Today [8 May] is Sir David Attenborough’s 94th birthday, and among the first to wish him well was WWF South Africa. Sir Attenborough is known for working with the organisation to narrate their nature films.
‘Here’s David in Kenya while filming his brand new feature film with WWF “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet”. We can’t wait to share the story of life on our planet from the man who has seen more of the natural world than any other,’ said WWF South Africa in a Facebook post accompanied by a picture of the birthday boy.
David Attenborough was born in 1926 in Leicester, England. He would go on to become an English broadcaster, writer, and naturalist. He would also be noted for his innovative educational television programs, especially the nine-part ‘Life’ series.
His father was the principal of the local university, and his older brother Richard would go on to become an actor and film producer.
David was interested in natural history from a very early age, and went on to study the subject at Clare College at Cambridge. He completed a training program with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1952, and became a television producer for the BBC.
In 1954 he started a television show with reptile curator Jack Lester called Zoo Quest. The show became wildly popular and in 1965 Attenborough became the controller for BBC‘s second channel BBC-2.
Attenborough was director of television programming of the BBC from 1968 to 1972, but he resigned to write and produce television series on a freelance basis.
He was knighted in 1985.
‘He subsequently wrote (and narrated) a succession of award-winning television programs on anthropology and natural history, most notably the Life series: Life on Earth (1979), The Living Planet (1984), The Trials of Life (1990), Life in the Freezer (1993), The Private Life of Plants (1995), The Life of Birds (1998), The Life of Mammals (2002–03), Life in the Undergrowth (2005), and Life in Cold Blood (2008),” it stipulates according to Brittanica. “His other TV credits included The Blue Planet (2001), an exploration of the world’s oceans, and State of the Planet (2000) and Are We Changing Planet Earth? (2006), both of which dealt heavily with environmental issues such as global warming. He narrated but did not write Blue Planet II(2017); for his narration, Attenborough earned an Emmy Award.’
Attenborough was the recipient of numerous other honours, including several BAFTA Awards and a Peabody Award (2014).
Image: Twitter
