David Attenborough

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Attenborough (2015)

Sir David Frederick Attenborough , OM , CH , CVO , CBE (born May 8, 1926 in London ) is a British wildlife filmmaker and naturalist . David Attenborough is best known for his award-winning nature documentaries , which he produced for the BBC . He is the younger brother of director and actor Richard Attenborough .

Education and professional career

Attenborough attended Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and won a scholarship to Clare College , Cambridge , where he received a degree in science.

He joined the British Navy ( Royal Navy ) in 1947 and served there for two years. Then he worked for a publishing house. In 1952 he made his first contacts with the BBC. His relationship with science broadcasts began in 1954 with the Zoo Quest series .

From 1965 to 1968 Attenborough was the controller of BBC 2. He then was program director for the television programs BBC 1 and BBC 2 until 1972. He turned down the offer to become director general of the BBC and left the BBC management in 1972 to concentrate on the production of programs.

Some of the series he has been on include Match of the Day , Pot Black , The Likely Lads , Not Only ... But Also , Horizon , Man Alive , Masterclass , The Forsyte Saga , The Old Gray Whistle Test, and The Money Programs . The diversity of these series was based on Attenborough's belief that BBC 2 should be as diverse as possible. He also commissioned Monty Python .

Documentation

Among the most important television documentary series Attenborough belongs trilogy : Life on Earth , The Living Planet and The Trials of Life ( Trials of Life ). These programs examine the organisms of the world from the point of view of taxonomy , ecology and evolutionary biology .

Thematically be cross tere productions were The Secret Life of Plants (The Private Life of Plants) , Life in the Freezer (about adaptations to cold climates), The Life of Birds (The Life of Birds) , The Blue Planet (about life in the oceans ), the life of mammals (the life of mammals) and hidden worlds - the secret life of insects ( the life of insects ).

Attenborough also hosts the long-term series Wildlife on One on BBC One (also called Wildlife on Two , BBC Wildlife and Natural World , depending on the channel ).

Before he started working as a nature filmmaker, he devoted himself extensively to the broad field of tribal art of non-European indigenous peoples. His 7-part documentary The Tribal Eye from 1975 is probably the most comprehensive cinematic work on this topic to date. Two episodes are devoted to African art , one each to the Indians in British Columbia, the natives of South America, the nomads of Iran and the Sepik -Peoples of New Guinea. An extra episode deals with the influence of tribal art objects on the international art markets.

In 2016 he documented the excavation and reconstruction based on the original finds of a titanosaur of the genus Notocolossus .

Commitment to climate protection

Attenborough is involved in the public debate about ways out of the climate crisis . He had been concerned with climate change since his documentary Are We Changing Planet Earth? (2006) discussed. In his high-profile speech at the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice in 2018 , he said: “We are currently facing a man-made disaster of global proportions, our greatest threat for thousands of years: climate change. If we don't act, our civilizations will collapse and much of the natural world will be extinct. "

Honors

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts bestowed the Desmond Davis Award on Attenborough in 1970 and made him a Fellow in 1979. In 1974 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire . David Attenborough was awarded the 1981 Kalinga Prize for Popularizing Science. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow in 1983, and in 1985 he was knighted a Bachelor's degree . In 1991 Attenborough was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was awarded the Golden Camera in 1992. In 2000 he received the International Cosmos Prize, in 2004 the Descartes Prize for exceptional achievements in teaching science and in 2007 the Faculty of Science at Uppsala University awarded him an honorary doctorate in memory of Carl von Linné . Attenborough has received more than 30 honorary doctorates.

In 2009 he received the Prince of Asturias Prize in the social sciences category .

Some people, such as former BBC producer Brian Leith, believe that David Attenborough's fifty-year BBC career, including numerous trips for nature programs, made him the most widely traveled person in history.

In his honor were different species named, including the fossil species Materpiscis attenboroughi , the carnivorous plant Nepenthes Attenboroughii that Sir David's long-beaked echidna ( Zaglossus attenboroughi ), the spider Spintharus davidattenboroughi and discovered in southern India in 2016 agamas -Art Sitana attenboroughii . Since 2010 he has also given its name to Attenborough Strait , a strait of the Bellingshausen Sea in the Antarctic.

A British polar research vessel completed in 2018, the Royal Research Ship RRS Sir David Attenborough , was named after him.

Publications

Books

  • Zoo Quest to Guyana. Lutterworth Press, 1956.
  • Zoo Quest for a Dragon. Lutterworth Press, 1957.
  • Zoo Quest in Paraguay. Lutterworth Press, 1959.
  • The Zoo Quest Expeditions. Lutterworth Press, 1980. (Summary edition of the above three titles with a new introduction.)
  • Quest in Paradise. 1960
  • Zoo Quest to Madagascar. 1961.
  • Quest Under Capricorn. 1963.
  • Fabulous Animals. 1975.
  • The Tribal Eye. 1976.
  • Life on Earth. 1979.
  • Discovering Life on Earth. 1981.
  • The Living Planet. 1984.
  • The First Eden. 1987.
  • as editor: Collins New Generation Guide to the birds of Britain and Europe. London 1987.
  • The Atlas Of The Living World. 1989.
  • The Trials of Life. 1990.
    • German: games of life ? Behaviors and struggle for survival of animals. Translated by Jochen Taaks. Falken, Niedernhausen im Taunus 1991, ISBN 3-8068-4524-7 .
  • The secret life of plants . (The Private Life of Plants). Scherz, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-502-15031-1 .
  • The life of the birds. (The Life of Birds). Scherz Verlag, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-502-15030-3 .
  • Life On Air. 2002.
  • The secret life of mammals . (Life of Mammals). Scherz, Bern / Munich / Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-502-15033-8 .
  • Life on Air. Memoirs of a Broadcaster. Autobiography. 2002.
  • Amazing rare things. The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery. 2007. ** German: Wonderful rare things. The representation of nature in the age of discovery. Translated by Ursula Wulfekamp. Schirmer Mosel, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8296-0317-1 .

DVDs

Many of Attenborough's productions have also been distributed on video. The following DVDs are mostly still available (the year of the English first broadcast or the German first release is indicated, unless otherwise specified):

Blu-ray

producer

Trivia

Attenborough is often mentioned in the special episodes of the television series Top Gear .

Web links

Commons : David Attenborough  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikiquote: en: David Attenborough  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gina Thomas: He amazes us at the wonders of the world , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 7, 2016, p. 16
  2. ^ BBC, Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur
  3. ^ David Attenborough: Collapse of civilization is on the horizon. The Guardian , December 3, 2018, accessed February 13, 2019 (UK English).
  4. ↑ Cosmos Prize: The Prizewinner 2000. At: expo-cosmos.or.jp , accessed on September 25, 2015
  5. ^ Linnaeus 2007 - Attenborough and Goodall new honorary doctors
  6. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/10_october/31/lifeonair_mammalspack.pdf
  7. ↑ Ingi Agnarsson et al .: A radiation of the ornate Caribbean 'smiley-faced spiders', with descriptions of 15 new species (Araneae: Theridiidae, Spintharus). In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. zlx056, 2017, doi: 10.1093 / zoolinnean / zlx056
  8. ↑ http://orf.at/stories/2338044/2338046/ Boaty McBoatface becomes a submarine: Named after David Attenborough, orf.at, May 6, 2016, accessed May 6, 2016.
  9. ^ Jonathon Amos: Sir David Attenborough polar ship set for launch. BBC News Online, July 14, 2018, accessed January 1, 2019 (English, with video).
personal data
SURNAME Attenborough, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Attenborough, David Frederick (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British documentary filmmaker and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH London