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David Frost: Newsman, Showman,and Suave at BothByALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: September 2, 2013

People tend to think that the line between comedy and hard news was breached first byJon Stewart, host of The Daily Show. But actually it was David Frost.

Associated PressDavid Frost, left, and Richard M. Nixon before their interview.

Mr. Frost, whodied on Saturday,moved silkily from sketch comedy and political satireto serious interviews with politicians and newsmakers, and most famously a series ofconversations with Richard M. Nixon in 1977 that lasted 28 hours 45 minutes. At hispeak, Mr. Frost was a one-stop-shopping television star: a newsman with a flair forshow business, an entertainer with a thoughtful side, and at times a brazen schmoozerwith undeniable sophistication and charm.

People assume that Barbara Walters was the first television journalist to become aHollywood-style celebrity, but no one had as much finesse and gusto for mingling withthe rich and powerful as Mr. Frost, who married the daughter of a duke and wasknighted in 1993. He shared Ms. Walterss tensile knack for moving from newsrooms

and ballrooms, but he commuted from London to New York, to host The David FrostShow in 1969 when Ms. Walters still shared a desk and predawn wake-up calls with herco-hosts on Today.

In some ways he was an Oxbridge version of Larry King. Mr. Frost gently elicitedanswers rather than bullying his guests, and his dandyish striped shirts were almost asmuch of a trademark as Mr. Kings suspenders.

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Like Mr. King, who after retiring from CNN created his own Web-only talk show onHulu, Mr. Frost never tired of the limelight. When his career in Britain slowed down,Mr. Frost didnt. He signed onwith Al Jazeera English in 2006 while he was still thehost of Through the Keyhole, a popular game show that he helped create. (After a tourof a celebritys house, a panel of guests tries to guess the owner.)

At that time, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network was treated as an enemy by the Bushadministration. Yet Mr. Frosts first guest was Tony Blair, then the British primeminister,who told himthat the Iraq war was up to that point pretty much of adisaster. That kind of headline-making get is the best explanation for why Mr. Frostdecided to risk his reputation on Al Jazeera. He couldnt resist the internationalshowcase so many time zones or a chance to do the long, far-reaching interviewsthat have fallen out of favor in the age of channel surfing, Web clips and multitasking.No opportunity went untapped. When he died of a heart attack, he was scheduled to givea talk on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth.

Mr. Frost, who had his own production company, Paradine, was always astute about thebusiness of television, a little like Merv Griffin, an entertainer who was also a mediamogul and the creator of Jeopardy!

Mr. Frost didnt just interview Nixon, he turned that encounter into an enterprise,paying that former president $600,000 (and a share on the profits) so he could package,produce and finance the five-part spectacle. The major American broadcast networksdeclined to broadcasting it, worried about checkbook journalism, so he syndicated it tolocal stations all over the United States and also internationally. As Ron Howard, whodirected the 2008 movie Frost/Nixon, put it, Mr. Frost created the first fourthnetwork.

In the movie, which was based on thePeter Morgan play,Michael Sheen portrays Mr.Frost as glib and agreeable on the surface, but also shallow and desperate for approvaland affirmation. If insecurity was his Rosebud, it didnt bleed into his on-cameraperformances. He handled Nixon cordially but rather sternly, evidently anxious to notappear too chummy or sympathetic. He will always be remembered for coaxing thedisgraced president to apologize to the American people and also for leading Nixon intoa staggering gaffe: Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.

But the Nixon conversation is not the best measure of Mr. Frosts aplomb and dexterityas an interviewer. Nixon was his own Scheherazade, weaving political platitudes intoinky, self-pitying and strangely eloquent soliloquies that needed little interruption.

One of the weirder interviews on The David Frost Show was with Yoko Ono and JohnLennon in 1972. Ms. Ono did the talking, mostly about herself; Lennon agreed only tojoin her in singing protest songs they wrote together, including Attica State.

When Ms. Ono complained that it was sexism that caused people to slip past her to getto her famous husband,Mr. Frost pointed outthat Ingrid Bergmans husband at thetime, Lars Schmidt, also didnt get enough attention. Now, that is not prejudice against

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him because he is a man, he said. It is because he has a very famous wife. There areplenty of talk show hosts today who are quick witted and convivial, and there are still afew who do long, serious interviews about world affairs with statesmen, not just starlets.

Mr. Frost did it all, on both sides of the ocean, and made it seem effortless.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 2, 2013

An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Mr. Frost commuting fromLondon to New York, via the Concorde, in 1969. The Concorde was not yet in operationat that time.

A version of this article appears in print on September 3, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline:Newsman, Showman, And Suave At Both .