David Frost

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Family

British TV personality, actor, producer, writer and host interviewer. Frost rocketed to the top of his profession at a young age and achieved his greatest notoriety in interviewing the disgraced former U.S. president, Richard Nixon in 1976. His father, Wilfrid John Paradine Frost, was a Methodist minister. The boy went to grammar school in Kent and Northamptonshire where he excelled in soccer but he declined an invitation to join the professional soccer team in Nottingham, England. Frost enrolled at Cambridge University and edited the college magazine. He was the secretary of the Cambridge Footlights, a campus revue and cabaret society. Graduating with honors in English, Frost took a job in London as a trainee with a commercial program contracting company in television. As he learned the business side of television, Frost spent his evenings performing in skits at the nightclubs in the West End of London. During one of his performances, he was spotted by a producer of the BBC and hired to write for the company. At 23, Frost created for the BBC the hit show "That Was the Week That Was" in July 1962. It was a satirical show with slapstick film clips, musical numbers, and parodies ridiculing the pompous, excessively rich and politically powerful in England. When the show was canceled in December 1963, Frost left to the U.S. to create an American version of the show for network television starring Audrey Meadows and Henry Morgan. The show surprised American audience and critics but ended early with a cancellation. In 1968, Westinghouse Broadcasting Company hired Frost for an interview show called "The David Frost Review" that asked sensitive questions and probed issues with political and notable figures. His abilities as a smooth, shrewd and amiable interviewer became apparent to his audiences and his illustrious guests. The program ran until 1972. In 1976, he delivered his noted exclusive interview with disgraced former U.S. president Richard Nixon. Frost has written a few books, including "To England With Love," 1967, "The Americans," 1970 and "David Frost's Book of Millionaires and Really Rich People," 1984. He continues to interview world famous celebrities from the entertainment and political arena on television on both sides of the Atlantic. Frost's early romantic ties were with actresses Carol Linley and Diahann Carroll. At the age of 42, he married Peter Seller's widow, Lynne Frederick, 1981. The marriage ended in a divorce the following year. His second marriage was in 1983 to Lady Carina Fitzhalen Howard, the daughter of the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk; they had three sons. He died on 31 August 2013. Link to Wikipedia biography