Sir Trevor Lawson McDonald was born on George McDonald; 16 August 1939 and is a Trinidadian-British newsreader and journalist, best known for his career as a news presenter with Independent Television News.
67 Facts About Trevor McDonald
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Trevor McDonald began his professional career with Radio Trinidad as a reporter and worked as a news reader and sports journalist for Trinidad Television.
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Trevor McDonald was employed by BBC Radio in 1969 as a producer, based in London but still broadcasting to the Caribbean.
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Trevor McDonald was promoted in 1992 as the sole presenter of News at Ten and became a well-known face on British television screens.
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Trevor McDonald was the presenter of the current affairs programme Tonight with Trevor McDonald and a series of documentaries for ITV.
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Trevor McDonald was knighted in 1999 for his services to journalism and was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Greater London in 2006.
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Trevor McDonald is a recipient of the National Television Award for Special Recognition and the BAFTA Fellowship.
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Trevor McDonald was born to a working-class family on 16 August 1939 in San Fernando, Trinidad, an island in the West Indies that was a British colony at the time.
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Trevor McDonald is the son of Josephine and Lawson McDonald, a self-taught engineer from Grenada who moved to Trinidad to work on an oil refinery.
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Trevor McDonald is of Dougla heritage, his mother being of African descent and his father being of Indian descent.
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Trevor McDonald grew up in a poor household in the fishing village of St Margaret in the south of Trinidad, and is the oldest of four children in his family.
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Trevor McDonald did not receive much of an education at school, going against his parents' wishes, but they ensured his English was of high standard by learning the speech of the announcers working at the BBC World Service.
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Trevor McDonald's father supplemented the small income by mending shoes and keeping pigs in his spare time to fund the family's education.
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Trevor McDonald's professional work started when he was a radio reporter for Radio Trinidad, news presenter and sports journalist for Trinidad Television as well as newspapers and radio in the early 1960s.
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Trevor McDonald became a producer for both the BBC World Service and the BBC Caribbean Service in 1962.
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In 1969, Trevor McDonald moved to London and was employed by the BBC World Service as a producer at Bush House, but still broadcast to the Caribbean.
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Trevor McDonald had been approached by BBC Television after they claimed they heard of his work in television in Trinidad.
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Trevor McDonald was told the corporation was under pressure from the Race Relations Board to employ more black reporters but declined because he wanted to be employed on merit and not because of his race.
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Trevor McDonald worked as a Northern Ireland correspondent reporting on The Troubles, and later became a sports correspondent from 1978 to 1980, reporting on events such as the 1978 FIFA World Cup matches involving Scotland.
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Trevor McDonald ultimately concentrated on international politics between January 1980 and 1982 as diplomatic correspondent and newsreader.
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Trevor McDonald conducted the first interview with Nelson Mandela after his release from prison and interviewed Saddam Hussein just after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
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Trevor McDonald was promoted on 9 November 1992 as the main presenter of News at Ten when the bulletin was revamped from its two-presenter format to a one-newsreader format after market research determined that audiences preferred him over younger colleagues.
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Trevor McDonald became a well-known face on British television screens as a result.
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Trevor McDonald remained with ITN when News at Ten was axed by ITV on 5 March 1999 in order to broadcast more films and drama.
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Trevor McDonald went on to present the new ITV Evening News from 1999 to 2001.
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News at Ten was briefly relaunched for three nights a week on 22 January 2001, to which Trevor McDonald returned as a presenter.
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Trevor McDonald presented the ITV News at 10.30 following News at Tens second axing in January 2004.
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From 1999 to 2007, McDonald hosted ITV's flagship current affairs magazine programme Tonight with Trevor McDonald that was named after him.
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Trevor McDonald presented his last ITV News bulletin on 15 December 2005.
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Trevor McDonald stepped down from his role as anchor after more than 30 years at ITN, but said he had no plans to retire completely from television.
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Trevor McDonald told his ITN colleagues that he wanted a low-key departure after having observed the departures of Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather in the United States.
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On 31 October 2007, ITV announced that, early in 2008, Trevor McDonald would come out of retirement to present the relaunched News at Ten together with Etchingham after being asked.
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In 2012, Trevor McDonald presented Queen Elizabeth II: Her Remarkable Life Through The Decades.
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Trevor McDonald presented the documentary Women Behind Bars: Life and Death in Indiana that same year.
