That Was The Interviewer That Was THE MAN WHO GOT NIXON TO TALK, A TOUGH BEAR, AND THE OLDEST MAN FOR A WHILE Sir David Frost was a creation of television, part-interviewer, part-humorist, part-personality. He started out on the groundbreaking British program That Was The Week That Was, where he was flanked by some of the best satirists of the era. He graduated to a television interviewer and he managed to snag most of the world's leading personalities for in-depth interviews. His most notable interview was with Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned from the presidency. Rick Casares was the tough halfback for the Chicago Bears in the 1950's and 1960's, who was their all-time leading rusher for many years and remains third on their lifetime list. Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez had been the oldest man in the world when he died at the age of 112. Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE (7 April 1939 -- 31 August 2013) was an English journalist, comedian, writer, media personality and television host. After graduating from Cambridge University, 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 MS Queen Elizabeth, on which he had been engaged as a speaker In 1968 he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality[7] at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the United States.[22] His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.[23] In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship.[24][25] During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.[25] 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 turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the US and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network."[26] Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over a period of four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal which had led to his resignation as President in 1974, expressed contrition saying "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life"

• published: 24 Sep 2013
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