Desmond Wilcox

Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) was a British documentary maker at the BBC and ITV. He was producer of This Week, Man Alive and That's Life!.

Early life

Wilcox was born in 1931 in Welwyn Garden City, England^[1], to John William Wilcox and Alice M Whittle and ran away from home at age 16 to work as a deckhand in the merchant marine. He began his career in journalism as a reporter on a weekly newspaper in 1949. He moved to Fleet Street after two years of National Service. He worked for the Daily Mirror, becoming a foreign correspondent in the New York bureau.

In 1960 he moved to television as a reporter on ITV's This Week current affairs programme, where he stayed for five years until joining the BBC.

Documentaries

He was co-editor and presenter of the landmark Man Alive series in 1965. He later formed the Man Alive Unit as well as providing the distinctive voice-over in the weekly current-affairs programme 'TEMPO' directed by Mike Hodges.

In an interview in 1986 he said:

“

Real life honestly portrayed is sufficiently dramatic in itself. The idea that might lurk in some people's minds that you somehow have to beef it up, or pump it up or invent the circumstances to make it more colourful, is an idea born of Fleet Street and ignorance.

”

BBC executive

From 1972 to 1980 he was head of general features at the BBC. He made series including Americans, The Visit, Black in Blue and A Day in the Life.

Later career

After he left the staff of the BBC, Wilcox was involved in the occasional series following the story of David Jackson (David Lopez) 'the Boy David', a badly-deformed Peruvian boy (a sufferer of noma) whose face was rebuilt by a Scottish surgeon who adopted him. The series won six international awards.

Personal life

He was married to television presenter Esther Rantzen in 1977 following an 8 year affair with her. They had three children together, including television presenter Rebecca Wilcox. He had three other children from an earlier marriage to Patsy. He converted to Judaism in 1992.^[2] He died of a heart attack in Paddington, London, in 2000, aged 69.

Awards

He was posthumously awarded the Grierson Documentary Film Awards Life Tribute in November 2001. A media arts centre at a High School in Rainhill, Merseyside has been opened, named in his honour. ^[3]

Sources

• Esther Rantzen, The Autobiography, BBC Worldwide, 2001

References

1. ^ http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/93961 BFI
2. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n14195146
3. ^ Rainhill High School - Media Arts Status .

External links

• Obituary
• Page on IMDb

Persondata
Name	Wilcox, Desmond
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	21 May 1931
Place of birth
Date of death	6 September 2000
Place of death