SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

You can watch Sir David Attenborough on Trek: Spy on the Wildebeest, Tiger: Spy in the Jungle and Planet Earth

Sir David Attenborough is Britain's best-known natural history film-maker. His career as a naturalist and broadcaster has spanned nearly five decades and there are very few places on the globe that he has not visited.

Over the last 25 years he has established himself as the world's leading natural history programme maker with several landmark BBC series, including: Life on Earth (1979), The Living Planet (1984), The Trials of Life (1990), The Private Life of Plants (1995), The Life of Birds (1998), The Life of Mammals (2002) and Life in the Undergrowth (2005).

It transpires that the Attenborosaurus dinosaur, on display at Natural History Museum has been named after Sir David. A flower in Ecuador and also a species of parasitic wasp already bear his name.

  • Too toothy for TV

    David's broadcasting career took flight as a BBC trainee producer in 1952, under the watch of Mary Adams, Head of Factual Broadcasting. At the time, television was a fledgling service, and like much of the nation, Attenborough did not own a TV and had only seen one programme in his life. It's hard to believe, but Adams was keen to keep her new recruit firmly behind the camera because she thought his teeth were too big after reviewing a disastrous interview he had done with Olympic runner, Gordon Pirie (who was rather monosyllabic with his responses). Regardless, David went onto break his teeth as a stand in presenter when the frontman of 'Zoo Quest' (a show about an animal-collecting expedition that Attenborough was producing) fell ill. On this occasion, David did a sterling job and no further laughable concerns were raised about the size of his molars.

  • A colourful pioneer and good sport

    David's TV legacy extends beyond the realm of bringing the wonders of the natural world to millions of living rooms around the globe. In his early career, he spent eight years in BBC senior management – firstly as Controller of BBC Two (1965-1969), and later as BBC Television's Director of Programmes (1969-1972). During this time he introduced the first ever colour television to the nation, masterminded the concept of televised Snooker and championed such landmark series as 'Match of the Day', 'The Likely Lads' and 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'.

  • Globetrotting legacy

    It has been suggested that David's extensive intercontinental voyages as a TV naturalist makes him the most travelled living man on Earth. It is not a proven fact, but given that he journeyed a mammoth 256,000 miles (equivalent to going around the world ten times) during the making of the 1998 series 'The Life of Birds' alone, there may well be some truth in the proposition.

  • Rating giant

    The groundbreaking 1979 series, 'Life on Earth' – in which David famously whispered "There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know" while locked in electrifying eye contact with a Rwandan mountain gorilla that had affectionately groomed him – was watched by an estimated 500 million people worldwide. Half a billion viewers – staggering!

  • Trusted chart topper

    David has not only won the confidence of much of the animal kingdom that he has got up close and personal with, he has also earned great credence with the great British public. In a 2006 'Reader's Digest' magazine poll, 4,900 Britons voted him the most trusted UK-based celebrity (over news broadcaster Trevor McDonald and artistic entertainer Rolf Harris). In the same year, David was also crowned the 'Greatest Living British Icon' (over musical legends Morrissey, Sir Paul McCartney and David Bowie) by viewers of the BBC's 'The Culture Show'.

  • Pet hate

    Mr Attenborough has a broad and varied fascination with animals, but there are some beasts he'd rather not get too intimate with. "I don't like rats, I've never made a secret of that – they are the ultimate horrible thing," admitted Sir David, before recalling his dreaded rodent encounter during the filming of 'The Life of Mammals'. "For the first time in nearly a quarter of a century I had a very bad stomach upset in India. I went and sat on the loo and got rid of the entire contents of my stomach, as one does. Well, I was sitting there... and a rat came up from between my legs from the loo," shuddered Attenborough. "He was wet, I have to tell you!" he concluded with humour.

  • Beastly ambition

    David has rubbed shoulders with an encyclopaedic volume of awe-inspiring animals in his time, but on the 'Jonathan Ross Show' in 2009, he revealed that there is one dream primate meeting that he is yet to fulfil – getting close to a rhinopithecus roxellana (native to south western China), or the golden snub-nosed monkey as it is commonly known. "It is an absolutely fabulous animal. It's got golden fur, a blue face and a little turned up nose. It's enchanting," enthused Sir David, whose endeavours to track down the monkey in his early career were blocked by Chinese officials because of the country's then strained political relationship with Britain.

  • Royal fashion advice

    Having been made a CBE in 1974 and a Sir in 1985, David is a distinguished fellow in the British royal household, and in 1987 and 1998 he was the preferred choice of producer for Queen Elizabeth's Christmas Day address to the nation. During the latter, Attenborough's uncompromising quest for TV perfection prompted him to cordially advise her majesty to reconsider her choice of festive attire because her original choice of frock created a catastrophic clash with Buckingham Palace's green wallpaper. She graciously accepted Sir David's tip for sidestepping a royal fashion faux pas, and it clearly created no bad blood – he was invited back to the Palace in 2005 to receive a prestigious Order of Merit in recognition of his exceptional distinction in the arts, sciences and other areas.

  • Top three TV moments

    According to a survey conducted by UKTV in 2006 to celebrate David's 80th birthday, the British nation's favourite Attenborough TV moment is the veteran's encounter with the Australian lyrebird mimicking sounds in 'The Life of Birds' (1998), which attracted nearly a quarter of the 14,000 votes. Revisit the winged creature's magical imitation of a camera shutter, car alarm and chainsaw here. David's infamous brush with mountain gorillas in 'Life on Earth' (1979) came a close second, and his impromptu encounter with a blue whale in 'The Life of Mammals' (2002) took a deserved third place.

  • Laid back return

    One of the most common questions Sir David is asked is which animal he would most like to be reincarnated as. "I daresay my mind would wander over a range of animals remarkable for the extravagance of their reproductive techniques," joked David rather saucily about his response to such a line of questioning when in "racy" company. But more soberly, he confesses to most fancying hanging upside-down in trees all day as a sloth. He's a great fan of the slow-moving, totally chilled creature, and dedicated the opening chapter of his 2009 book, 'Life Stories', to discussing it. Other topics in David's latest read include his first ever pet (a salamander) and his all-time favourite member of the animal kingdom (the bird of paradise).

Planet Earth Live
Life is Sharing

  • Planet Earth Live is the biggest live wildlife broadcast ever undertaken.

  • As a child, Richard Hammond started his own wildlife club and armed with a nature kit set out to study the wildlife in his Solihull garden.

  • In Africa, Richard will be joining Kenyan elephant researcher David Daballen who knows more than 700 of the Samburu elephants by name.

  • Our closest relatives, the chimps and gorillas, laugh when tickled.

  • Dolphins can point with their bodies and have been known to communicate an object's location to human divers.

  • Flamingos are only red because of the food they eat.