Sir David Frederick Attenborough, OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS (born on May 8, 1926 in London, England) is one of the world's best known broadcasters and naturalists.
Widely considered one of the pioneers of the nature documentary, his career as the respected face and voice of British
natural history programmes has endured more than 50 years. He is best known for writing
and presenting the eight "Life" series, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History
Unit, which collectively form a comprehensive survey of all terrestrial life. A ninth series is in production. He is also
a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC2 and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s.
He is the younger brother of director and actor Richard Attenborough.
Early life
Attenborough grew up in College House on the campus of University College,
Leicester, where his father, Frederick, was principal.[1] He was the
middle of three sons (his elder brother, Richard, became a director and his younger brother, John, an executive at
Alfa Romeo). During World War II his parents also
adopted two Jewish refugee girls from Europe.
Attenborough spent his childhood collecting fossils, stones and other natural specimens. He received encouragement in this pursuit at age seven, when a young
Jacquetta Hawkes admired his "museum". A few years later, one of his adoptive sisters
gave him a piece of amber filled with prehistoric creatures; some 50 years later,
this amber would be the focus of his programme The Amber Time Machine.
Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for
Boys in Leicester and then won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge where he studied geology and zoology and obtained a degree in Natural
Sciences. 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.
In 1950, Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel; the marriage lasted until her death in 1997. The couple had two
children, Robert and Susan.
First years at the BBC
After leaving the Navy, Attenborough took a position editing children's science textbooks for a publishing company. He soon
became disillusioned with the work, however, and in 1950 he applied for a job as a radio talks producer with the BBC. Although he
was rejected for this job, his CV later attracted the interest of Mary Adams, head of the 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.[2] 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,[3] 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.
Attenborough's association with natural history programmes began when he produced and presented the three-part series The
Pattern of Animals. The studio-bound programme featured animals from London Zoo, with the
naturalist Sir 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, which Attenborough presented at short notice, due to Lester being taken ill.
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[4], which allowed him to continue to front
the Zoo Quest programmes as well as produce other documentaries, notably the Travellers’ Tales and Adventure
series.
BBC administration
From 1965 to 1969 Attenborough was Controller of BBC2. Among the programmes he commissioned
during this time were Match of the Day, Civilisation, The Ascent of Man,
The Likely Lads, Man Alive,
Masterclass, The Old Grey Whistle
Test and The Money Programme. He also initiated televised
snooker. This diversity of programme types reflects Attenborough's belief that BBC2's output
should be as varied as possible. In 1967, under his watch, BBC2 became the first television channel in the United Kingdom to
broadcast in colour.
From 1969 to 1972 he was BBC Television's Director of Programmes (making him responsible overall for both BBC1 and BBC2), but turned down the offer to become Director
General of the BBC. In 1972 he resigned his post and returned to programme making.
Major series
Attenborough with a pair of
albatrosses in the series
Life in the Freezer
Foremost among Attenborough's TV documentary work as writer and presenter is the "Life" series, which begins with the trilogy:
Life on Earth (1979), The Living
Planet (1984) and The Trials of Life (1990). These examine the
world's organisms from the viewpoints of taxonomy, ecology and
stages of life respectively.
They were followed by more specialised surveys: Life in the Freezer (about
Antarctica; 1993), The Private Life of
Plants (1995), The Life of Birds (1998), The Life of Mammals (2002) and his most recent, Life in the Undergrowth (2005), which concerned terrestrial invertebrates.
Life in Cold Blood (dealing with reptiles and amphibians) is currently in post-production and due for broadcast in 2008.[5] The "Life" series as a whole currently comprises 74 programmes.
Attenborough has also written and/or presented other shorter productions. One of the first after his return to
programme-making was The Tribal Eye (1975), which enabled him to expand on his interest in tribal art. Others include
The First Eden (1987), about man's relationship with the natural habitats of the Mediterranean, and Lost Worlds, Vanished
Lives (1989), which demonstrated Attenborough's passion for discovering fossils. In
2000, State of the Planet examined the environmental crisis that threatens
the ecology of the Earth. The naturalist also narrated two other significant series: The
Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006). The latter is the
first natural history series to be made entirely in high-definition.
