CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews David Frost Vs...: Journalist's humbling of Richard Nixon is a masterclass in the interviewer's art
David Frost Vs... (Sky Documentaries)
President Richard Nixon didn't smile.
He just bared his teeth in a Humphrey Bogart sneer. But Bogie looked untouchably cool. Nixon looked like a dog about to bite.
We were given an unparalleled opportunity to study Nixon's face, a picture of political cunning under a mask of suspicion, thanks to British chat show host David Frost's marathon 28-and-three-quarter hour inquisition of the disgraced former U.S. leader, recorded in 1977.
David Frost vs... Richard Nixon picked out highlights, from the opening jab that gave Nixon a chance to showboat, until the final flurry of sucker punches that left him floundering in self-recrimination, apologising to the American people for betraying their trust.
Throughout, Nixon was dabbing sweat with a handkerchief from his grey upper lip. Sometimes, the beads of moisture were so unattractive under the lights that Frost had to prompt him to do it again. The camera was as unforgiving as the interrogator.
Actor Michael Caine once said that being interviewed by Frost was like confessing to a priest. Once you started to talk, everything came pouring out.
But Nixon was in no mood for absolution. Frost reeled him in slowly, sometimes with flattery and sometimes with dramatic gestures. On the last day of recording, the Englishman threw away his clipboard and notes, tossing them onto the floor as if to say that everything they discussed was now off the record. It wasn't, of course.
Michael Sheen, who played Frost in both the Broadway play and the movie Frost/Nixon, based on this epic interview, gave an enthusiastic assessment of what made the man such a formidable TV performer — quickness of mind, charm and his unabashed readiness to deploy flattery.
The interview gave an unparalleled opportunity to study Nixon's face, a picture of political cunning under a mask of suspicion, thanks to British chat show host David Frost's lenghty inquisition of the disgraced former U.S. leader
Veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, one of the men who helped to bring down Nixon by exposing the Watergate bugging scandal in 1972, was less complimentary . . . unable to hide his abiding conviction that he could have done a better job himself.
But even persuading Nixon to sit down and talk took all Frost's guile . . . in addition to a $600,000 fee (£2.4 million today) and a 20 per cent share of the revenue.
This condensed version is part of a series drawing on the videotape archives left by Frost, who died in 2013. The trove, so vast that it took son Wilfred eight years to transfer them all to digital format, includes in-depth encounters with Elizabeth Taylor, Muhammad Ali and The Beatles. Next week's episode focuses on Elton John, who made his first candid confessions about drugs, drink and sexuality to Frost.
Many other interviews are available in a podcast, The Frost Tapes. Wilfred, now a Sky News presenter, told me a couple of years ago: 'One day, I would like the entire archive to be available as a teaching resource, because it is living history.'
For anyone fascinated by the interviewer's art, there is no better professor.
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