Sir David Frederick Attenborough David Frederick Attenborough
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Awards
David Attenborough, born in 1926 in Isleworth, revolutionized natural history filmmaking with the 1979 series Life on Earth. He served as Controller of BBC2, where he introduced color TV and greenlit Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Knighted in 1985, he has received numerous honors including the Order of Merit and multiple Primetime Emmy Awards.
Names, aliases, and relatives of David Attenborough — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
David Attenborough by the numbers — life, work, and family.
David Attenborough — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
David Frederick Attenborough was born on 8 May 1926 in Isleworth, Middlesex, to Mary Clegg and Frederick Attenborough. He grew up with two brothers, including future actor-director Richard Attenborough. During World War II, his parents adopted two German Jewish girls through the Kindertransport. Attenborough studied Natural Sciences at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1947, and then completed National Service in the Royal Navy.
Attenborough joined BBC Television in 1952 at Alexandra Palace, and in 1954 launched his Zoo Quest series. In 1965, he became Controller of BBC2, overseeing the introduction of color television and commissioning Monty Python’s Flying Circus. He was promoted to Director of Programmes in 1969 but resigned in 1973 to return to filmmaking. His 1979 series Life on Earth aired that year, followed by The Living Planet 1984 and The Trials of Life 1990. He also wrote and presented Life in the Freezer 1993, The Private Life of Plants 1995, and The Life of Birds 1998.
Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel on 17 February 1950; she died on 16 February 1997. They had two children: Robert and Susan. He is the brother of actor-director Richard Attenborough and John Attenborough, and uncle of Michael and Charlotte Attenborough. His home in Richmond, London, was the site of a historic murder discovery in 2011.
Attenborough’s documentaries, from 1979’s Life on Earth to Planet Earth, have inspired millions to appreciate the natural world, and his work as BBC2 controller shaped British television. He was knighted in 1985, awarded the Order of Merit in 2005, and the Companion of Honour in 1996. He has received multiple Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narrator, and is a patron of the World Land Trust. He is best remembered for his nature series such as Life on Earth and Planet Earth.
The complete filmography of David Attenborough — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by David Attenborough — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
David Attenborough's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from David Attenborough — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
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 . . . Which Doesn’t Seem to Me to Be Necessarily Blasphemous at All.
Steve Irwin Did Wonderful Conservation Work but I Was Uncomfortable About Some of His Stunts. Even If Animals Aren’t Aware That You Are Not Treating Them with Respect, the Viewers Are.
I Had a Huge Advantage When I Started 50 Years Ago – My Job Was Secure. I Didn’t Have to Promote Myself. These Days There’s Far More Pressure to Make a Mark, so the Temptation Is to Make Adventure Television or Personality Shows. I Hope the More Didactic Approach Won’t Be Lost.
It Is Vital That There Is a Narrator Figure Whom People Believe. That’s Why I Never Do Commercials. If I Started Saying That Margarine Was the Same as Motherhood, People Would Think I Was a Liar.
Unless There Are Regulations to Stop It, Public Service Broadcasting Programmes Will Inevitably Be Pushed Out of Peak Hours and into Out-of-the-way Corners of the Schedule When Fewer People Will Want to Watch Them. so the Odds Are Stacked Against Them Increasing Their Audience. They Become the Station’s Pariah, Retained Under Sufferance, Tucked Away, Unloved, Where They Do Least Harm to the Network’s Income.
Public Service Broadcasting, Watched by a Healthy Number of Viewers, with Programmes Financed in Proportion to Their Intrinsic Needs and Not the Size of the Audience, Can Only Effectively Operate as a Network. a Network Whose Aim Is to Cater for the Broadest Possible Range of Interests, Popular as Well as Less Popular, a Network That Measures Success Not Only by Its Audience Size but by the Range of Its Schedule.
Public Service Broadcasting Is One of the Things That Distinguishes This Country and Makes Me Want to Live Here. I Have Spent All My Life in It. I Would Be Very Distressed If Public Service Broadcasting Was Weakened. I Have Been at the BBC Since 1952 and Know the BBC Is Constantly Being Battered. It Is Today.
If You Could Demonstrate That the BBC Was Grossly Extravagant There Might Be a Case for Saying OK Take It Away. but in Fact the BBC per Minute in Almost Every Category Is as Cheap as You Can Find Anywhere in the World and Produces the Best Quality. If You Take the Money Away, Which Part of the BBC Will You Remove? the BBC Has Gone Through Swingeing Staff Cuts. It Has Been Cut to the Bone, If You Divert Licence Fee Money Elsewhere, You Cut Quality and Services. There Is Always That Threat from Politicians Who Will Say Your Licence Fee Is up for Grabs. We Will Take It. There Is a Lot of People Who Want to See the BBC Weakened. They Talk of This Terrible Tax of the Licence Fee. yet It Is the Best Bargain That Is Going. Four Radio Channels and God Knows How Many TV Channels. It Is Piffling.
Whatever You Do, It’s Difficult If You Are on the Edge of Taste – You’ll Always Offend Someone. You’ll Also Offend Some People If You Retreat to Being so Careful with Everything That You Say That You Become Mrs Goody-two-shoes. People in Their Twenties Today Talk Like Jonathan Ross and the Question Is How Much Do They Do That in Front of Other Sections of Society. Jonathan Ross Has a Very Difficult Problem.
