how old is david attenborough
[173], Prior to the 2015 UK general election, Attenborough was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas. But that’s a different thing altogether.”. 1986 & 1991In 1986 and 1991, Attenborough produced the Queen’s Speech, a 10 minute annual broadcast that the Queen uses to summarise the years big events and wish her subjects a Happy Christmas. Having long been an admirer of Attenborough, Prince William described him as “the single most important impact in my conservation thinking.”. [112] A new species of fan-throated lizard from coastal Kerala in southern India was named Sitana attenboroughii in his honour when it was described in 2018. Well, it is not a theory. [42] In 2011, Fothergill gave Attenborough a more prominent role in Frozen Planet, a major series on the natural history of the polar regions; Attenborough appeared on screen and authored the final episode, in addition to performing voiceover duties. Not many people know it, but initially, David Attenborough applied to work as a radio talk producer for the BBC in 1950, but was rejected! [12] He is the younger brother of the late director, producer and actor Richard Attenborough,[13] and older brother of the late motor executive John Attenborough. Otherwise, forget the licence fee. [37], However, in 2010 Attenborough asserted that his First Life – dealing with evolutionary history before Life on Earth – should also be included within the "Life" series. In 2003, he launched an appeal on behalf of the World Land Trust to create a rainforest reserve in Ecuador in memory of Christopher Parsons, the producer of Life on Earth and a personal friend, who had died the previous year. The final episode of Blue Planet 2, focussed on ocean plastic and the impact it is having on marine life, leaving viewers around the world distraught. Robert Attenborough is the eldest child of BBC broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough and his late wife, Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel.. Now … More info: Instagram. How Old - Age: 94. [65] Part of Radio 4's A Point of View strand, the talks are also available as podcasts. The winning clip showed Attenborough observing the mimicry skills of the superb lyrebird. [147] He later became patron of the World Land Trust, and an active supporter. David Attenborough: Birth Facts, Family, and Childhood. Picture: Getty 5th March 1965: BBC Television controllers (from left) David Attenborough, Michael Peacock, Huw Wheldon and Kenneth Adam at BBC TV Centre. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet review – stark climate emergency warning. Something that he is very aware, contradicts his feelings on sustainability and climate change. If so, why not subscribe to our weekly email. "[168], In 1998, Attenborough described himself as "a standard, boring left-wing liberal" and expressed the view that the market economy was "misery". Despite a career devoted to celebrating and preserving wildlife, David Attenborough has a deep dislike of rats. In Rwanda, for example, Attenborough and his crew were granted privileged access to film Dian Fossey's research group of mountain gorillas. Sir David Attenborough’s age is doing nothing to slow him down. He was raised on the campus of University College, Leicester. He was born on 8 May 1926, making him 92 at the time of writing. However, it is not an animal or a plant that is the most famous thing to be named in admiration of Sir David, but a ship. While an Internet poll suggesting the name of the ship had the most votes for Boaty McBoatface, Science Minister Jo Johnson said there were "more suitable names", and the official name was eventually picked up from one of the more favoured choices. The 94-year-old naturalist and TV host joined Instagram on September 24 and made his last post on October 31. The future of humanity and indeed all life on earth, now depends on us.”, “Many individuals are doing what they can. [52] The series was critically acclaimed[53] and gained the highest UK viewing figure for 2017: 14.1 million. The 93-year-old naturalist and broadcaster describes the project as a “witness statement” of the effects of the climate crisis, adding that the actions of humanity are sending the planet into decline. The series contains a number of memorable two shots of Attenborough and his subjects, which included chimpanzees, a blue whale and a grizzly bear. Sir David Frederick Attenborough is an English broadcaster and natural historian. [39] He has also narrated over 50 episodes of Natural World, BBC Two's flagship wildlife series. "A new species of terrestrial-breeding frog (Amphibia, Craugastoridae, "Species named after Sir David Attenborough – in pictures", "Plesiosauria Translation and Pronunciation Guide", "Oldest Live-Birth Fossil Found; Fish Had Umbilical Cord", "Kitten-sized extinct 'lion' named after David Attenborough", "A tiny new marsupial lion (Marsupialia, Thylacoleonidae) from the early Miocene of Australia", "Fossil named after Sir David Attenborough", "Caribbean Myotis (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae), with description of a new species from Trinidad and Tobago", "A new species of fan-throated lizard of the genus Sitana Cuvier, 1829 from coastal Kerala, southern India", "New ocean plankton species named after BBC's Blue Planet series", "A monographic revision of the Neotropical dung beetle genus, "UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science", "Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS Statute 12", "Overzicht eredoctoraten – Universiteit Gent", "Conservation and biodiversity research wins international prize for British scientist", "Gifted naturalist is awarded prestigious RSPB medal", "Sir David Attenborough honoured by Qld Museum", "Naturalist Sir David Attenborough Awarded Individual Peabody", "Moscow Society of Naturalists official site", "Gold Medal-Award Recipients since its inception in 1972", "LI to honour Sir David Attenborough with the Landscape Institute Medal", "Davos 2019: Meet the Crystal Award winners", "David Attenborough: 'The Garden of Eden is no more'. The result was Zoo Quest, first broadcast in 1954, where Attenborough became the presenter at short notice due to Lester being taken ill.