WILCOX
Desmond

• 1. Career

Desmond John Wilcox was a British 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!.

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:

Real life honestly portrayed is sufficiently dramatic in itself. The idea that might lurk in some people's minds that you somehow have to beef it up, or pump it up or invent the circumstances to make it more colourful, is an idea born of Fleet Street and ignorance.

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.