David Frost, Who Interviewed Nixon, Is Dead at 74 David Frost, the iconoclastic British broadcaster best known for interviewing former President Richard M. Nixon after he resigned from office in disgrace, died on Saturday night. He was 74.
His death, which was announced in a statement by the Frost family to the BBC, was confirmed by a spokesman for Al Jazeera English, where Mr. Frost hosted an interview program. The statement said Mr. Frost died, possibly of a heart attack, while aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, where he was scheduled to give a speech.
Mr. Frost had just moved to a home close to Oxford, according to Richard Brock, his executive producer at Al Jazeera English. He also had a home in London.
Known for incisive interviews of leading public figures, Mr. Frost spent more than 50 years in television. Since 2006, he has conducted newsmaker interviews for Al Jazeera English, one of the BBC’s main competitors overseas.
“No matter who he was interviewing, he was committed to getting the very best out of the discussion, but always doing so by getting to know his guest, engaging with them and entering into a proper conversation,” Al Anstey, the managing director of Al Jazeera English, said in an message.
“His humor, intelligence and unique character on-air was no different away from the cameras,” Mr. Anstey said. “He was a great journalist, a legendary interviewer, but always a true gentleman.”
Among his guests on Al Jazeera were the first President George Bush, George Clooney and the tennis star Martina Navratilova. One of his first interviews for Al Jazeera made headlines when his guest Tony Blair agreed with Mr. Frost’s assessment that the Iraq war had, up until that point in 2006, “been pretty much of a disaster.” More recently, in 2011, Mr. Frost sat with Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary.
A new season of Mr. Frost’s program, “The Frost Interview,” began in July with the astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The season was scheduled to continue through mid-September.
David Paradine Frost was born April 7, 1939, in Tenterden, England, to Mona and W. J. Paradine Frost. His father was a Methodist minister. While a student, Mr. Frost edited both a student newspaper and a literary publication at Cambridge University, where he showed a great talent for satire — something the BBC soon capitalized on.
In 1962, Mr. Frost became the host of “That Was the Week That Was,” a satirical look at the news on Saturday nights. While it lasted for only two seasons in Britain, “TW3,” as it was known, was reborn briefly as a program on NBC in the United States, and it is remembered as a forerunner to “The Daily Show” and the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” After “TW3,” Mr. Frost hosted a succession of programs in Britain, from game shows to intellectually rigorous talk shows.
In his penetrating interviews with President Nixon in 1977, which were later immortalized in a play and a film both named “Frost/Nixon,” Mr. Frost asked about Mr. Nixon’s abuses of presidential power, prompting this answer: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
“Upon hearing that sentence, I could scarcely believe my ears,” Mr. Frost wrote in a 2009 book about the interview, published on the occasion of the “Frost/Nixon” movie. Mr. Frost said his task then “was to keep him talking on this theme for as long as possible.”
By then, Mr. Frost and Mr. Nixon had already spoken on camera several times. And they continued to speak: the interviews, for which Mr. Nixon was paid $600,000 and a share of the profit for the broadcasts, totaled nearly 29 hours, and were taped over four weeks for about two hours at a time.
On the last day, Mr. Nixon apologized for putting “the American people through two years of needless agony.” Since then, whenever Mr. Frost was asked about the highlight of his career, he cited the Nixon interview.
“The Nixon interviews were among the great broadcast moments, but there w
Yes.
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Quote Originally Posted by WilliamBlake
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1832979)
R.I.P. David.
Seemed like a decent sort of chap.
Excellent interviewer...pure class. He seems relatively young to have a fatal heart attack, but I noticed in recent years a type of speech pattern that I associate with heart problems...he definitely leaves a huge gap.
Sanctimonious cunt. Only slightly better than that other twat, Robin Day.
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I will always remember his poem:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Who's going to do "Through the Keyhole" now?
Quote Originally Posted by WilliamBlake
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1832979)
Seemed like a decent sort of chap.
