From Elizabeth Taylor to Muhammad Ali to The Beatles, Radio 4 will air eight intimate portraits of the last 70 years’ greatest entertainers.
On Monday, August 8, BBC Sounds will release a ninth episode starring Lauren Bacall, as well as extended versions of each episode.
David Frost was the most prolific interviewer of the twentieth century, a master of conversation with a remarkable talent for getting people to open up and reveal their innermost thoughts. Throughout his six-decade career, he interviewed some of the most compelling figures, including those who defined what it means to be a celebrity.
Following David’s death in 2013, his son Wilfred set out on a journey to recover the lost interviews. He discovered in-depth discussions between his father and some of the most celebrated entertainers of all time among the thousands of tapes containing well over ten thousand interviews.
Wilfred Frost rediscovers his father’s interviews with an A-list lineup of musicians (Elton John, The Beatles, and Andrew Lloyd Webber), entertainers and political activists (Sammy Davis Jr., Muhammad Ali, and Jane Fonda) – plus Hollywood stars – in The Frost Tapes: The Entertainers (Michael Caine, Elizabeth Taylor, and Lauren Bacall). David Frost interviewed these celebrities several times over the course of several decades, spanning their entire lives.
Wilfred, who followed in his father’s footsteps as a broadcast journalist, provides a unique behind-the-scenes look into Frost’s world, revealing how he was able to craft deeply personal interviews with everyone he meets.
It has been a privilege – both as Dad’s son and as a journalist – to rediscover and restore Dad’s work,’ Wilfred Frost said. It never ceases to amaze me how brilliant he was at what he did – getting the world’s most famous people to open up as if they were in the privacy of a confessional booth. Many of these conversations have been kept private for far too long, and I am delighted to share them with the world once more.’
“This is a very special set of conversations, warm, intimate, and revelatory,” says Rhian Roberts, Commissioning Editor. David Frost is the absolute master of the interview; it’s a pleasure to hear him with such stellar guests.”
Wilfred Frost hosts The Frost Tapes. Produced for BBC Radio 4 by Paradine Productions and Chalk & Blade. Producer and Editor Wilfred Frost Rhian Roberts commissioned it.
From Monday, August 8, it will be broadcast weekly at 11:30 a.m. on Radio 4. BBC Sounds will release a ninth episode starring Lauren Bacall, as well as extended versions of each episode.
