MUST READS
FROST: THAT WAS THE LIFE THAT WAS by Neil Hegarty
FROST: THAT WAS THE LIFE THAT WAS
by Neil Hegarty
(W H Allen £9.99)
On David Frost’s death in 2013, his Cambridge contemporary Christopher Booker remembered that, as an undergraduate, he was ‘touchingly ambitious, without any obvious talent’.
Two decades on, that ambition had transformed him into ‘the most extraordinary phenomenon in TV history’, holding down jobs as a chat show host on both sides of the Atlantic.
Neil Hegarty’s authorised biography traces the trajectory of the man who ‘rose without trace’ (as someone cattily put it) from his childhood as the son of a Methodist minister to become a TV interviewer whose glittering guest list included George Bush, Muhammad Ali, Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.
His famously bland manner wrong-footed many a slippery politician, most notoriously Tony Blair and Richard Nixon (the latter’s interviews with Frost were turned into a film starring Michael Sheen).
But Hegarty’s book also reveals a more private side to Frost, as a loving husband and doting father.
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![On discovering their pregnancies:
AF: I thought it?d happen right away, since I?d spent my whole life trying not to get pregnant. After two months of trying, I had a chemical pregnancy [a very early miscarriage], which was a huge disappointment. Afterward, I just wanted a baby so badly?nothing about that time was romantic. When I finally got a positive result, I jumped around the house, listening to Justin Bieber?s ?Baby.?
CG: We weren?t really trying. One day I felt a little sick, so I asked Sean to pick up a pregnancy test. Whenever I feel weird, I take one?and they?re always negative. After I peed on the stick, I climbed into bed without even checking it. Sean asked if he could. When he walked out of the bathroom, he said, ?Baby, it?s negative,? and I was like, ?Yeah, I thought so.? Then he said, ?And by negative, I mean positive.? I had to look at the test myself, because I?d never seen a positive before. Then we both looked at each other and had no idea what to do or say. Finally](http://web.archive.org/web/20160514113526im_/http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/05/13/19/342138EE00000578-0-image-m-20_1463162864909.jpg)
