From chilling with chimps to freezing with polar bears, he is the face of natural history documentaries.
Long before environmental issues were making daily headlines, he was a fervent eco campaigner both on and off screen.
Beyond natural history, he’s had a huge influence as a broadcaster, introducing colour TV into Britain. He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D.
Childhood
Sir David Frederick Attenborough was born on May 8, 1926 in London. Attenborough first cultivated his fascination with nature as a young man via reptile and bird-watching trips to the local marshes and fields.
Attenborough won an open scholarship to the coveted natural science tripos at Cambridge, then attended Clare College, and after graduation signed on to work full time for a publisher of educational materials.
Career
In 1952, he joined BBC Television and, in 1954, began his famous “Zoo Quest” series. He also presented political broadcasts, archaeological quizzes, short stories, gardening and religious programmes.
1964 saw the start of BBC2 and Attenborough became its Controller a year later. He was responsible for the introduction of colour television into Britain. In 1969, he was appointed Director of Programmes with editorial responsibility for both the BBC’s television networks.
Attenborough returned to his first love of making natural history documentaries in 1973. Several successful years of making wildlife programmes peaked with his seminal series Life on Earth, at the time the most ambitious series the BBC had ever produced.
He writes all his scripts. His talent as a writer is such that he won a major literary prize in Britain for the book of ‘The Life of Birds’ before the series itself had even been screened.
Attenborough continues to work as a writer and narrator on other television documentaries, mainly in the natural history genre in the new milennium.
Awards
1970: BAFTA Desmond Davis Award
1985: Knighthood
1998: International Cosmos Prize
2010: Fonseca Prize