The veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost has died of a suspected heart attack at 74 years of age. Sir Frost was on board the Queen Elizabeth Cruise ship, where he was making a speech on Saturday evening. Tributes have been flooding in from colleagues, contemporaries and those politicians that were subject to his questions over the course of a long and prolific career.
Frost entered the limelight of Television from an early age. After a time as the secretary of the notorious Footlights Dramatic Club, Frost entered the world of television, working for several ITV companies. From there, he was approached by broadcaster and writer Ned Sherrin to front a new satirical show being produced by the BBC, a show that went by the name of “That Was The Week That Was”. On TW3, as it was known to people in a rush, Frost worked with some of the great comedic writers and performers of the time; John Cleese, Graham Chapman, John Betjeman and Dennis Potter. The show would prove to be a pivotal stage in the development of political satire, leading the way in the mockery of our countries leaders, whilst breaking the traditional rules of television at the time. Having established himself as a perfectly sardonic presenter, he then went to The Frost Report. It was here that his classic catchphrase: “Hello, good evening and welcome” was in full use.
Eventually, Frost edged away from the lampooning and satirizing the politicians of the time, moving on from the Frost Report to The Frost Programme. Here Frost interviewed such figures as The Beatles, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger. It was an interview with Emil Savundra, a crook whose fraudulent insurance companies had left thousands, that Frost shocked many by questioning Savundra with a fierce intensity. The evasive nature of the interviewee made Frost so angry that he stormed off set, visibly angry. For this, Frost was applauded by one of the first live interview audiences. His was the first iteration of an approach adopted by the likes of Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys.
Of course, Frost’s name, to the average ear, would be less likely to recall a career of acerbic wit and political satire, but the notable scalp of former US President Richard Nixon. It was during an interview with Frost that the former President admitted to his personal involvement with the Watergate scandal. The interview was so important that it was made into a play, and later a film, by the name of “Frost/Nixon”. But Nixon was not the only world leader that Frost interviewed, many of the worlds most important leaders and figures were grilled by Frost, including the late Lady Thatcher upon the sinking of the Belgrano.
For 30 years, Frost continued to broadcast, interview and present, from “The David Frost Show” to “Through The Keyhole“. As he aged, he adopted a kinder, gentler approach to interviewing. It was an approach that drastically differed from his previous style, a change that garnered some small amount of criticism, but Frost defended it by saying “What is more likely to get the coat off your back: The wind or the sun? Wind makes you draw the jacket round yourself. The sun encourages you to take it off,”.
Presented with an OBE in 1970, Knighted in 1992, Frost remained modest. A modesty that covered over 50 years in television, interviews with every British Prime Minister since 1964, every US President since 1969, a notable number of books, the production of films and countless awards and honors.