Sir David Attenborough was born in West London on May 8, 1926. In the century since, the naturalist and television broadcaster has narrated over 100 nature documentaries; won eight BAFTAs, a Peabody Award, and four Emmys; had at least 20 species named after him; received two knighthoods (in 1985 and again in 2022); and helped pioneer numerous wildlife filmmaking techniques that are now mainstays in the genre, including time-lapse footage, super-slow motion, infrared filming, macro photography, and underwater photography.
Remarkably, the soon-to-be-centenarian is still at it. As his 100th birthday rolls around, Sir David Attenborough has multiple newly released and upcoming projects dropping, including Secret Garden, a series focused on the biodiversity in British backyards; Wild London, about wildlife found around the city; and A Gorilla Story, in which he revisits his 1978 experiences with mountain gorillas. But it’s not the career success that keeps Attenborough going. “I know of no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it,” he wrote in his 2002 autobiography, Life on Air.
Read on to explore Attenborough’s personal life in photos.
The start of an iconic career
In this June 1955 photo, Attenborough lovingly holds two small mammals: his son, Robert, and a baby coatimundi. The prior year saw the premiere of Zoo Quest, the first major wildlife series presented by Attenborough. It was an accident—or perhaps fate—that Attenborough ever became the face of the series, which he also wrote and produced. When its original host, Jack Lester, called in sick, Attenborough stepped in. He was a hit.
Books and babies
A well-stocked bookshelf in the background of this photo hints at Attenborough’s lifelong love of academics. He had grown up on the campus of University College, Leicester, where his father was principal. There, he spent time exploring the school’s grounds and hunting for fossils, eggshells, and even newts, which he sold to the university’s zoology department. He went on to study geology and zoology at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1947. The Englishman is pictured at his home in Richmond, London, with his wife, Jane, who he wed in 1950, and their two children, Robert and Susan, in December 1955.
Bringing the zoo home
In this photo, taken in December 1957, Attenborough and his family admire a white cockatoo named Georgie that the television host brought to their home from a Zoo Quest trip to New Guinea. “After each Zoo Quest trip, our menagerie in Richmond expanded slightly. The tanks and vivaria spread from the dining room into the hall,” Attenborough wrote in Life on Air. “After a few years, we decided to devote an entire room on the ground floor to animals.”
Brotherly love
Attenborough and his brother, actor Richard Attenborough, pose for an artist’s sketch at Richard’s Richmond residence in this photograph, taken in June 1988. Though the siblings both appeared onscreen, the Planet Earth narrator saw their work differently. “We were very good friends, we lived close to one another, we shared one another’s careers, but my career is the antithesis of Hollywood,” Attenborough said in 2013.
Sibling revelry
“I would go to Dick’s premieres, and he would come and see my shows and ring me up, but that’s all. Speaking lines other people have written is not my game, and speaking lines that he has written is not my brother’s game,” Attenborough explained of their varied careers in filmmaking. Richard, who won two Oscars and was also knighted, died in 2014 at age 90.
The Trials of Life
Attenborough sits in a leather armchair at home in this September 1990 snap. That year, he released The Trials of Life, the second of nine documentaries in his famed Life series, which finished in 2008. The award-winning documentaries featured writing and narration by Attenborough, who also appeared on camera, as he taught audiences about all types of life on Earth.
His favorite place
The documentarian is pictured again in 1990 at his home in Richmond. Despite all of his worldly travels, Attenborough said in 2013 that the London enclave is his favorite place on the planet. “Partly because I live there, partly because my friends and family are there,” he explained. “The climate suits me; it’s got access to some of the finest civilized facilities in the world. And London has the greatest serious music that you can hear any day of the week in the world.”
An “urbanized” man
Attenborough poses in a living space in his London home in 1990. “If I live in the wild for months on end, I feel the loss of civilization,” he stated in response to the question of if he’s ever tempted to “give it all up” and permanently join the wild. “I’m an urbanized man, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the natural world—and if you’re interested in the natural world, it doesn’t mean you want to stay there all the time.”
A collector of experiences
The broadcaster poses with some wildlife-inspired artwork in his home in August 1995. Artifacts from his travels around the world are prominently displayed. “During the years that I had been making the Zoo Quest series, I had inevitably accumulated souvenirs,” he wrote in Life on Air. “The helmet mask I had been given by the chief in Sierra Leone had started the habit.”
A life worth smiling about
Attenborough smiles for the camera at home in this 1998 photo, but it was taken at a difficult moment in his life—a year after Jane’s death. The pair had been married for 47 years. “She had been at the airport, unfailingly, every time I came back from a trip. She had supported me in everything I had done,” he wrote in Life on Air. Reportedly, the naturalist said that devoting himself to his work helped him cope with the loss. While he once said, “If I can make programs when I’m 95, that would be fine. But I would think I’ll have had enough by then,” Attenborough has stayed busy with his career as he approached 100 years old, and has brought great joy to viewers over the course of that century.