Desmond Wilcox

Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) was a British documentary maker at the BBC and ITV. He was producer of This Week, Man Alive, and That's Life!.

Early life

Wilcox was born in 1931 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, to John William Wilcox and Alice M. Whittle. 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. In 1949 he 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.

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.