In May–June 2006, the BBC broadcast a major two-part environmental documentary as part of its "Climate Chaos" season of
programmes on global warming. In Are
We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth?, Attenborough investigated the subject and put forward
some potential solutions. He returned to the locations of some of his past productions and discovered the effect that climate
change has had on them.
In 2007, Attenborough presented "Sharing Planet Earth", the first programme in a series of documentaries entitled Saving
Planet Earth. Again he used footage from his previous series to illustrate the impact that mankind has had on the planet.
"Sharing Planet Earth" was broadcast on 24 June 2007.[6]
Life in Cold Blood is intended to be Attenborough's last major series. In an interview to promote Life in the
Undergrowth, he stated:
Once I have completed the reptiles series [...] that will be enough. It would complete the survey for me. I will have given a
series to every group of animals and when that is done there would be 100 or so hours of DVDs on the shelf.[7]
However, in a subsequent interview with Radio Times, he said that he did not
intend to retire completely and would probably continue to make occasional one-off programmes.
Other work
In 1975, the naturalist presented a BBC children's series about cryptozoology entitled
Fabulous Animals[8]. This represented a diversion
from Attenborough's usual fare, as it dealt with the creatures of myths and legends, such as the griffin and kraken. It was a studio-based production, with the
presenter describing his subjects with the aid of large, ornately illustrated books.
From 1983, Attenborough worked on two environmentally-themed musicals with the WWF and writers Peter Rose and Anne
Conlon. Yanomamo was the first, about the Amazon rainforest, and the second, Ocean World, premiered at the
Royal Festival Hall in 1991. They were both narrated by Attenborough on their
national tour, and recorded on to audio cassette. Ocean World was also filmed for Channel
4 and later released.
Between 1977 and 2005, Attenborough also narrated over 250 editions of the half-hour BBC1 nature series Wildlife on One[9] (BBC2
repeats were retitled Wildlife on Two). Though his role was mainly to narrate other people's films, he did on rare
occasions appear in front of the camera.
Attenborough also serves on the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine.
Achievements, awards and recognition
On 13 July 2006, Attenborough, along with his brother Richard,
were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of
Leicester "in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the University."[10] David Attenborough was previously awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the university in
1970.[11]
In 1993, after discovering that the Mesozoic reptile
Plesiosaurus conybeari had not, in fact, been a true plesiosaur, the paleontologist Robert Bakker renamed the species
Attenborosaurus conybeari in Attenborough's honour.[12]
Out of four extant species of echidna, one is named
after him: Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna, Zaglossus
attenboroughi, which inhabits the Cyclops mountains in the Papua province of New Guinea.
In June 2004, Attenborough and Sir Peter Scott were jointly profiled in the second of a
three part BBC Two series, The Way We Went Wild, about television wildlife
presenters. Part three also featured Attenborough extensively. The next month, another BBC Two programme, Attenborough the
Controller, recalled his time as Director of Programmes for BBC2.
In November 2005, London's Natural History Museum announced a fundraising
campaign to build a communications centre in Attenborough's honour. The museum intends to open the David Attenborough Studio in 2008.[13]
An opinion poll of 4,900 Britons conducted by Reader's Digest in 2006 showed Attenborough to be the most trusted celebrity in Britain.[14] In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted tenth in the list of "Heroes of our time".[15]
It is often suggested that David Attenborough's 50-year career at the BBC making natural history documentaries and travelling
extensively throughout the world has probably made him the most travelled person on Earth ever.[16]
His contribution to broadcasting was recognised by the 60-minute documentary Life on Air, transmitted in 2002 to tie in
with the publication of Attenborough's similarly titled autobiography. For the programme, the naturalist was interviewed at his
home by his friend Michael Palin (someone who is almost as well-travelled). Attenborough's
reminiscences are interspersed with memorable clips from his series, with contributions from his brother Richard as well as
professional colleagues. Life on Air is available on DVD as part of Attenborough in Paradise and Other Personal
Voyages.