[27], In 1957, the BBC Natural History Unit was formally established in Bristol. In 2006, British television viewers were asked to vote for their Favourite Attenborough Moments for a UKTV poll to coincide with the broadcaster's 80th birthday. In addition, Attenborough has recorded some of his own works in audiobook form, including Life on Earth, Zoo Quest for a Dragon, his 2010 autobiography Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster and his 2020 book A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and Vision for the Future. Yanomamo was the first, about the Amazon rainforest, and the second, Ocean World, premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in 1991. Beekeepers for Life: how a UK-based charity are helping empower women and helping the environment, New data reveals unsavoury supermarket practices, Climate Census: UK public urged to declare themselves ‘Climate Concerned’. The series drew strong reactions from the viewing public for its sequences of killer whales hunting sea lions on a Patagonian beach and chimpanzees hunting and violently killing a colobus monkey. Evolution is as solid a historical fact as you could conceive. Whilst Sir David Attenborough has been at the forefront of nature broadcasting for the past 50 years, he has often been critiscised for not speaking out enough against climate change and pollution. Like many people in that decade, he didn’t even own a television. [142][143], Attenborough has subsequently become more vocal in his support of environmental causes. In a BBC Four interview with Mark Lawson, he was asked if he at any time had any religious faith. But I'm not. Whilst it’s one of the greatest challenges we have faced, if we act quickly and effectively, we can overcome it. [21] Robert is a senior lecturer in bioanthropology for the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra. Sir David pictured with a young Prince Charles and Princess Anne. A wave knocked him under a dive platform. He appeared in the top 100 Britons in a national poll in 2002 (even if he was behind David Beckham). How old is David Attenborough? He began commissioning programs to make the channel more diverse and include more natural history programmes. David Attenborough is not just worth a lot of money, he is also a national treasure in the UK. The couple had a wonderful 47 years of marriage till Jane passed away in 1997. Attenborough has also contributed forewords and introductions to many other works, notably those accompanying Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, Africa and other BBC series he has narrated. Attenborough was born in Isleworth, Middlesex (now part of west London), and grew up in College House on the campus of the University College, Leicester, where his father, Frederick, was principal. DAVID ATTENBOROUGH is one of our national treasures and he made an eight-year-old school boy's dreams come true after he sent him a sweet surprise after receiving his fan mail. In 1936, Attenborough and his brother Richard attended a lecture by Grey Owl (Archibald Belaney) at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, and were influenced by his advocacy of conservation. [62], From 1983, Attenborough worked on two environmentally themed musicals with the WWF and writers Peter Rose and Anne Conlon. For the 1971 film A Blank on the Map, he joined the first Western expedition to a remote highland valley in New Guinea to seek out a lost tribe. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection that together constitute a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth. The first program he produced was called Coelacanth, and was about the rediscovery of a prehistoric fish. After his resignation, Attenborough became a freelance broadcaster and immediately started work on his next project, a pre-arranged trip to Indonesia with a crew from the Natural History Unit. [80], Attenborough has received the title Honorary Fellow from Clare College, Cambridge (1980), the Zoological Society of London (1998), the Linnean Society (1999), the Institute of Biology (Now the Royal Society of Biology) (2000) and the Society of Antiquaries (2007). DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: A LIFE ON OUR PLANET is the natural historian's "witness statement" about the current plight of the world. It is estimated that David Attenborough is worth around £30 million. [54] Attenborough narrates the 2018 five part series Dynasties, each episode dealing with one species in particular. Of course we don’t. In 1973, Attenborough was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on The Language of Animals. [160], 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 [he's] concerned, if there is a supreme being then he chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world". 