Famed English broadcaster David Attenborough’s career has spanned nearly as many decades as his life. The historian, who turned 100 on May 8, began his career as a producer with the BBC nearly 75 years ago, in 1952. His hosting journey started not long after with the network’s 1954 multipart nature documentary, Zoo Quest.
It would be 30 years before Attenborough received his first Emmy nomination, in 1985, for writing PBS’ The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth. His first narrator nod wouldn’t come for yet another 30 years, in 2016, for the six-part BBC series Life Story. In 2018, Attenborough won his first Emmy for BBC’s marine life sequel Blue Planet II.
Director of photography Doug Anderson films the coral reefs of Raja Ampat, Indonesia on Ocean With David Attenborough.
Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios/Keith Scholey
Two additional outstanding narrator wins followed in 2019 for Our Planet, Netflix’s first-ever nature doc, and in 2020 for the BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet. This year, Attenborough could score his 13th nod for National Geographic’s Ocean With David Attenborough, streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. The project, which both champions the wonders of marine life and explores the challenges it faces, has a perfect score of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes.
