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The former boss of TV-am recalls a broadcasting superstar whose killer interview techniques were matched by a remarkable ability to see the best in everyone he knew
• See the Observer's obituaries of 2013 in full here
Greg Dyke first met David Frost in 1983 when he was brought in to be his boss at TV-am. They immediately hit it off and became close friends.
What was remarkable about David Frost was that despite being famous from his early 20s right through until his mid 70s he was never the typical star. David was always happy in his own skin, generous about others and widely liked in the television industry.
He started his unique career as the main presenter and ideas man on That Was the Week That Was, the late-night BBC programme that changed Britain like no other before or after. It is difficult to explain to young people today how important and different TW3 was for all of us back in the 60s. It was the first programme to debunk the British establishment and, as a result, was loved by everyone under the age of 30 and hated by the pompous establishment it lampooned.
Watching recordings of TW3 today you can only admire his presenting talent, his humour, his ideas and his amazing confidence, all achieved at the ridiculously young age of 23.
Still at school at the time of TW3, I was one of those for whom it was appointment viewing, so when I met David 20 years later in 1983 I, like so many others, was a bit in awe of him. Given that I'd been brought in to be his boss at the breakfast station TV-am, which was going through its launch crisis at the time, it could have been difficult.
Instead we became close friends – a friendship that lasted for the next 30 years.
Between us we invented a new interview show for David on Sunday mornings, which ran for a remarkable 21 years. On it he interviewed prime ministers, US presidents and virtually anyone who mattered in Britain. It was typical of David that when TV-am lost its franchise he sold the show to BBC1, where it flourished for another decade.
After TW3 he could, no doubt, have stayed at the BBC, and become one of its iconic lifelong presenters but spending the rest of his career with "auntie" would have been too dull for him. He was a television entrepreneur and to spend the rest of his life working solely for a public corporation would never have been enough for him.
Instead he developed his television career in Britain on ITV while building a reputation in the US and later Australia. He was British television's first international superstar, jetting across the Atlantic at the drop of a hat. As one of the Monty Python stars said on hearing of the news of his death, "he only died on the Queen Elizabeth because Concorde was no longer flying".
He was much more than just a presenter or interviewer. He was a talent spotter, a brilliant producer, a great ideas man and someone who understood the business side of television. He was one of Britain's first independent producers and he understood about the value of owning programme rights at least 20 years before everyone else.
In 1967 – at the age of 28 – he put together the team that won the London Weekend Television franchise on ITV. He also became the station's biggest star, presenting Frost on Friday, Frost on Saturday and Frost on Sunday live every weekend, then flying to New York to present on American TV. Fifteen years later he pulled off his franchise trick for the second time when he brought together the "famous five" presenters [Michael Parkinson, Angela Rippon, Anna Ford and Robert Kee were the others] to win the TV-am franchise.
In his early years Frost upset a lot of those he interviewed. No one who watched his confrontation with the insurance crook Emil Savundra will forget the experience, and it was after a hostile interview by Frost at LWT that Rupert Murdoch walked out of the studio saying he would get his revenge "by buying that place" (he tried and was only stopped by the Independent Broadcasting Authority).
Frost moved on from LWT and sold his shares in the company to finance his interviews with the disgraced former US president Richard Nixon in 1977. He told me he had to wait for 30 years and the Frost/Nixon film before he got all his money back. He would have made much more money by hanging onto his investment in LWT but he didn't want the money, he wanted to interview Nixon and was prepared to risk all to do it.
When Frost/Nixon came out in 2008, my kids, who'd known him for years as a family friend, suddenly looked at him differently; a new generation had discovered what a brilliant, brave interviewer he was. In his later years his interviewing technique changed but was equally effective. His skill was in engaging people who mistakenly thought he was on their side before he delivered the coup de grace.
Because we were near-neighbours in Hampshire we regularly had Sunday lunch – usually at his place – with David, his wife, Carina, their three boys and assorted famous guests. The lunch virtually always ended in a football match on the lawn, which was fun when the kids were young but as they got older and bigger David and I became nervous of being clattered.
Frost never really got the hang of new technology. I remember being with him in Cardiff one Saturday, we were going to the FA Cup Final to watch his beloved Arsenal. I said I needed to get some cash from a cash machine and as I punched in my number and withdrew the cash David looked on bemused and said: "Do you know how to work one of those?" He had never used one in his life.
While he would be happy to be remembered as performer, producer, interviewer and businessman, he would want to be best remembered as David the husband, father and friend. He had a remarkable attitude to life in that he saw the best in everyone, he never judged, he never criticised, no matter how much he was provoked. I regularly urged him to at least say something mildly critical about almost anyone but he refused. As a result he wasn't only respected by those who knew him. He was much loved.