- published: 06 Aug 2015
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Alan Yentob (born 11 March 1947) is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.
Alan Yentob was born into an Iraqi Jewish family in London. Soon after he was born, his family moved to Manchester where his dad ran a textile business, Dewhurst Dent, in which he still owns a 10% share. He grew up in Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester, and returned to London with his family when he was 12 to live in a flat on Park Lane. He was a boarder at the independent The King's School in Ely, Cambridgeshire. He passed his A Levels and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and spent a year at Grenoble University. He went on to study Law at Leeds University, where he got involved in student drama. He graduated with a lower second class degree (2:2) in 1967.
He joined the BBC as a trainee in the BBC World Service in 1968 as its only non-Oxbridge graduate of that year. Nine months later he moved into TV to become an assistant director on arts programmes.
In 1973, he became a producer and director, working on the high-profile documentary series, Omnibus, for which, in 1975, he made a famous film called Cracked Actor about the musician David Bowie. In 1975, he helped initiate another famous BBC documentary series, Arena, of which he was to remain the editor until 1985. The series still returns for semi-regular editions as of 2006.