- Born
- Died
- Birth nameAlan Donald Whicker
- Alan Whicker was born on August 2, 1921 in Cairo, Egypt. He was a writer and director, known for Whicker; Down Mexico Way (1963), Whicker (1968) and Whicker's Walkabout (1970). He died on July 12, 2013 in Jersey, Channel Islands, UK.
- The doyen of jet-setting journalists, he was memorably parodied in a Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969) sketch which featured an island full of Whickers, sipping martinis and waiting for the "inevitable interview".
- A captain in the Devonshire Regiment of the British Army in the Second World War, he directed the Army Film and Photo Unit with the British 8th Army and US 5th Army.
- Attended Haberdashers' Aske's School, London.
- He was awarded the C.B.E. (Commander of the order of the British Empire) in the 2005 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to broadcasting.
- He lived with his partner of over 30 years, Valerie Kleeman, in the Channel Islands.
- The BBC was still embedded in its civil service ethos which took broadcasting off the air every night between 6 and 7, in case viewing parents had trouble getting their children to bed. Can you imagine? We were then writing the grammar of television so that quaint, hour long toddlers' truce of 1957 did not long survive Tonight (1957)'s arrival. Soon, viewers were being treated as grown-ups, where the next Tonight (1957) was always tomorrow night and you could make your own house rules in your own home.
- I wasn't good-looking, as you can plainly see, but at least I was neat and not noticeably shy.
- Those who cater for the public taste have always found the monstrous a profitable preoccupation.
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