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Trevor McDonald travelled to New York City for the two-part series The Mafia with Trevor McDonald in early 2015.
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Trevor McDonald presented The Killing of PC Harper: A Wife's Story on 17 March 2022, and Pride of Britain: A Windrush Special in October 2023.
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Trevor McDonald was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1990, and of Desert Island Discs in April 1994.
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In December 1996, Trevor McDonald presented the "Hogmanay at the Palace" from Scone Palace.
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Trevor McDonald presented the 1997 radio documentary series Paths of Inspiration on the world's influential black people, and the 1998 five-part Radio 2 series The Long Voyage Home on the influence of the Windrush immigrants on British society.
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Trevor McDonald narrated the 2000 Radio 2 documentary The Forgotten Volunteers on the Asian and black soldiers who helped Britain in both world wars.
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Trevor McDonald was the presenter of the National Television Awards from 1996 to 2008, and hosted the television series Undercover Customs, which created reconstructions of major HM Customs and Excise investigations in the United Kingdom.
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On 21 April 2006, Trevor McDonald presented an episode of the BBC One satirical quiz Have I Got News for You.
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Trevor McDonald was formerly chancellor of London South Bank University, serving in the role from November 1999 to 2012.
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Trevor McDonald has intimate ties with King's College School in Wimbledon, a London day school, where he is a governor.
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Trevor McDonald authored biographies of the cricketers Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd.
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Trevor McDonald has worked as an editor of poetry anthologies, was the author of a weekly poetry anthology column in The Daily Telegraph, writes a column for Saga Magazine, and his autobiography Fortunate Circumstances was published in 1993.
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Lenny Henry's comic character Trevor McDoughnut is a parody of McDonald, and was parodied by Rory Bremner in blackface.
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Trevor McDonald performed live in Hyde Park in June 1996 with the Who, as the newsreader in the group's staging of their rock opera, Quadrophenia.
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Trevor McDonald was the presenter of the Classic Brit Awards in 2000.
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Trevor McDonald has appeared in advertising campaigns for Vision Express and McVitie's.
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In June 2007, Trevor McDonald hosted the new ITV version of This Is Your Life, Simon Cowell being the programme's "victim".
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Trevor McDonald was appointed deputy president of Surrey County Cricket Club in 2012, and served as the club's president from 2013 to 2014.
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Trevor McDonald presented the four-part Sunday evening radio series Sir Trevor McDonald's Headliners on Classic FM in mid-2020.
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In 2021, Trevor McDonald narrated the WaterAid animated advertisement about a young girl from Madagascar and drew attention to global water shortages.
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That same year, Trevor McDonald appeared as the titular character in E4's revival of GamesMaster, and presented a week of The Classic FM Concert in March 2022.
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In November 2022, as part of the game show's 40th anniversary, Trevor McDonald was a guest presenter on Countdown.
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In March 2024, Trevor McDonald was the walking partner in the second episode of Perfect Pub Walks with Bill Bailey.
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In June 2024, The Guardian reported that Trevor McDonald had been featured in an advertisement to promote the planned UK government sale of shares in NatWest to the public.
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Trevor McDonald holds honorary degrees of either doctor of laws or doctor of letters from the University of Plymouth, the Open University, Liverpool John Moores University, the Southampton Institute, the University of the West Indies, and Kingston University.
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Trevor McDonald was named Newscaster of the Year by the Television and Radio Industries Club on four occasions in 1993,1997,1999, and 2009.
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Trevor McDonald was awarded the Royal Television Society Gold Medal "for outstanding contribution to television news" in 1998, and in the following year, received the Richard Dimbleby Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
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In 2004, Trevor McDonald was one of 100 Great Black Britons in a poll taken after the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons failed to include any Black Britons.
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Trevor McDonald was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1999 Birthday Honours for his services to broadcasting and journalism, having previously been appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1992 New Year Honours.
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Trevor McDonald was awarded with the National Television Award for Special Recognition in 2003, the RTS Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005, and was inducted into the CBU Caribbean Media Hall of Fame in the same year.
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Trevor McDonald was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Greater London in November 2006.
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Trevor McDonald received a BAFTA Fellowship at the 2011 British Academy Television Awards.
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Trevor McDonald was married to his first wife Beryl from 1964 to 1985 and married his second wife Josephine in 1986 before they separated in 2020.