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A TOUCH OF FROST
The story of David Frost’s famous TV interviews with disgraced former US president Richard Nixon is about to reach UK cinemas. William Langley finds out what really happened from the grand inquisitor himself
“Hello. Thank you for coming. Super.” The voice of Sir David Frost, a euphonic soufflé of fervour and cordiality that has caressed and skewered the famous for 40 years, is rising towards the high, knobbled ceiling of a stately home in Norfolk, leaving in its wake an invisible slick of, well, frosting.
At 69, Sir David is in good form, cosily embedded in a deep armchair with shards of afternoon sunlight shining through his frizzy hair. A sense of wellbeing comes naturally to Frost, but if his mood today seems particularly promising it may be because – at a time when his style of broadcasting appears to be slipping out of fashion – we are about to be reminded of what made him the most famous world television personality.
In early 1977, Frost secured a series of interviews with former US president Richard Nixon, which would become the most watched news programmes in history. Three years earlier, Nixon had been driven from the White House in the wake of the Watergate affair, which had exposed his central role in a vast dirty–tricks operation against his political enemies. Holed up on a beachfront estate in California, a dark, resentful and glowering presence, Nixon had refused all entreaties to explain his role in the greatest political scandal of the 20th century.
Frost offered money – something the ethically minded American networks had felt unable to consider – but the deal’s big attraction for Nixon was his certainty that Frost would never lay a glove on him. Nixon was looking for a painless route to redemption, while Frost was desperate for a headline–grabbing coup to restore his fading celebrity. So the stage was set for a gladiatorial psychodrama that has now reached the big screen as Frost/Nixon.
The film is adapted from Peter Morgan’s hit West End play of the same name, and stars Michael Sheen as Frost and the veteran Broadway actor Frank Langella as Nixon. At its heart, the collision between the two resembles a high stakes poker game, which neither can afford to lose. The script has Nixon saying before their interviews start: “I shall be your fiercest adversary. I shall come at you with everything I’ve got. Because the limelight can only shine on one of us. And for the other it will be the wilderness… with nothing, and no one for company, but those voices ringing in our heads.” Though those words were not spoken in real life, Frost agrees the sentiment was spot–on…
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