I believe he was, Bill.
It was such a shame to see him fronting such tat as 'Through the Keyhole' when I remember David Frost for something much more significant than that Nixon interview.
The name Emil Savundra doesn't mean anything now (good; he was just an odious little swindler anyway) yet in all the obituaries to Frostie that I've read over the last couple of days Frost v. Savundra was only briefly mentioned. (I've just looked and am delighted to see that it's on YouTube.)
Frost interviewing this toerag on TV in 1967 really was a watershed moment for television. That's not to trivialise his Nixon interview but - as was said at the time of the movie release - that interview didn't change the world; it was a journalistic achievement, not a political one. Nixon had nothing to lose by that point in his life, and neither did he lose anything as a result of it.
One more thing - if you've seen Frost/Nixon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870111/)(and if you haven't I highly recommend it) then that film's portrait of David Frost as being a playboy shagger and a bit of chancer (bordering on cad) has been deemed accurate by those who knew him. A full-on 70s man. I bet he used Brut 33.
The so-called 'Trial by Television'. The Frost Programme.
The episode was quickly dubbed "trial by television" and caused serious misgivings in the corridors of power in the television world and beyond, causing Rediffusion senior management to be ultra-cautious in future. It was felt that the television treatment of Savundra by Frost severely compromised Savundra's right to a fair trial in a British criminal court. However, the programme created the reputation of Frost as a vigorous interviewer in the UK and may have helped develop his career in the USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) - culminating in his famous interview with a post-Watergate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal) Richard Nixon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon) in 1977, where again he was underestimated
The full background to this wretched man:
Emil Savundra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Savundra)
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Quote Originally Posted by kiwiling
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1833033)
He seems relatively young to have a fatal heart attack, but I noticed in recent years a type of speech pattern that I associate with heart problems.
Can you elaborate kiwi?
I wasn't to familiar with his work. I did enjoy the Frost/Nixon film though. He did have that wonderful skill of getting people in high places to drop their guard. A number of great broadcasters have had that skill.
---Update---
Seventy three is fair enough.
He spent his years pursing his passion, you can hardly ask for more.
Quote Originally Posted by Anna Key
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1833064)
One more thing - if you've seen Frost/Nixon then that film's portrait of David Frost as being a playboy shagger and a bit of a chancer (bordering on cad) has been deemed accurate by those who knew him. A full-on 70s man. I bet he used Brut 33.
I knew I loved him for a reason. [image: http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/images/smilies/laugh.gif]
Quote Originally Posted by WilliamBlake
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1833221)
I knew I loved him for a reason.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to WilliamBlake again. Me too[image: http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/images/smilies/laugh.gif]...why not?...oh I forgot sex is wrong[image: http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/images/smilies/laugh.gif]
Quote Originally Posted by russellsimpson
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1833218)
Can you elaborate kiwi?
I am not a doctor or medically trained, and I haven't Googled it, but I was a regular fan and watcher of David Frost way back then. He was an excellent speaker. Yet I noticed in later years he wasn't as clear. I don't think it was age, because 75 isn't that old, and Reagan could still spin a yarn in his 80's. There was a guy on Coro Street, way back yonder, can't remember his name...AK will know...he married the hairdresser...but I digress...he also had heart problems and I noticed a similar speech pattern with him after the problems...just my observation though...if it isn't on Google it probably isn't true...I just Googled it...and there are heaps of links between heart problems and slurred speech.
Quote Originally Posted by kiwiling
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1833353)
Reagan could still spin a yarn in his 80's
*...abdddd...wesandooo...qudly...vollscy...hee hee...*
...yes Ronnie, we all remember that one...
Quote Originally Posted by WilliamBlake
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/international-news/74700-frost-over.html#post1833221)
I knew I loved him for a reason.
I always thought of him as a Hai Karate kinda dude...
Reagan could spin a yarn TC...couldn't do much else except ride a horse...but he could spin a yarn...fucking idiot he was