David Attenborough From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir David Frederick Attenborough OMCHCVOCBEFRS FRSBFLSFZSFSA (/'t?nb?r?/; born 8

May 1926) [2][3] is an English veteran broadcaster and naturalist.
He is best known for writing and presenting the nine Life series, in conjunction
with the BBC Natural History Unit, which collectively form a comprehensive survey
of animal and plant life on the planet. He is also a former senior manager at the
BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC
Television in the 1960s and 1970s. He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for
programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D.
Attenborough is widely considered a national treasure in Britain, although he
himself does not like the term. [4][5][6] In 2002 he was named among the 100
Greatest Britons following a UK-wide poll for the BBC. [7] He is the younger
brother of director, producer and actor Richard Attenborough, [8] and older brother
of motor executive John Attenborough.
Contents
1Early life and family 2First years at the BBC 3BBC administration 4Return to
broadcasting 4.1Life series 4.2Other documentaries 4.3Current projects 5Other work
6Achievements, awards and recognition 6.1Honorary titles 6.2Recognition
6.2.1Species named in Attenborough's honour 6.3Awards 6.4Lectures 7Views and
advocacy 7.1Environment 7.2Attitude to religion and creationism 7.3BBC and public
service broadcasting 7.4Politics 8Health and future plans
Born
Nationality Alma mater
Occupation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough OMCHCVOCBEFRSFLSFZSFSA
Attenborough in May 2003 David Frederick Attenborough 8 May 1926 Isleworth, London
British Clare College, Cambridge London School of Economics Broadcaster Naturalist
Years active 1952present Title Member of the Order of Merit Companion of Honour
Commander of the Royal Victorian Order Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Fellow of the Royal Society [1] Fellow of the Linnean Society of London Fellow of
Zoological Society of London Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
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9Filmography 10Books 10.1Bibliography 11Audio recordings 12References 13External

links
Early life and family
First years at the BBC
Spouse(s)
Children
In 1950 Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel; she died in 1997. The
couple had two children, Robert and Susan. [16] Robert is a senior lecturer in
bioanthropology for the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian
National University in Canberra. [17][18] Susan is a former primary school
headmistress. [19][20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough
Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel (m. 1950; d. 1997) Robert Attenborough Susan
Attenborough
David Attenborough's voice Recorded January 2012 from the BBC Radio 4 programme
Desert Island Discs
Attenborough was born in Isleworth, West London, but grew up in College House on
the campus of the University College, Leicester, where his father, Frederick, was
principal. [9] He is the middle of three sons (his elder brother, Richard, became
an actor and director and his younger brother, John, was an executive at Italian
car manufacturer Alfa Romeo), and the only surviving child among them. [10] During
World War II, through a British charitable programme known as Kindertransport, his
parents also fostered two Jewishrefugee girls from Europe. [11]
Attenborough spent his childhood collecting fossils, stones and other natural
specimens. [12] He received encouragement in this pursuit at age seven, when a
young Jacquetta Hawkes admired his "museum". He also spent a considerable amount of
his time in the grounds of the university and aged 11 he heard that the zoology
department needed a large supply of newts which he offered via his father to supply
for 3d a newt. The source, which wasn't revealed at the time, was a pond less than
5 metres from the department. [13] A few years later, one of his adoptive sisters
gave him a piece of amber filled with prehistoric creatures; some 50 years later,
it would be the focus of his programme The Amber Time Machine.
In 1936 David and his brother Richard attended a lecture by Grey Owl (Archibald
Belaney) at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, and were influenced by his advocacy of
conservation. According to Richard, David was "bowled over by the man's
determination to save the beaver, by his profound knowledge of the flora and fauna
of the Canadian wilderness and by his warnings of ecological disaster should the
delicate balance between them be destroyed. The idea that mankind was endangering
nature by recklessly despoiling and plundering its riches was unheard of at the
time, but it is one that has remained part of Dave's own credo to this day." In
1999, Richard directed a biopic of Belaney entitled Grey Owl. [14]
Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and
then won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge in 1945, where he studied
geology and zoology and obtained a degree in natural sciences. [15] In 1947 he was
called up for national service in the Royal Navy and spent two years stationed in
North Wales and the Firth of Forth.
After leaving the Navy, Attenborough took a position editing children's science
textbooks for a publishing company. He soon became disillusioned with the work and
in 1950 applied for a job as a radio talk producer with the BBC. Although he was
rejected for this job, his CV later attracted the interest of Mary Adams, head of
the
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Attenborough's association with natural history programmes began when he produced

