Veteran British broadcaster David Frost — best remembered for his post-Watergate interviews with former President Richard Nixon — has died of a heart attack at age 74.
Frost succumbed Saturday night aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, where he was due to give a speech.
In a television career that spanned half a century across both sides of the Atlantic, Frost interviewed a long list of the world’s most powerful and famous, including virtually every British prime minister and US president of his time. He also was a gifted entertainer, and his amiable and charming personality was often described as the key to his success as an interviewer.
Frost began his career almost fresh out of college as host of an early-1960s satirical news show on the BBC, “That Was The Week That Was.” A US version in the mid-’60s was wildly popular.
He became internationally known in 1977 with a series of TV interviews with Nixon.
The two sparred through the first, but Frost later said he realized he didn’t have what he wanted as it wound down. Nixon had acknowledged mistakes, but Frost pressed him.
Americans, Frost said, wanted to hear Nixon acknowledge abuse of power — and “unless you say it, you’re going to be haunted for the rest of your life.”
“That was totally off-the-cuff,” Frost later said. “That was totally ad-lib. In fact, I threw my clipboard down just to indicate that it was not prepared in any way . . . I just knew at that moment that Richard Nixon was more vulnerable than he’d ever be in his life. And I knew I had to get it right.”
After more pressing, Nixon relented. “I let the American people down, and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life,” he said.
The face-off spawned a hit play, which, in turn, became an Oscar-nominated 2008 movie, “Frost/Nixon,” starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon.
Frost is survived by his wife, Carina, and their three sons.