Desmond Wilcox

Desmond John Wilcox (21 May 1931 – 6 September 2000) 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!. Early life Wilcox was born in 1931 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, to John Wallace Wilcox, a student of architecture under Sir Edwin Lutyens, becoming partner in architectural firm Anderson, Forster, Warren and Wilcox (later Anderson, Forster and Wilcox) and a Second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, and Alice May, née Whittle. He attended Cheltenham Grammar School and Christ's College, Finchley. He was then a training apprentice with the Outward Bound Sea School and left home to work as a deckhand in the merchant marine. 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.