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! ''That's Life!'' was a satirical TV consumer affairs programme on the BBC, at its height regularly reaching audiences of fifteen to twenty million, and receiving 10–15,000 letters a week. The series broadcast on BBC1 for twenty-one years, ...

''.

Early life

Wilcox was born in 1931 in

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, to John Wallace Wilcox, a student of architecture under Sir

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memor ...

, becoming partner in architectural firm Anderson, Forster, Warren and Wilcox (later Anderson, Forster and Wilcox) and a

Second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army unt ...

in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...

, and Alice May, née Whittle.People of Today, ed. Jonathan Parker, David Williamson, Debrett's Peerage Ltd, 1995, p. 2126 He attended

Cheltenham Grammar School en, That which is hidden shall be revealed , established = , closed = , type = Grammar school;Academy , religion = , president = , head_label = , head = Russel Ellicott , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = , chair = , founder ...

and

Christ's College, Finchley Christ's College is a secondary school with academy status in East Finchley, London, United Kingdom. It falls under the London Borough of Barnet Local Education Authority for admissions. Since September 2018, Christ’s College Finchley has off ...

. He was then a training apprentice with the

Outward Bound Outward Bound (OB) is an international network of outdoor education organizations that was founded in the United Kingdom by Lawrence Holt and Kurt Hahn in 1941. Today there are organizations, called schools, in over 35 countries which are att ...

Sea School and left home to work as a deckhand in the merchant marine.

Career

Journalism

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 The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its Masthead (British publishing), masthead was simpl ...

'', 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.

Documentaries

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:

Television executive

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

Personal life

Wilcox married firstly Patsy Price, and they had three children together called Claire, Adam, and Cassandra. During this first marriage he had an eight-year affair with television presenter

Esther Rantzen Dame Esther Louise Rantzen (born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, who presented the BBC television series ''That's Life!'' for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. She works with various charitable causes, and fou ...

, and in 1977 he married her after obtaining a divorce from Patsy. There were three further children of this marriage, including the television presenter

Rebecca Wilcox Rebecca Wilcox (born 10 January 1980) is an English television presenter, mainly for the BBC. Early life The middle of three children born to journalist and television presenter Esther Rantzen and producer Desmond Wilcox, she has an older si ...

. In 1992 Wilcox converted to Judaism, the religion of his second wife.

Later life

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

Death

Wilcox died of a heart attack in

Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Padd ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, in 2000, aged 69.

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 Rainhill is a village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, in Merseyside, England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 10,853. Historically part of Lancashire, Rainhill was formerly a tow ...

, Merseyside has been opened, named in his honour.Rainhill High School - Media Arts Status

Coat of arms

Sources

*Esther Rantzen, ''The Autobiography'', BBC Worldwide, 2001

References

External links

Obituary
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilcox, Desmond 1931 births 2000 deaths Converts to Judaism British documentary film producers English documentary filmmakers English Jews People from Welwyn Garden City 20th-century British businesspeople