Jonathan Ross Speaks to a Certain Element Who Think He’s Very Funny, and I Guess He Is. He’s on the Edge of a Very Dangerous Line and It’s Not an Easy Job. He Has to Keep Close to the Boundary, but Not Step Over It. What You Need, in Order to Do That, Is to Have a Producer in Whom You Have Confidence, Who Will Pull You Back If It’s Pre-recorded and Then Cut It Out.
There Have Always Been Politicians or Business People Who Have Wanted to Cut the BBC Back or Stop It Saying the Sort of Things It Says. There’s Always Been Trouble About the Licence and If You Dropped Your Guard You Could Bet Our Bottom Dollar There’d Be Plenty of People Who’d Want to Take It Away. the Licence Fee Is the Basis on Which the BBC Is Based and If You Destroy It, Broadcasting Becomes a Wasteland.
It Never Really Occurred to Me to Believe in God – and I Had Nothing to Rebel Against, My Parents Told Me Nothing Whatsoever. but I Do Remember Looking at My Headmaster Delivering a Sermon, a Classicist, Extremely Clever… and Thinking, He Can’t Really Believe All That, Can He? How Incredible!
There Is More Meaning and Mutual Understanding in Exchanging a Glance with a Gorilla Than Any Other Animal I Know.
People Believe What They Wish to Believe. There Are Some People Who Think the Written Word Is More Likely to Be an Avenue to the Truth Than the Material World That We Can Examine. I Might Not Share That Belief. People Tell Me That They Believe God Created the World in Seven Days, and I Say: ‘on What Evidence?’ They Say: ‘Well, Because It Says so in the Book of Genesis.’ There’s Nothing I Can Do to Disprove That Because That’s What They Believe Is the Incontrovertible Truth.
I’ve Always Found Fossils Very Interesting. I Also Had Newts and Grass Snakes and Frogs Which I Kept in Various Aquaria When I Was a Boy. I Spent a Lot of Time in the Garden Exploring.
My Shoes Are Very Unfashionable Shoes. I’m the Last in a Particular Style That Was Established 30 Years Ago. People Make Different Kinds of Programmes Now. I Don’t Think Anyone’s Trying to Fill My Shoes.
I Think 3D TV Is Going to Be Event TV. It Can Be an International Football Match or It Can Also Be an Important Programme. but I Don’t Think 3D Is Going to Be Much Good on Trivia. It’s for Programmes That Really Mean Something. It Does Require Your Attention.
When I Started in 1952, People Had Television Sets and Thought It Was a Miracle. You Sat in Front of It and Waited for It to Start and Watched All the Way Through to the End and It Was an Event. but Within a Decade, You Ate and Talked and Knitted While It Was On. Then Colour Came About and Once Again It Was an Event, People Would Come Round and Said, ‘Wow, Look at the Colour’. Then We Got Accustomed to Colour and Television Became Like Wallpaper. I Don’t Think 3D Can Be Used as Wallpaper, Particularly Because You Need the Glasses and When You Put Them on It’s Very Isolating. You Become Very Unaware of the Person Next to You.
I Am a BBC Man.
The BBC Is Hard-pressed for Money and It Has to Make Strategic Decisions as to What It’s Going to Invest In.
Little-known facts about David Attenborough — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
A murder from 1879 was solved in 2011 when a severed head was discovered buried under the grounds of Attenborough’s home.
As head of BBC2, he introduced British audiences to colour television and gave the go-ahead to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
On 16 December 2006, he won the title of Greatest Living British Icon, voted for by viewers of BBC Two’s The Culture Show, beating Sir Paul McCartney and Morrissey.
A fossilized animal trapped in amber, given to him by his sister, later inspired a collection of animals in amber; in Jurassic Park, his brother Richard grows dinosaurs from mosquitoes trapped in amber.
He is the brother of actor/director Lord Richard Attenborough and John Attenborough; his parents adopted two German Jewish girls during World War II as part of the Kindertransport.
While filming The Living Planet, his balloon crash-landed in southern Scotland; a farmer recognized him and insisted he wish his daughter a happy birthday before using the phone.
He was awarded the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2005.
He is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, a group seeking to cut the growth in human population.
Although he commissioned The Old Grey Whistle Test as a BBC executive, he never watched it because he does not like rock music.
He became involved with a Master’s course in Wildlife Documentary Production after the massive positive reception of his documentaries.
In the mid-1960s, he became Controller of BBC2, later Director of Programmes; the British Academy awarded him the Desmond Davis Award in 1970 and a Fellowship in 1979.
He was awarded the GCMG in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to broadcasting and conservation.
He received the CBE in 1974, was knighted in 1985, received the CVO in 1991, and the CH in 1996.
Time magazine included him in its Special Issue Heroes of the Environment Leaders & Visionaries in 2007, with a tribute by Jeremy Paxman.
While controller of BBC2, he suggested that tennis balls would be more easily seen on color TVs if they were yellow; many years later, his advice was followed.
While director of programmes at the BBC, he stopped the broadcast of Sex and Violence in 1972 on the grounds that it was potentially libellous.
He is the uncle of director Michael Attenborough and actress Charlotte Attenborough, and great-uncle of Tom Attenborough.
He has two children, Robert and Susan, and several grandchildren.
He presented Pentangle with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2007.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1983.
He is sometimes incorrectly cited as the first controller of BBC2; he was actually the second, taking over from Michael Peacock after its first year.
He is a huge fan of country singer Emmylou Harris.
Born at 2:58 AM BST.
He is the brother-in-law of Sheila Sim.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about David Attenborough.
Celebrities similar to David Attenborough — same craft, ranked by reach.
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