Favourite Attenborough moments
In April 2006, to celebrate Attenborough's 80th birthday, the public were asked to vote on their favourite of his television
moments, out of twenty candidates. The results were announced on UKTV on 7
May. Each is given with its series and advocate:
- Attenborough watching a lyrebird mimicking various noises (The Life of Birds,
selected by Bill Oddie)
- Mountain gorillas (Life on Earth, Sanjeev
Bhaskar)
- Blue whale encounter (The Life of Mammals, Alan
Titchmarsh)
- His description of the demise of Easter Island's native society (State of the
Planet, Charlotte Uhlenbroek)
- Chimpanzees using tools to crack nuts (The Life of Mammals, Charlotte
Uhlenbroek)
- A grizzly bear fishing (The Life of Mammals, Steve Leonard)
- Imitating a woodpecker to lure in a real one (The Life of Birds, Ray Mears)
- The presenter being attacked by a displaying male capercaillie (The Life of
Birds, Bill Oddie)
- Chimps wading through water on two feet (The Life of Mammals, Gavin Thurston)
- Observing a male bowerbird's display (The Life of Birds, Joanna Lumley)
- Watching elephants in a salt cave (The Life of
Mammals, Joanna Lumley)
- Wild chimps hunting monkeys (The Trials of Life, Alastair Fothergill)
- Freetail bats leaving a cave and Attenborough holding one of their young (The Trials of
Life, Rory McGrath)
- Being threatened by a bull elephant seal (Life in the Freezer, Björk)
- A wandering albatross chick and its parent (Life in the Freezer,
Ellen MacArthur)
- Spawning Christmas Island red crabs (The Trials of Life,
Simon King)
- In a tree with gibbons (The Life of Mammals, Steve Leonard)
- Burrowing under a termite mound to demonstrate its cooling system (The Trials of
Life, Björk)
- Observing a titan arum (The Private Life of Plants, Alan Titchmarsh)
- Timelapse footage of a bramble growing (The Private Life of Plants, Rory
McGrath)
Parodies and artistic portrayals
Attenborough's accent and hushed, excited delivery have been the subject of
frequent parodies by comedians, most notably Spike Milligan, Marty Feldman, The Goodies and South Park. Especially apt for spoofing is
Attenborough's pronunciation of the word "here" when using it to introduce a sentence, as in, "He-eah, in the rain forest of the Amazon Basin..."
Attenborough is portrayed by Michael Palin in the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, where he searches the African jungle for the legendary
Walking Tree of Dahomey (Quercus Nicholas Parsonus), sweating excessively and accompanied by native guides wearing
saxophones.
Attenborough also appears as a character in David Ives' play Time Flies, a comedy
focusing on a romance between two mayflies.
In the documentary In the Wild: Lemurs with John Cleese, while trekking through the forest in Madagascar, Cleese points as if to have seen an exotic creature and
exclaims, "It's David Attenborough!"
On an episode of The Ricky Gervais Show, Karl Pilkington speculates that David Attenborough is likely careful not to kill any insect pests,
imitating Attenborough's inevitable recognition that "that's where I make me money."
"Springfield Up", an episode of the animated series The Simpsons, portrays a documentary filmmaker, voiced by former Monty
Python member Eric Idle, whose character is based on David Attenborough.
In the late 1980s, an Australian weekly programme called The Comedy Company featured a segment with "David
Rabbitborough". He got around in a safari suit touring the Melbourne suburbs in the same format as Attenborough, but his
specimens were human beings.
In the 1980s, a TV advertisement for Guinness featured an Attenborough impersonator
investigating the odd 'species' of humans who prefer bland lager to flavoursome stout.
Views and advocacy
Environmental causes
From the beginning, Attenborough's major series have included some content regarding the impact of human society on the
natural world. The last episode of The Living Planet, for example, focuses almost entirely on humans' destruction of the
environment and ways that it could be stopped or reversed. Despite this, his programmes have been criticised for not making their
environmental message more explicit. Some environmentalists feel that programmes like
Attenborough's give a false picture of idyllic wilderness and do not do enough to acknowledge that such areas are increasingly
encroached upon by humans.[17]
However, his closing message from State of the Planet was forthright:
The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success
can only come if there's a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I've been lucky in my lifetime to see
some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future
generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species.
