Alan Whicker

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Alan Donald Whicker , CBE (born August 2, 1921 or 1925 in Cairo , Sultanate of Egypt , † July 12, 2013 in Trinity , Jersey ) was a British television journalist and presenter . He gained fame primarily through his Whicker's World series of reports , which was broadcast regularly on the BBC from 1959 to 1988 and later on ITV .

Life

Whicker was born to a British family in Cairo, where his father, a hussar officer at the time, was stationed. In 1928 the family moved back to Great Britain. During World War II Whicker initially served as an infantry officer in the Devonshire Regiment . In 1943 he switched to a unit for filmic and photographic war reporting and was transferred to the Italian front. There he documented the landing in Anzio , the conquest of Milan , the arrest of the defector John Amery and the death of Benito Mussolini .

As a civilian after the war, Whicker initially worked for the Exchange Telegraph news agency . a. as a correspondent from the Korean War . In 1957 he came to the BBC and initially worked for the radio. Whicker soon switched to television after the presenter Alasdair Milne discovered his talent for interviews. In the news magazine Tonight Whicker was first active as a commentator, then as a moderator. From this program, Whicker's own program Whicker's World emerged, in which he reported on various topics from politics, business, culture and society around the world. Among other things, a report filmed in 1969 about the conditions in Haiti , which contained an interview with the dictator François Duvalier alias “Papa Doc”, caused a stir .

In 1968 the show temporarily switched to ITV television , but returned to the BBC in 1982. Even after Whicker's World was discontinued in 1992 for reasons of age, Whicker remained occasionally active as a journalist. For example, in 1998 he produced a six-part radio report for BBC 2 entitled Another Whicker's World , highlighted his own war experiences in Whicker's War in 2004 , and finally in 2009 his own biography was the subject of a four-part report in Alan Whicker's Journey Of A Lifetime .

Whicker was never married, but lived with Valerie Kleeman from 1969 until his death. He lived in Jersey and London from the 1970s. Whicker died on 12 July 2013 in Jersey at a pneumonia .

Reception and awards

Whicker's show was a great success in its running time, achieved high ratings of up to 15 million viewers per show and received several awards. Whicker received a BAFTA Award in the Television - Factual Personality category back in 1964 . In 1978 Whicker received the Richard Dimbleby Award, which was also awarded as part of the BAFTA Awards . In 2005 Whicker was finally raised to the rank of Commander of the Order of the British Empire .

Whicker was considered a globetrotter who flew more than 100,000 miles per year for his reports  and had a reputation for skillfully incorporating critical questions into interviews and treating his interviewees regardless of their social status. In a poll, Whicker was once named Britain's most envied man.

As a public figure, Whicker has also been the target of ridicule and parody. One of the most famous contributions of this kind was provided by Monty Python , who presented a whole island full of Whicker doubles in a sketch entitled Whicker Island . Whicker's demeanor and his jet-set lifestyle were taken aback, but Whickers also found a penchant for unusual alliterations and rhetoric determined by flowery, pictorial terms.

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personal data
SURNAME Whicker, Alan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Whicker, Alan Donald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British television journalist and presenter
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1921 or August 2, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Cairo
DATE OF DEATH 12th of July 2013
Place of death Trinity (Jersey)