David Frost

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 the University of Cambridge, Frost rose to prominence in the UK 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 US television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them The Nixon Interviews with former United States President Richard Nixon in 1977, which were adapted into a stage play and film.

Frost was one of the 'Famous Five' who were behind 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.

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 early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.

Frost fronted various 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 appeared together in the Class sketch
His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.

In 1977, The Nixon Interviews, a series of five 90-minute interviews with former US President Richard 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 US television networks described them as "chequebook journalism". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over a period of four weeks. The interviews were syndicated on American television, and screened internationally. The interviews were noted for Nixon's first apology to the American people for his role in the Watergate scandal

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran

Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown on prime time and daytime television in its later years

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 Muammar 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.


Frost was the only person to have interviewed all 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 all 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 the Alzheimer'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 estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.

Frost was known for 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; 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; 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. They had three sons and for many years lived in Chelsea, with their weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.

On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard a Cunard cruise liner, the MS Queen Elizabeth, when he had a suspected heart attack and died. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean ending in Rome. 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.