Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) was an English 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!
Early life Wilcox was born in 1931 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.Profile , BFI.org.uk; accessed 29 March 2016. His father was John Wallace Wilcox, a partner in an architectural firmThe London Gazette, 26 September, 1941, p. 5607.Country Life, collected volume 194, 2000, p. 141. and formerly a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers.Supplement to the London Gazette, 26 September, 1941, p. 5589 Wilcox's mother was Alice May, née Whittle.People of Today, ed. Jonathan Parker, David Williamson, Debrett's Peerage Ltd, 1995, p. 2126. He attended Cheltenham Grammar School and Christ's College, Finchley. He was then a training apprentice with the Outward Bound Sea School and left home to work as a deckhand in the merchant marine.
Career 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, 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.
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:
From 1972 to 1980, Wilcox was head of general features at the BBC. He made series including Americans, The Visit, Black in Blue and A Day in the Life.
He wrote the book Explorers (BBC, 1975), based upon the BBC television series of the same name, about the journeys of ten explorers.The book is translated into Dutch: In het voetspoor der ontdekkers (1976).
Personal life Wilcox married Patsy Price and they had three children: Claire, Adam and Cassandra. During his marriage he had an eight-year affair with television presenter Esther Rantzen; in 1977 he married Rantzen after obtaining a divorce from Price. There were three further children from this marriage, including the television presenter Rebecca Wilcox. In 1992, Wilcox converted to Judaism, the religion of his second wife.
Later life and death After he left the staff of the BBC, Wilcox was involved in the occasional series The Boy David, following the story of David Jackson (David Lopez), 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.
In 2023, in the ITV1 drama The Long Shadow Wilcox was portrayed by the actor Adam James.
Wilcox died of a heart attack in Paddington, London, on 6 September 2000, at the age of 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, Merseyside, was 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