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Transitions : Sir David Frost
David Frost dies of heart attack at the age of 74
Veteran British journalist David Frost, best-known for interviewing former US president Richard Nixon, died of a heart attack on Saturday at the age of 74, his family says.
"Sir David died of a heart attack last night aboard the Queen Elizabeth which is a Cunard (cruise) liner where he was giving a speech," a statement released by the family says.
"His family are devastated and ask for privacy at this difficult time.
"A family funeral will be held in the near future and details of a memorial service will be announced in due course."
Frost's list of interviewees, from presidents and prime ministers to royalty and show-business celebrities, was expansive.
On the surface, Frost's interviewing style could come across as soft, but the friendly veneer allowed him to extract intriguing information with more blunt questions.
Sir David is most famous for a 1977 interview during which Mr Nixon apologised for the Watergate scandal - when his Republican party staff bugged the opposition Democrats' offices.
Immortalised in the 2008 film, Frost Nixon, he was a pioneer of broadcasting for more than half a century, including the satirical program That Was The Week That Was, and appeared in several British television programs in recent years.
Frost was knighted in 1993, becoming Sir David.
With his extensive contacts book, his annual summer garden parties were often a who's-who of the rich and famous.
The broadcaster wrote 17 books, produced several films and started two British television networks, London Weekend Television and TV-am.
In 1983, he married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, second daughter of the Duke of Norfolk - the premier duke in the English nobility, who has a role in organising state occasions. They had three sons.
Former editor of the Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, Andrew Neil, has told ABC News 24 Sir David was popular on and off the screen.
"Everybody liked him ... he didn't have his own agenda," Neil said.
"He was never rude in his interviews - tough, but never rude - and he, unlike almost any other journalist, he was a household name not just in Britain, but for a long time in Australia and in America.
"And he crossed over the boundaries from journalism into entertainment. No one has ever done that before. No one has interviewed as many important people in the modern world than David Frost."
Neil said Sir David was "a truly international figure" and a key player in the creation of the television interview.
"He was very down to earth ... he came from an ordinary background, he had no pretensions at all, he never tried to be what he wasn't and he always worked really hard," he said.
"He never stopped working and he did his research. He came from the entertainment world. That gave him a much wider reach than most journalists."
British journalist and broadcaster Jon Sopel says Sir David funny, irreverent and "a brilliant interviewer".
"He was fearsome because what he did was he would lull you into this false sense of security," Sopel told ABC News 24.
"He would be funny and friendly and warm and ask these questions that you think, as the interviewee, are really harmless.
"Time and time again, David Frost got the story not by being tough and hectoring people and haranguing them and saying you have to answer this, are you have to answer that, he would do it with gentleness."
Sopel said Sir David, who worked for a long time at the BBC, had this endless curiosity and endeared himself to colleagues and interview subjects.
"You can judge a person by the way the lighting person, the makeup artist, the whatever, what they think of these people, and they all adored Frost because he was just such a character and always had time for them," Sopel said.
"After his show on Sunday morning ... there would be the breakfast where all the guests and the production team and everyone else would sit down to sausage, eggs, bacon, and David Frost would effectively hold court.
"You look at the people he's interviewed, Mandela, Clinton, [Archbishop Desmond] Tutu, rock stars and actors, actresses, there was just nobody that Frost hadn't interviewed."
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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating
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