In the last few years, Attenborough has become increasingly outspoken in support of environmental causes. In 2005 and 2006 he
backed a BirdLife International project to stop the killing of albatross by longline fishing boats.[18] He gave public support to WWF's campaign to
have 220,000 square kilometres of Borneo's rainforest
designated a protected area.[19] He also serves as a
vice-president of Fauna and Flora International and president of
Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust. In 2003 he launched
an appeal to create a rainforest reserve in Ecuador in memory of Christopher Parsons OBE, the producer of Life on Earth
and a personal friend, who had died the previous year. Sir David also launched ARKive in
May 2003,[20] a
global project which had been instigated by Christopher Parsons to gather together
natural history media into a digital library,
an online Noah's Ark. He later became
Patron of the World Land Trust, and an active supporter.
Attenborough has repeatedly said that he considers human overpopulation to be the root
cause of many environmental problems. Both his series The Life of Mammals and the accompanying book end with a plea for
humans to curb population growth so that other species will not be crowded out.
He has recently written and spoken publicly about the fact that he now believes global warming is definitely real, and caused
by humans.[21] At the climax of the aforementioned
"Climate Chaos" documentaries, the naturalist gives this summing up of his findings:
"In the past, we didn't understand the effect of our actions. Unknowingly, we sowed the wind and now, literally, we are
reaping the whirlwind. But we no longer have that excuse: now we do recognise the consequences of our behaviour. Now surely, we
must act to reform it: individually and collectively; nationally and internationally — or we doom future generations to
catastrophe."
In a 2005 interview with BBC Wildlife magazine, Attenborough said he considered George
W. Bush to be the era's top "environmental villain". In 2007, he further elaborated on the USA's consumption of energy in
relation to its population. When asked if he thought America to be "the villain of the piece", he responded:
"I don't think whole populations are villainous, but Americans are just extraordinarily unaware of all kinds of things. If you
live in the middle of that vast continent, with apparently everything your heart could wish for just because you were born there,
then why worry? [...] If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they're going to mistreat it and
will not ask their politicians to care for it."[6]
Other causes
In May 2005, Attenborough was appointed as patron of the UK's Blood Pressure
Association, which provides information and support to people with hypertension.[22]
Sir David Attenborough is also an honorary member of BSES Expeditions, a youth
development charity that operates challenging scientific research expeditions to remote wilderness environments
Religion and creationism
In a December 2005 interview with Simon Mayo on BBC
Radio Five Live, Attenborough stated that he considers himself an agnostic.[23] When asked whether his observation of the natural world has
given him faith in a creator, he generally responds with some version of this story:
My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance
hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through
the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are
you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually,
are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't
seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy.[24]
He has explained that he feels the evidence all over the planet clearly shows evolution to be the best way to explain the
diversity of life, and that "as far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then he chose organic evolution as a way of
bringing into existence the natural world."
In a BBC Four interview with Mark Lawson Sir David, in
answer to the question "Have you at any time had any religious faith?" replied "No."
In 2002, Attenborough joined an effort by leading clerics and scientists to oppose the inclusion of creationism in the
curriculum of UK state-funded independent schools which receive private sponsorship, such as the Emmanuel Schools Foundation.
Work
Bibliography
- Zoo Quest to Guyana (Lutterworth Press, 1956)
- Zoo Quest for a Dragon (Lutterworth Press, 1957)
- (book club edition with 85 extra pages, Quest for the Paradise Birds,
1959)
- Zoo Quest in Paraguay (Lutterworth Press, 1959)
- The Zoo Quest Expeditions (Lutterworth Press, abridged compilation of the above three titles with a new introduction,
1980)
- Quest in Paradise (1960)
- Zoo Quest to Madagascar (1961)
- Quest Under Capricorn (1963)
- Fabulous Animals (BBC, 1975) ISBN 0-563-17006-9
- The Tribal Eye (1976)
- Life on Earth (1979)
- Discovering Life on Earth (1981)
- The Living Planet (1984)
- The First Eden (1987)
- The Atlas of the Living World (1989)
- The Trials of Life (Collins, 1990) ISBN 0-00-219912-2
- The Private Life of Plants (BBC Books, 1994) ISBN 0-563-37023-8
- The Life of Birds (BBC Books, 1998) ISBN 0-563-38792-0
- The Life of Mammals (BBC Books, 2002) ISBN 0-563-53423-0
- Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster (autobiography;
2002) ISBN 0-563-53461-3
- paperback: ISBN 0-563-48780-1
- Life in the Undergrowth (BBC Books, 2005) ISBN 0-563-52208-9
- Amazing Rare Things - The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery with Susan Owens, Martin Clayton and Rea
Alexandratos (The Royal Collection, 2007) Hardback - ISBN 978 1
902163 46 8; Softback - ISBN 978 1 902163 99 4
- Life in Cold Blood (BBC Books, 2007)ISBN 9780563539223
Introductions
Attenborough has written the introduction or foreword for a number of books, including:
- African Jigsaw: A Musical Entertainment, Peter Rose and Anne Conlon (published: 1986, Weinberger)
- Life in the Freezer: Natural History of the Antarctic, Alastair Fothergill (BBC Books, 1993), ISBN 0-563-36431-9
- Birds of Paradise: Paradisaeidae (Bird Families of the World series) Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler, William T.
