There Will Never Be Another David Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough with Pablo the gorilla in a seminal scene from Life on Earth
Photo courtesy: A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough/John Sparks /Nature Picture Library
If you look up “national treasure” in the dictionary, I’d half expect to find a picture of Sir David Attenborough. As he turns 100 on Friday, his remarkable career speaks to both our changing planet, and a shifting media industry.
Over his eight decades working in television, the broadcaster and natural historian has accumulated a diverse list of credits. He commissioned the seminal sketch series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, launching the careers of Michael Palin and John Cleese. As BBC Two controller in the 1960s, he realized white tennis balls were difficult to follow on the new wave of color TVs, and lobbied the International Tennis Federation to switch to colored balls; a few years later, fluorescent yellow became the industry standard.