David Attenborough

David Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel in 1950. They had two children, Robert and Susan, and remained married until Jane's death in 1997.

Robert became a senior lecturer in bioanthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, while Susan became a primary school headmistress. Attenborough is agnostic and has publicly opposed the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in science lessons.

Attenborough grew up in College House on the campus of the University of Leicester, where his father, Frederick Attenborough, was principal. His older brother, Richard Attenborough, became an actor and director, while his younger brother, John, became an executive at Alfa Romeo. During the Second World War, the family fostered two Jewish refugee girls from Germany.

As a child, Attenborough collected fossils, stones and other natural specimens. He also supplied newts to the university's zoology department and developed an early interest in conservation after attending a 1936 lecture by Grey Owl with Richard.

He attended Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester before winning a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where he studied geology and zoology. After graduating in natural sciences in 1947, he completed two years of national service in the Royal Navy and then worked as an editor of children's science textbooks.

Attenborough joined the BBC in 1952 after completing its television training programme. He initially worked as a producer in the Talks department, contributing to factual programmes including Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? and Song Hunter. His association with natural-history broadcasting began with Animal Patterns, which featured animals from London Zoo and the zoologist Julian Huxley.

Together with Jack Lester, the curator of London Zoo's reptile house, Attenborough developed Zoo Quest. When Lester became ill, Attenborough took over as presenter shortly before the first programme was broadcast in 1954. The series combined filming in zoos with expeditions to observe and collect animals in the wild, establishing his on-screen career.

Attenborough became Controller of BBC Two in 1965 and later served as the BBC's director of television programmes. He commissioned or supported programmes including Kenneth Clark's Civilisation, Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and Monty Python's Flying Circus. He left BBC management in 1973 to return to full-time programme-making.

Attenborough wrote and presented Life on Earth in 1979, a 13-part series that examined the evolution and diversity of life. It was followed by The Living Planet in 1984 and The Trials of Life in 1990. Later instalments included Life in the Freezer, The Private Life of Plants, The Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth and Life in Cold Blood.

The series used techniques such as time-lapse photography, macro cinematography, infrared cameras, low-light filming and underwater photography. With Life in Cold Blood in 2008, the project had covered the major groups of terrestrial animals and plants, a body of work later gathered under the Life on Land title.

Attenborough also narrated or presented major productions outside the Life series. These included The Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, Planet Earth II, Blue Planet II, Dynasties, Our Planet, A Life on Our Planet and Prehistoric Planet. His narration of Blue Planet II helped bring attention to the effects of plastic pollution on marine life.

His books include the expedition accounts of the Zoo Quest years, companion volumes to his television series, the autobiography Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster, and A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future. He has also written Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness with Colin Butfield.

Attenborough's later documentaries have increasingly addressed human effects on the natural world. He presented State of the Planet, The Truth about Climate Change, How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?, Climate Change: The Facts and Extinction: The Facts. His 2020 film David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet presented a reflection on his career alongside a warning about climate change and biodiversity loss.

He has supported organisations and campaigns including the World Land Trust, Fauna and Flora International, Butterfly Conservation, the Wildlife Trusts and the Zoological Society of London. He helped launch ARKive, a digital library of natural-history media, and served on the Earthshot Prize Council. He also addressed world leaders at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

His honours include a BAFTA Fellowship, election as a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Order of Merit, the Prince of Asturias Award, multiple Primetime Emmy Awards for narration and the United Nations Environment Programme's Champion of the Earth award. He has been recognised by Guinness World Records for the longest career as a natural historian and television presenter.

More than 20 species and genera have been named in his honour, including the flowering-plant genus Sirdavidia, the carnivorous plant Nepenthes attenboroughii, the fossil fish Materpiscis attenboroughi and the marsupial lion Microleo attenboroughi.