David Frost

David Frost
Frost during an interview with Donald Rumsfeld in 2005
Born
David Paradine Frost

(1939-04-07)7 April 1939
Tenterden, Kent, England
Died31 August 2013(2013-08-31) (aged 74)
Resting placeHoly Trinity Churchyard, Nuffield, Oxfordshire, England
EducationGonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Occupations
  • Television presenter
  • journalist
  • comedian
  • writer
Years active1962–2013
Known for
Spouses
(m. 1981; div. 1982)
Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard
(m. 1983)
Partner(s)Diahann Carroll
(1970–1973)
Children3, including Wilfred

Sir David Paradine Frost OBE (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was an English 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 2008, from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush.[1]

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.[2] 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.[3] His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Jeffries was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Watch Inside Edition's Very First Episode From 1989", Inside Edition, 7 January 2019, retrieved 25 November 2020
  3. ^ "Sir David Frost, broadcaster and writer, dies at 74". BBC News. 1 September 2013. Retrieved 1 September 2013.
  4. ^ "Sir David Frost's memorial at Westminster's Poets' Corner". BBC News. 13 March 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015.