David Attenborough, renowned natural historian and broadcaster, turns 100 – National
The BBC hosted David Attenborough at the Royal Albert Hall. Cinemas play his natural films. Friends spent weeks praising the man and his work.
But the world’s most famous wildlife presenter may not be comfortable with all the attention as he celebrates his 100th birthday on Friday, says Alastair Fothergill, producer of one of Attenborough’s best-known documentaries.
“He’s been very clear to all of us who work with him: ‘Remember, animals are stars, I’m not,'” Fothergill told the Associated Press. “So, yes, surprisingly he’s one of the most famous people in the world, he doesn’t like being famous at all.”
Glowing gorillas
But Attenborough has had to accept the recommendation this week as scientists, politicians and conservationists celebrate the man who has brought glittering gorillas, whales and small poisonous frogs into living rooms around the world for more than 70 years.
With BBC programs such as Life on Earth, The Private Life of Plants again The blue planet, Attenborough illuminates the beauty, cruelty and sometimes extreme strangeness of nature with a soothing voice that conveys his horror at what he sees.
Viewers who might never leave their cities are transported to the Himalayas, the Amazon and the untouched jungles of Papua New Guinea. But behind the amazing images was an attention to scientific accuracy that helped educate people about complex topics like evolution, animal behavior, and biodiversity.
And as the evidence mounted, he began sounding the alarm about climate change, ocean plastic and other human-caused threats to the world.
Sir David Attenborough surrounded by Saguaro Cacti in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona, USA.
BBC Studios
That has helped people understand not only how life evolved but, more importantly, why we should protect it, says Professor Ben Garrod, an evolutionist at the University of East Anglia and also a broadcaster who has worked with Attenborough.
Attenborough, Garrod believes, initially considered himself a neutral figure but was forced to speak out when he realized that politicians, business leaders and the public were not taking the emergency seriously.
Get the latest country news
Get the best Canadian news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you never miss a trending story.
“It’s a show of majesty, brutality, the weakness of nature. He shouldn’t have turned to policymaking and advocacy,” Garrod said.
“I think it’s very easy for a lot of people to say, ‘He should have done it sooner.’ Why didn’t he act 20, 30, 40 years ago?’” Garrod then asked: “Why didn’t we?’”
A lover of leftovers from the beginning
Born in London on May 8, 1926, the same year as the late Queen Elizabeth II, Attenborough was brought up on the grounds of what is now the University of Leicester, where his father was a senior leader.
His interest in nature grew when he was a small boy, riding his bicycle to the surrounding countryside where he collected treasures such as discarded bird nests, shed snake skin and, most importantly, fossils.
“I would find some trash and show it to my dad and he would say, ‘Okay, tell me about it.’ So I answered and became my own expert,” Attenborough told Smithsonian Magazine in 1981.
He went on to study geology and zoology at Cambridge University.
In 1952, Attenborough joined the BBC, working behind the scenes “on everything from ballet to short stories.” After he had been there for two months, the capture of a “living fossil” off the coast of East Africa caused a worldwide uproar, and he was asked to produce a short piece about the coelacanth.
Three-year-old Susan and her father David Attenborough covered their ears as Georgie the sulfur cockatoo screamed. Georgie was brought home to Richmond from New Guinea, which David Attenborough visited in his ‘Zoo Quest’ series.
PA photos via Getty Images
That story was told in the studio by Professor Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist, who used examples of wild animals immersed in salt water and a photo of the coelacanth to explain the importance of the fish.
But Attenborough thought television could do more.
“I’ve always wanted to make animal films around the world,” he recalled in a 1985 interview with the Associated Press. But the attitude was, ‘We have TV cameras in the studio. What is this about spending money in other countries?’
In 1954, he finally persuaded the BBC to allow him to accompany a team from London Zoo that traveled to West Africa to collect specimens. That began ten years as host and producer of “Zoo Quest,” beginning his career in the field.
The right to his life
One of the most famous moments of that long career came during the 1979 series “Life on Earth,” when Attenborough met a family of mountain gorillas in the forest on the border of Rwanda and what was then Zaire (now Congo).
During the scene, voted one of Britain’s best TV moments of all time, a young gorilla lies on its body while several children try to take off its shoes. Attenborough is smiling, laughing and speechless with joy.
“I honestly don’t know how long it took,” Attenborough later told the BBC. “I suspect it was 10 minutes, or a quarter of an hour. I was just transported.”
He thought: “It was very unusual,” it was one of the most privileged moments of my life.
A character everyone can understand
Attenborough combined his television experience, understanding of his audience and his commitment to science to create a character that could bring complex issues around wildlife, conservation and natural history to a wider audience, said Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, professor of science communication at University College London.
“You’ve basically given wildlife television a figure, a household member … who will bring together the talk of nature on television,” Gouyon said.
And this time, his centenary, his followers made it a point to find him. In a recorded message, he said he thought he would mark the day in silence. As if.
Butterfly Conservation President Sir David Attenborough with the Southeast Asian Great Mormon Butterfly and a sheet detailing the different species common to the UK, as he launches the Big Butterfly count at London Zoo in Regent’s Park, London.
John Stillwell/PA Photos via Getty Images
He said: “I was very happy with the birthday greetings from the kindergarten groups to take care of the villagers and a lot of people and families of all ages,” he said.” “I can’t answer you all separately, but I would like to thank you very sincerely for your kind messages.”
And he’s not about to stop now, Fothergill said.
“He said to me recently that he feels incredibly privileged that a man in his 90s is still being asked to work. And, you know, he’s going to go on forever. He’s going to die in his hiking shorts.”
