At 72, he is affable, courteous and relaxed. Before we meet in his Kensington penthouse office, I can hear a hair dryer in an adjoining room and, when he appears, his sandy hair is artfully arranged, his face lightly dusted, his hearing aids discreet. It is 5.30pm and, when I decline his offer of a glass of wine, he gives me a sharp look: ?You don?t drink when you?re, er, driving?? He means working, but we both know that interviews run more smoothly when you?re conversational. He sinks into a battered Corbusier chair.
If there is one quality you don?t associate with Frost, it is subtlety, but as we talk about how he nailed Nixon, that?s what comes across ? that the process was one of careful watching and listening, supported by judgment and psychological insight. He first knew that he had an advantage when Nixon, always punctual, arrived 20 minutes late on the second day.
?He seemed to have a haunted look about him. He came in prepared to admit something, to give a bit, so it was a question of pushing him further. When Nixon used the word 'heart-stopping?, I realised that was the moment of vulnerability and there wouldn?t be another one. I said: 'Maybe there was wrongdoing.? I remember thinking that if I?d said 'Maybe there was a legal crime?, that would be going too far because of his sensitivity for legal things. But he did respond to that.?
By suggesting that unless Nixon came clean he would be haunted by his failure to do so, Frost went for Nixon?s emotional jugular. At the suggestion of the producer, John Birt, later director general of the BBC, Frost became physical, too, buttressing his questioning with a dominant shift forward of his shoulders.
I wonder how he felt through those days of interviewing Nixon. He had contracted to pay the former president $600,000 and started recording before he had secured the finance. The whole thing was a gamble.
Of the interviewing, Frost says: ?The strange thing is I never really get nervous. You try to laser in on what you?re concentrating on. Something that is demanding is an attractive challenge.? Exciting? ?Exactly right.?
He is less sanguine about raising the money. ?It was a touch hairy. I could live without that terror, much as I like a challenge. But somehow I did not have doubts.? He chuckles.
A high roller then, and one with phenomenal self-belief. Frost has always put this down to his parents, a Methodist minister and a housewife who brought him up in Kent, where he attended grammar school. He progressed to Cambridge, Footlights fame, the pioneering satirical programme, That Was the Week That Was, life as a media mogul behind the likes of LWT and TV-AM, and endless episodes of peering into the homes of celebrities in Through the Keyhole. Not to mention marriage to Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. These days he interviews the great and good on Al Jazeera English.
He insists that he never felt like a social climber and that he soon learned to shake off the jokes made by those who were irritated by his ambition. ?I remember gags in Varsity and Granta. I went on to run one and edit the other. That was my revenge. But, no, I don?t think I ever hated anything I read. I very soon reconciled myself to the view that in our area [the media], you take the rough with the smooth.
?There was also my father?s famous phrase: even a stopped clock is right twice a day. That everybody has got something worth teaching you if you only make the effort to find it. Even people making a negative point were helping by the insights they brought forward. Blazing a trail for the first time in the Sixties might be very difficult but you had the advantage of being the first. I suppose there?s at least as much social mobility now but it doesn?t have the same impact.? Does he regard himself as part of the establishment? ?I don?t, because first of all you have to make sure there is one.?
Coming from a man who sent his three sons to Eton, this sounds disingenuous, but he insists that Eton is egalitarian these days. Am I sure I won?t have a glass of wine, he asks again. ?I am, thank you.? ?I?ll just allow myself half a glass,? he says.
We talk about his interview targets. ?I would love to interview Berlusconi. What is that slang for his parties?? he asks. We settle on bunga-bunga. ?You haven?t been to one either, have you? I don?t know what the ground rules are and it would create certain photographic dangers, wouldn?t it? Like poor old Mr Tindall. Cheers.? He chinks his glass against my monkey mug of tea.
?The tolerance of the Italian people is second to none,? he muses of their prime minister?s shenanigans.
His own less torrid parties will resume next summer after a two-year interregnum that has seen him move to a smaller house in Chelsea. ?The parties are such fun, the mixture you get. Like seeing Terry Waite trying to tell a joke to Ronnie Corbett. There was a wonderful occasion when Margaret Thatcher had been talking to a TV director. At the end he said, 'I just want you to know, Lady Thatcher, we miss you.? And she said, 'I miss me, too.? Classic. The merry moments are important, aren?t they??
Frost poses cheerfully for photographs in his office with its cluttered desk and pictures of his encounters with Mandela, McCartney, Clinton, Putin and Elton John. Then he gossips gently and persistently and, as we try to leave, he?s so busy giving instructions on how to open the front door that he almost falls into the lift. I didn?t know he had such humanity: that?s the surprise.
'Frost on Nixon?, Saturday October 1, BBC Two, 7pm to 9pm
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