] at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and frontedThe David Frost Show on theGroup W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S.[26] His 1970 TV special,Frost on America, featured guests such asJack Benny andTennessee Williams.[27]
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost andHenry Kissinger, President Nixon'snational security advisor andsecretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to callchess GrandmasterBobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year'sWorld Chess Championship.[28][29] During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.[29] Frost interviewed heavyweight boxerMuhammad Ali in 1974 athis training camp inDeer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" withGeorge Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."[30]
In 1977, theNixon interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. PresidentRichard 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 U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews in the U.S. via theMutual Broadcasting System and their local affiliates, as well as internationally.[31] Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in theWatergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life".[32][33] Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.[34][35]
Following the 1979Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interviewMohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposedShah of Iran.[36] The interview took place onContadora Island inPanama in January 1980,[37] and was broadcast by theAmerican Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January.[38] The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, theSAVAK, thetorture during his reign,Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.[39] Frost was an organiser of theMusic for UNICEF Concert at theUnited Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news programInside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."[40]
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launchedTV-am in February 1983; however, 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, withRichard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire threeITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by theIndependent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programmeBreakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran onBSB before moving toBBC 1.[41]
Frost hostedThrough the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featuredLoyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.[19] Frost worked forAl 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 asTony Blair, PresidentOmar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime MinisterBenazir Bhutto of Pakistan and PresidentDaniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the formerQuestion Time editor andIndependent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored theFatwa on Terrorism,Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.[42]
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one ofConcorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.[43][44] In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leaderMuammar Gaddafi as part of theMonitor Group's involvement in the country.[45] In June 2010, Frost presentedFrost on Satire, an hour-longBBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written byPeter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977.Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production inLondon in 2006 and onBroadway in 2007.Frank Langella won theTony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations forBest Play andBest Direction.
The2008 film adaptation of the play was directed byRon Howard and starredMichael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. It was nominated for fiveGolden Globe Awards, winning none:Best Motion Picture — Drama,Best Director,Best Actor (Langella),Best Screenplay, andBest Original Score.[46] It was also nominated for fiveAcademy Awards, again winning none:Best Picture,Best Actor (Langella),Best Director,Best Adapted Screenplay, andBest Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programmeForeign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the filmFrost/Nixon.[47]
Frost's interviews are also the basis for a six-partdocuseries,David Frost vs., that is scheduled to air onMSNBC in 2025.[48]
Frost had several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actressJanette Scott, between her marriages to songwriterJackie Rae and singerMel Tormé; from 1970 to 1973, he was engaged to American actressDiahann Carroll; in 1974, he was briefly engaged to American modelKaren Graham;[49] between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he marriedLynne Frederick, widow ofPeter Sellers, but they divorced the following year.[6] He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actressCarol Lynley.[50]
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter ofMiles Fitzalan-Howard, 17th Duke of Norfolk.[6] Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years.[51] His second son,Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor atSky News andCNBC. They lived for many years inChelsea, London, and kept a weekend home atMichelmersh Court in Hampshire.[52] Frost was a fan ofSouthampton F.C. and was part of a consortium alongsideGavyn Davies that attempted to take over the club in 1996.[53]
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard theCunard cruise shipMS Queen Elizabeth when he died of a heart attack, aged 74.[54] Cunard said that the vessel had leftSouthampton for a ten-day cruise in theMediterranean, ending inRome.[55] Apost-mortem found that Frost hadhypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son Miles died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.[56]
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church inNuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013,[57] after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held atWestminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone inPoets' Corner.[58]
British Prime MinisterDavid Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer."[59]Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a televisionrenaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at theMontreux Golden Rose festival."[60]
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eightBritish prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson,Edward Heath,James Callaghan,Margaret Thatcher,John Major,Tony Blair,Gordon Brown, andDavid Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2009 (Richard Nixon,Gerald Ford,Jimmy Carter,Ronald Reagan,George H. W. Bush,Bill Clinton, andGeorge W. Bush).[1]
He was a patron and former vice-president of theMotor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of theAlzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund,[61]East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and theElton John AIDS Foundation.[62][63][64] He was also recognised for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".[65]
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth£200 million by theSunday Times Rich List in 2006,[66] a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011.[16] The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.[66]
In 1968 he set up his own company, David Paradine Productions, and by 1969 his salary was rumoured to be £500,000.
The tournament was dramatic enough thanks to Fischer's antics, but telephone conversation on 3 July 1972, capturing British journalist David Frost asking Kissinger to 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.
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