and presented the three-part series Animal Patterns. The studio-bound programme
featured animals from London Zoo, with the naturalist Julian Huxley discussing
their use of camouflage, aposematism and courtship displays. Through this
programme, Attenborough met Jack Lester, the curator of the zoo's reptile house,
and they decided to make a series about an animal-collecting expedition. The result
was Zoo Quest, first broadcast in 1954, where Attenborough became the presenter at
short notice due to Lester being taken ill.
BBC administration
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Talks (factual broadcasting) department of the BBC's fledgling television service.
Attenborough, like most Britons at that time, did not own a television, and he had
seen only one programme in his life. [21] However, he accepted Adams' offer of a
three-month training course, and in 1952 he joined the BBC full-time. Initially
discouraged from appearing on camera because Adams thought his teeth were too big,
[22] he became a producer for the Talks department, which handled all non-fiction
broadcasts. His early projects included the quiz show Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?
and Song Hunter, a series about folk music presented by Alan Lomax.
In 1957 the BBC Natural History Unit was formally established in Bristol.
Attenborough was asked to join it, but declined, not wishing to move from London
where he and his young family were settled. Instead, he formed his own department,
the Travel and Exploration Unit, [23] which allowed him to continue to front Zoo
Quest as well as produce other documentaries, notably the Travellers' Tales and
Adventure series.
In the early 1960s, Attenborough resigned from the permanent staff of the BBC to
study for a postgraduate degree in social anthropology at the London School of
Economics, interweaving his study with further filming. [24] However, he accepted
an invitation to return to the BBC as controller of BBC Two before he could finish
the degree. Attenborough rebuffed Terry Wogan's job application to be a BBC
presenter as "to have two Irishmen presenting on BBC Two would have looked
ridiculous". [25]
Attenborough became the controller of BBC Two in March 1965, but had a clause
inserted in his contract that would allow him to continue making programmes on an
occasional basis. Later the same year, he filmed elephants in Tanzania, and in
1969, he made a three-part series on the cultural history of the Indonesian island
of Bali. For the 1971 film A Blank on the Map, he joined the first Western
expedition to a remote highland valley in New Guinea to seek out a lost tribe.
BBC Two was launched in 1964, but had struggled to capture the public's
imagination. When Attenborough arrived as controller, he quickly abolished the
channel's quirky kangaroo mascot and shook up the schedule. With a mission to make
BBC Two's output diverse and different from that offered by other networks, he
began to establish a portfolio of programmes that defined the channel's identity
for decades to come. Under his tenure, music, the arts, entertainment, archaeology,
experimental comedy, travel, drama, sport, business, science and natural history
all found a place in the weekly schedules. Often, an eclectic mix was offered
within a single evening's viewing. Programmes he commissioned included Man Alive,
Call My Bluff, Chronicle, Life, One Pair of Eyes, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Monty
Python's Flying Circus and The Money Programme. When BBC Two became the first
British channel to broadcast in colour in 1967, Attenborough took advantage by
introducing televised snooker, as well as bringing rugby league to British
television on a regular basis via the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy.
One of his most significant decisions was to order a 13-part series on the history
of Western art, to show off the quality of the new UHFcolour television service
that BBC Two offered. Broadcast to universal acclaim in 1969, Civilisation set the
blueprint for landmark authored documentaries, which were informally known as
"tombstone" or "sledgehammer" projects. Others followed, including Jacob
Bronowski's The Ascent of Man (also commissioned by Attenborough), and Alistair
Cooke's America. Attenborough thought that the story of evolution
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Return to broadcasting
After his resignation, Attenborough became a freelance broadcaster and immediately
started work on his next project, a pre-arranged trip to Indonesia with a crew from
the Natural History Unit. It resulted in the 1973 series Eastwards with
Attenborough, which was similar in tone to the earlier Zoo Quests but without the
animal-collecting element.
After his return, he began to work on the scripts for Life on Earth. Due to the
scale of his ambition, the BBC decided to partner with an American network to
secure the necessary funding. While the negotiations were proceeding he worked on a
number of other television projects. He presented a series on tribal art (The
Tribal Eye, 1975) and another on the voyages of discovery (The Explorers, 1975). He
also presented a BBC children's series about cryptozoology entitled Fabulous
Animals (1975), which featured mythical creatures such as the griffin and kraken.
[26] Eventually, the BBC signed a co-production deal with Turner Broadcasting and
Life on Earth moved into production in 1976.
Life series
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would be a natural subject for such a series. He shared his idea with Chris
Parsons, a producer at the Natural History Unit, who came up with the title Life on
Earth and returned to Bristol to start planning the series. Attenborough harboured
a strong desire to present the series himself, but this would not be possible so
long as he remained in a management post.
In 1969 Attenborough was promoted to director of programmes, making him responsible
for the output of both BBC channels. His tasks, which included agreeing budgets,
attending board meetings and firing staff were now far removed from the business of
filming programmes. When Attenborough's name was being suggested as a candidate for
the position of Director-General of the BBC in 1972 he phoned his brother Richard
to confess that he had no appetite for the job. Early the following year, he left
his post to return to full-time programme-making, leaving him free to write and
present the planned natural history epic. [12]
Attenborough filming commentary for a documentary at Kennedy Space Center
Beginning with Life on Earth in 1979, Attenborough set about creating a body of
work which became a benchmark of quality in wildlife film-making and influenced a
generation of documentary film-makers. The series also established many of the
hallmarks of the BBC's natural history output. By treating his subject seriously
and researching the latest discoveries, Attenborough and his production team gained
the trust of scientists, who responded by allowing him to feature their subjects in
his programmes. In Rwanda, for example, Attenborough and his crew were granted
privileged access to film Dian Fossey's research group of mountain gorillas.
Innovation was another factor in Life on Earth's success: new film-making
techniques were devised to get the shots Attenborough wanted, with a focus on
events and animals that were hitherto unfilmed. Computerised airline schedules,
which had only recently been introduced, enabled the series to be elaborately
devised so that Attenborough visited several locations around the globe in each
episode, sometimes even changing continents mid-sentence. Although appearing as the
on-screen presenter, he consciously restricted his pieces to camera to give his
subjects top billing.
The success of Life on Earth prompted the BBC to consider a follow-up, and five
years later, The Living Planet
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Other documentaries