Desmond Wilcox

Christ's College, Finchley

Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) was a British television producer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and television executive. He worked at the BBC and ITV during his career and was producer of series such as This Week, Man Alive, and That's Life!

Early life

Wilcox was born in 1931 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, to John Wallace Wilcox, a student of architecture under Sir Edwin Lutyens, becoming partner in architectural firm Anderson, Forster, Warren and Wilcox (later Anderson, Forster and Wilcox) and a Second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, and Alice May, née Whittle. He attended Cheltenham Grammar School and Christ's College, Finchley. He was then a training apprentice with the Outward Bound Sea School and left home to work as a deckhand in the merchant marine.

Career

In 1949, Wilcox began a career in journalism as a reporter on a weekly newspaper. After two years of national service, he moved to Fleet Street to work for the Daily Mirror, becoming a foreign correspondent in the New York bureau.

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

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.

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

He wrote the book Explorers (BBC, 1975), based upon the BBC television series of the same name, about the journeys of ten explorers.

Personal life

Wilcox married Patsy Price and they had three children: Claire, Adam, and Cassandra. During his marriage he had an eight-year affair with television presenter Esther Rantzen, and in 1977 he married Rantzen after obtaining a divorce from Patsy. There were three further children from this marriage, including the television presenter Rebecca Wilcox. In 1992, Wilcox converted to Judaism, the religion of his second wife.

Later life and death

After he left the staff of the BBC, Wilcox was involved in the occasional series The Boy David, following the story of David Jackson (David Lopez), 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.

Wilcox died of a heart attack in Paddington, London, on 6 September 2000, at the age of 69.

Media

In 2023, in the ITV1 drama The Long Shadow Wilcox was portrayed by the actor Adam James.

Awards

Wilcox 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.

Coat of arms

Sources

• Esther Rantzen, The Autobiography, BBC Worldwide, 2001

References

References

1. [http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/93961 Profile] {{Webarchive. link. (2 November 2013 , BFI.org.uk; accessed 29 March 2016.)
2. ''The London Gazette'', 26 September, 1941, p. 5607.
3. ''Country Life'', collected volume 194, 2000, p. 141.
4. "Dictionary of Scottish Architects - DSA Architect Biography Report (April 3, 2022, 2:29 pm)".
5. "Dictionary of Scottish Architects - DSA Architect Biography Report (April 3, 2022, 2:29 pm)".
6. Supplement to the London Gazette, 26 September, 1941, p. 5589
7. ''People of Today'', ed. Jonathan Parker, David Williamson, Debrett's Peerage Ltd, 1995, p. 2126.
8. (2013). "Desmond Wilcox Obituary". [[The Daily Telegraph]].
9. The book is translated into Dutch: ''In het voetspoor der ontdekkers'' (1976).
10. Campbell, Duncan. (5 September 2003). "About a boy". [[The Guardian]].
11. (December 2017)
12. "July 2018 Newsletter (no. 55) - College of Arms".