David Frost

Sir David Paradine Frost OBE (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.

He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom 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 American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with US president Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving from 1964 to 2016, from Alec Douglas-Home to David Cameron, and all eight American presidents in office from 1969 to 2017, from Lyndon B. Johnson to Barack Obama.

Frost was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US news magazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and 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 the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.

Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship MS Queen Elizabeth, where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.

Early life

David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters.

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.

Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa,[8] Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.

Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, 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 didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."

According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, 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.

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 in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.

Personal life

Frost had 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 Tormé; from 1970 to 1973, he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; in 1974, he was briefly engaged to American model Karen Graham; 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. 

He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.

On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at Sky News and CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.

Death

On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship MS Queen Elizabeth when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son Miles died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.

A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard.

On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.

Tributes

British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." 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."

***

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 Cambridge University, he rose to fame in the UK when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was The Week That Was in 1962. During the later part of his career, he became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them The Nixon Interviews with former United States PresidentRichard Nixon in 1977, which were adapted into a stage play and film.

Frost was one of the key figures in 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.

Early life

David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939 as the son of aMethodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. W. J. Paradine Frost, and his wife Mona, and with two elder sisters. 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, as his father worked as a minister at the Methodist church there. He subsequently won a place at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in English. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C.

At Cambridge, Frost was editor of both the student newspaper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the famous Footlights Drama Society,[2]which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird.

After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion and worked for Anglia Television.

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 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. On 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred during the previous day, formed an 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 a number of 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 memorably appeared together in the Class sketch. He 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 premierIan Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra was generally regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK.

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.

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.

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.[5] His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Bennyand Tennessee Williams. In the same period he began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. He part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), the lead character is partly based on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit.

A declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's National Security Advisorand Secretary of State. In the conversation, Frost urges Kissinger to call chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.

In 1977 a series of interviews with former US President Richard Nixon were broadcast. Made for American television, they were screened internationally. Later, after the 1979 Iranian Revolution he was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.

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. However, he was dismissed after only three weeks, and then-ABC News reporter Bill O'Reilly was recruited in his stead.

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, withRichard 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.

Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by David Paradine Productions, his long production company, the programme was on daytime TV in its last years.

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 has 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. He was one of the first to interview the man who authored the historic fatwa on terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.

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.

In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. 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 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 the 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).

He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of theAlzheimer's Research Trust, the Hearing Trust, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was worth £200 million. This valuation includes the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.

Frost/Nixon

Originally a play by Peter Morgan that was developed from a series of interviews, Frost/Nixon was presented both in London and on Broadway. The play was adapted into a motion picture, starring Michael Sheen as Frost, Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, directed by Ron Howard, and released in 2008. The film was nominated for five Golden Globe awards: Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score, 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 (ABC-TV) international affairs programmeForeign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the feature filmFrost/Nixon.

Personal life

Frost was known for several liaisons with beautiful and high profile women, and he is also known for remaining friendly with most of them. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; 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; and in 1981 he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with Carol Lynley.

On 19 March 1983, David Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard (born 20 February 1952), daughter to the 17th Duke of Norfolk, and the couple had three sons. For many years they lived in Chelsea, with their weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.

Death

On 31 August 2013, Frost was giving a speech on board the Cunard cruise liner, the MS Queen Elizabeth. During his speech he had a suspected heart attack and died. His employer carried a report on his death which also featured a statement from his family that read: "Sir David died of a heart attack last night aboard the Queen Elizabeth which is a Cunard [cruise] liner where he was giving a speech. His family are devastated and ask for privacy at this difficult time." Cunard said that the vessel left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean ending in Rome.[23] British Prime Minister David Cameron was quick to offer his tribute, writing on Twitter: "My heart goes out to David Frost's family. He could be – and certainly was with me – both a friend and a fearsome interviewer."

Selected awards and honours

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

Publications

• "I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the scenes of the Nixon interviews (1978). Published as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
• David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
• The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986). With Michael Shea.
• An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993).