News – Sir David Frost dies
Sir David Frost, the veteran interviewer and television broadcaster and personality, has died aged 74. One of the most important journalists of our lifetimes, he interviewed everyone of note in the last half-century, from Paul McCartney to George Bush Snr. He conversed with eight British Prime Ministers and a whole host of American Presidents.
David Frost was perhaps most famous for his interview with former President Nixon following the Watergate Scandal in 1977. His interview technique, which consisted of 30 hours of grilling, made the ex-President trip up. Frost had paid $600,000 of his own money for access to Nixon so he needed to get a scoop. And get it he did: Nixon admitted that he had made a balls-up, famously saying he had ‘let my country down.’ Not only that, though: Nixon, riled and impatient with the shrewd British interviewer, made the gaff of telling an audience of millions, ‘well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.’
Frost also infamously asked, in his singular, mild way, the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair whether he and his partner in war George Bush Jnr ever prayed together. Blair was flabbergasted, Frost remained impeccably interested but calm. He grilled Mrs Thatcher on the Falklands and asked Desmond Tutu how to stay optimistic. He joked with Jane Fonda and spoke with Truman Capote.
He was also a man who loved life with every bone in his body. In the 1970s he had a (well-deserved) reputation as an international playboy, but after his marriage to Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard he became a devoted family man, spending weekends with his wife and their three sons in their Hampshire home, Michelmersh Court.
Sir David Frost was an extraordinary man and an important man. Questions he asked paved the way for a clearer history of the 20th Century. He will be fondly remembered by the millions who saw him and felt they knew him.
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