Cooper (Illustrator) (Oxford University Press, 1998) ISBN 0-19-854853-2
- The Blue Planet, Andrew Byatt, Alastair Fothergill, Martha Holmes (BBC Books, 2001) ISBN 0-563-38498-0.
- Light on the Earth (BBC Books, 2005), two decades of winning images from the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year
competition, ISBN 0-563-52260-7
- Planet Earth, Alastair Fothergill (BBC Books, 2006), ISBN 0-563-52212-7
DVDs
Major programmes
A number of Attenborough's programmes have been available on video; most are now out-of-print.
These DVDs are available (unless stated, dates are of original transmission):
Narrated by Attenborough
Character voice
- Voice of the museum commentary in Robbie the Reindeer: Legend of the Lost Tribe
Other programmes
Author and producer
- Zoo Quest
- Eastwards with Attenborough
- The Tribal Eye
Producer
Notes and references
- ^ History of College House
- ^ Attenborough, David (2002).
Life on Air. BBC Books. ISBN 0-563-53461-3.
pp. 10-11.
- ^ Life on Air, p.13.
- ^ Life on Air, pp.60-61.
- ^ Parkinson, broadcast 16 June 2007
- ^ a b Radio Times 23–29 June 2007
- ^ Times Online:
Attenborough names ape girl as his heir to TV jungle
- ^ Fortean Times episode guide to Fabulous Animals
- ^ Wildlife on
One at the BBC Programme Catalogue
- ^ Honorary Degrees and Distinguished Honorary Fellowships Announced by University of Leicester, University of
Leicester press release, 9 June 2006; India News report
- ^ University of Leicester Alumni Relations Sir David Attenborough (Hon DLitt 1970) gave the Alumni Association
Lecture in 2003
- ^ Plesiosauria Translation and Pronunciation Guide
- ^ The David Attenborough Studio Campaign
- ^ Simon Hoggart, 'In David we trust ...
but not Peter,' The Guardian, 28 January
2006
- ^ New Statesman
- ^ Brian Leith, 2002. Life on Air (Press Release); Andrew Denton, 2003 "Interview with David
Attenborough" on Enough Rope, ABC TV.
- ^ James Fair, "Small Things Bright and Beautiful", BBC Wildlife Magazine,
November 2005, pp. 25-26.
- ^ 'Personal plea by
David Attenborough,', www.savethealbatross.net, 27 January 2006
- ^ 'Sir David Attenborough: Heart of Borneo is a global heritage,', WWF-UK press release.
- ^ Arkive sets sail on the web, The Guardian,
20 May 2003
- ^ Climate change is the major challenge facing the world David Attenborough, The
Independent, 24 May 2006
- ^ Press
release, Blood Pressure Association web site, May 13, 2005
- ^ Interview with Simon Mayo, BBC Radio Five Live, 2 December 2005
- ^ David Attenborough, 2003. "Wild, wild
life." Sydney Morning Herald, March 25. Attenborough has also told this story in
numerous other interviews.
- ^ a b BBC
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External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Attenborough, David |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
|
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Naturalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
8 May, 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
London, England |
| DATE OF DEATH |
|
| PLACE OF DEATH |
|
zh-yue:大衛‧艾登堡
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