78 VIDEOS | 35 IMAGES. He has also narrated A majestic celebration: Wild Karnataka, India's first blue-chip natural history film, directed by Kalyan Varma and Amoghavarsha. A panel of seven academics, journalists and historians named him among the group of people in the UK "whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands". After University, he completed 2 years of national service in the Royal Navy. David Attenborough's television credits span eight decades and his association with natural history programmes dates back to The Pattern of Animals and Zoo Quest in the early 1950s. After his return, he began to work on the scripts for Life on Earth. He later turned to the issues of global warming (The Truth about Climate Change, 2006) and human population growth (How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?, 2009). David Attenborough was born on 8 May 1926. In a December 2005 interview with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five Live, Attenborough stated that he considers himself an agnostic. Sir David Attenborough is 94 years old. [101] Vertebrates have also been named after Attenborough, including a Namibian lizard (Platysaurus attenboroughi),[102] a bird (Polioptila attenboroughi),[102] a Peruvian frog (Pristimantis attenboroughi),[103] a Madagascan stump-toed frog (Stumpffia davidattenboroughi),[104] and one of only four species of long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi). Attenborough became the controller of BBC Two in March 1965, but had a clause inserted in his contract that would allow him to continue making programmes on an occasional basis. In 2017, his company (David Attenborough Productions Ltd) made over £2.1million. The 94-year-old broadcaster says there is ‘no going back’ to the ‘secure climatic period that gave birth to our civilisation’ (Picture: @COP26) Attenborough had a clause written into his contract that allowed him to continue to occasionally make and present programs. As a writer and narrator, Attenborough continued to collaborate with the BBC Natural History Unit in the new millennium. As a child, David spent his time collecting fossils, stones and natural specimens resulting in him creating a “mini-museum.” In 1945, he won a scholarship to read Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Entitled David Attenborough's Life Stories, they are broadcast on Radio 4 on Friday nights. [114] The same year, Attenborough was also commemorated in the name of the scarab beetle Sylvicanthon attenboroughi.[115]. "[161] He has also said "It never really occurred to me to believe in God". [108][109] The fossil grasshopper Electrotettix attenboroughi was named after Attenborough. and Song Hunter, a series about folk music presented by Alan Lomax. He narrated every episode of the long-running BBC series Wildlife on One and in his later career has voiced several high-profile BBC wildlife documentaries, among them The Blue Planet and Planet Earth. 94-year-old Sir David Attenborough has joined Instagram! He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, 3D and 4K. Together, they discussed the future of the planet, their passion for nature and what measures can be taken to protect the environment. [162], 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. "[169] He expressed regret at some of the changes made to the BBC in the 1990s by its Director-General, John Birt, who introduced an internal market at the corporation, slimmed and even closed some departments and outsourced much of the corporation's output to private production companies, in line with the Broadcasting Act 1990. Sir David Attenborough has over 10 plants and animals that are named after him, including a giant carnivorous plant (Nepenthes Attenboroughii), that can devour animals as large as rats. Such good fortune.[179]. It resulted in the 1973 series Eastwards with Attenborough, which was similar in tone to the earlier Zoo Quest but without the animal-collecting element. And aesthetic pleasure, I suppose. He wrote an accompanying volume to each of his nine Life documentaries, along with books on tribal art and birds of paradise. The Zoological Society of London now faces its toughest challenge to date. Sir David doesn’t own a car as he never passed his driving test. [77] In 2006, the two eldest Attenborough brothers returned to their home city to receive the title of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of Leicester, "in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the University. Four radio channels and god knows how many TV channels. Attenborough had a pacemaker fitted in June 2013. Sir David Frederick Attenborough (/ˈætənbərə/; born 8 May 1926)[2][3] is an English broadcaster and natural historian. This followed on from the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) he received in 1974. David Attenborough was born on May 8, 1926, in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, to Mary and Frederick Attenborough, the principal of the ‘University College,’ Leicester. His next 3D project, Conquest of the Skies, made by the team behind the BAFTA-winning David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive, aired on Sky 3D at Christmas 2014. CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (. Attenborough, like most Britons at that time, did not own a television, and he had seen only one programme in his life. Full of interesting environmental facts, stories and news. Copyright © 2020 by curious.earth. