A genuine class act. What a life!
Alan Whicker dies at 87
Journalist and broadcaster Alan Whicker has died at the age of 87 after suffering from bronchial pneumonia.
His spokeswoman said he died in the early hours of Friday morning at his home in Jersey.
With a TV career that stretched nearly six decades, he was best known for his long-running documentary series, Whicker's World.
The show, which ran from 1959 to 1988 on both the BBC and ITV, saw him travel all over the world.
The series featured Whicker reporting on the unusual and bizarre, interviewing all types of people from millionaires and monks to gangsters and dictators.
He once said he counted himself one of the luckiest men in the world because he enjoyed his work so much.
Valerie Kleeman, Whicker's partner of more than 40 years, said she was "lucky to have shared" his life.
"A few years ago a poll asked who was the most envied man in the country - and Alan won by a country mile!," she said.
"He said that he didn't know where work ended and private life began. Quoting Noel Coward, he would say 'work is more fun than fun'.
"On this last journey he will arrive curious, fascinated, and ready for a new adventure."
After joining the British Army at the end of World War II, it was his stint as the editor of the British Army newspaper that whetted Whicker's appetite for a future in journalism.
He joined the BBC in 1957, where he became a correspondent for the flagship current affairs show Tonight.
There he was credited with bringing interview techniques like walking to camera and cutaways to television.
But it was Whicker's World, a perennially popular ratings winner, that made him a household name.
Python tribute >>>
Whicker Island
The show even inspired a famous Monty Python sketch about Whicker Island, a mythical place populated by Alan look-alikes awaiting that "inevitable interview".
Former Monty Python star and now travel writer and presenter Michael Palin was among the first to pay tribute.
"Alan Whicker was a great character, a great traveller and an excellent reporter. He was absolutely at the top of his game in front of the camera," he said.
In its tweet, Bafta called his death "so sad". The broadcaster won two Baftas during his career - the factual personality award in 1965 and the Richard Dimbleby award in 1978.
Whicker moved to Jersey in the 1970s after visiting many times in the '60s, saying the slow pace of life attracted him to the island.
He retired from full-time broadcasting in 1998 but returned to the spotlight 10 years ago in a series of adverts for a travel company, coining its slogan "Hello world".
In 2009, he re-visited some of the people and places he had filmed over the decades for the BBC series Alan Whicker's Journey of a Lifetime.
He was made a CBE for services to broadcasting in 2005.
Source: 