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life. He was just 28 years old. In 2013, he was made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Bristol. Attenborough's contribution to broadcasting and wildlife film-making has brought him international recognition. Attenborough narrated every episode of Wildlife on One, a BBC One wildlife series that ran for 253 episodes between 1977 and 2005. Attenborough was named the most trusted celebrity in the UK in a 2006 Reader's Digest poll,[83] and in 2007 he won The Culture Show's Living Icon Award. He is the only person to have won Under his tenure, music, the arts, entertainment, archaeology, experimental comedy, travel, drama, sport, business, science and natural history all found a place in the weekly schedules. Addressing MP’s in July 2019, he admitted that there was indeed a “paradox” because he flies across the globe to present nature programmes. [29] However, he accepted an invitation to return to the BBC as controller of BBC Two before he could finish the degree.[30]. He wrote and presented a series on man's influence on the natural history of the Mediterranean basin, The First Eden, in 1987. David Attenborough has warned that humans have “overrun the world” in a trailer for A Life on Our Planet, a forthcoming documentary looking at the changes on Earth during his lifetime. "[71] His programmes are often cited as an example of what public service broadcasting should be, even by critics of the BBC, and have influenced a generation of wildlife film-makers. He also presented a BBC children's series about cryptozoology entitled Fabulous Animals (1975), which featured mythical creatures such as the griffin and kraken. Sir David Attenborough made a schoolboy’s dreams come true with a personal reply when the eight-year-old posted his lockdown homework to the broadcasting legend. His bio now reads: "Account no longer active." During his childhood, he spent most of his time gathering fossils, stones, and natural specimens. Attenborough then worked as an editor for children’s science textbooks, before embarking on his rather well known career in broadcasting. [45] The BBC also commissioned Atlantic Productions to make a three-part, Attenborough-fronted series Great Barrier Reef in 2015. He is a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet it is the best bargain that is going. For Planet Earth II (2016), Attenborough returned as narrator and presenter, with the main theme music composed by Hans Zimmer. He decided not to use an on-screen presenter due to difficulties in speaking to a camera through diving apparatus, but asked Attenborough to narrate the films. [88] The same year, Attenborough featured in the BBC Radio 4 series The New Elizabethans to mark the diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Attenborough harboured a strong desire to present the series himself, but this would not be possible so long as he remained in a management post. I'm swanning round the world looking at the most fabulously interesting things. [84] He has also been named among the 100 Greatest Britons in a 2002 BBC poll and is one of the top ten "Heroes of Our Time" according to New Statesman magazine. They talk of this terrible tax of the licence fee. [168], ... the BBC per minute in almost every category is as cheap as you can find anywhere in the world and produces the best quality. The 94-year-old will be the centrepiece of a new augmented reality app, which will be released alongside the BBC’s next landmark natural history TV … [18] A few years later, one of his adoptive sisters gave him a piece of amber containing prehistoric creatures; some fifty years later, it would be the focus of his programme The Amber Time Machine. The source, which he did not reveal at the time, was a pond less than five metres from the department. "[154], In his 2020 documentary film David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, Attenborough advocates for people to adopt a vegetarian diet or to reduce meat consumption in order to save wildlife, noting that "the planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters. The result was The Private Life of Plants (1995), which showed plants as dynamic organisms by using time-lapse photography to speed up their growth, and went on to earn a Peabody Award.[35]. [100] The Monogenean Cichlidogyrus attenboroughi, a parasite from a deep-sea fish in the Lake Tanganyika, is probably the only parasite species named after him. Sir David Attenborough’s younger brother, John, worked in the motor industry. It's not a bad idea', "Attenborough: 'Curb excess capitalism' to save nature", "David Attenborough Calls Out The 'Excesses' Of Capitalism In A World Facing Climate Change", "Sir David Attenborough reveals he's got a 'new lease of life' at 90", "Sir David Attenborough warns against large families and predicts things will only get worse", BBC interviews with Attenborough in 1976 and 1998, David Attenborough: humanity must come to its senses or face environmental disaster, David Attenborough's Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates, David Attenborough's Conquest of the Skies 3D, José Vasconcelos World Award of Education Laureates, Cleaning and disinfection of personal diving equipment, Swimming at the 1900 Summer Olympics – Men's underwater swimming, Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques, Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins, Federación Española de Actividades Subacuáticas, International Association for Handicapped Divers, Environmental impact of 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