• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, April 23, 2025

The last performance the Beatles ever did on TV came in 1968, and only one man was capable of getting them to do it: David Frost.

They sang “Hey, Jude” to a studio audience numbering around 200 on the show Frost hosted in 1968, “Frost on Sunday,” according to a fascinating new docuseries about Frost premiering Sunday on MSNBC.

Episode One, which the TV Blog previewed on Tuesday, has this incredible performance, which plays like a golden artifact from a lost era.

It was so intimate that dozens of members of the audience rose from their chairs and gathered peacefully around the Beatles to harmonize with them on the song’s famously lengthy “Na-na-na” chorus. 

The six-part documentary series tells the story of Frost (1939-2013), who was one of the world’s most conspicuous and ubiquitous TV personalities of the 1960s, ’70s and beyond.

And yet, one gets the feeling that the man, his era and his place in television history is little known today, even in the years since the 2008 movie “Frost/Nixon” dramatized his relationship with the 37th president.

The series comes from Sky Studios in England and is presented here in the U.S. by MSNBC Films.

The title is “David Frost Vs.,” a title which may apply to the subjects of other episodes, but the Beatles episode -- officially titled “David Frost Vs. the Beatles” -- shows no evidence of the kind of adversarial relationship implied by the title.

On the contrary, as clip after clip of Frost’s interviews with members of the Beatles demonstrate, he formed a close relationship with them starting in 1964 when Beatlemania was exploding.

Frost interviewed his first Beatle that year, Paul McCartney. Like the “Hey, Jude” performance, footage of this interview is also generously provided. 

Frost did his last interview with a Beatle in 2012. It was also McCartney, and that interview is shown too.

“Each episode is built on 50 years of rare or never-before-seen footage, revealing a unique view of transatlantic history from 1960 to 2000,” promises MSNBC in a press release about the show.

It is a promise kept. It is also a great way to frame the story of a man who became a star interviewer in Great Britain and the United States and moved comfortably between both.

In his heyday, Frost cut a dashing, swashbuckling figure as he hosted a series of eponymous shows in both countries.

The Beatles episode opens with one of the most swashbuckling scenes of all in the life of Frost -- the time he was riding in a helicopter in 1971 that crashed in Central Park and he walked away unscathed and unruffled. 

One of the great features of this series is the wealth of archival footage seldom or “never” seen, at least since they first aired on TV.

The show estimates that Frost conducted 10,000 interviews in a 50-year career, although these kinds of numbers are never really confirmable.

Nevertheless, Frost was an interviewer and TV personality who was clearly perched at the top of the A-list.

Frost interview subjects seen in other episodes of the series include Jane Fonda, Muhammad Ali, Elton John, Nixon, Moshe Dayan and Tony Blair, to name but a few.

Before he became a celebrity interviewer, Frost made his name on British TV as a current-events satirist. 

But after that part of his life and career ran its course, he set his sights on embarking on a career as a television newsman.

According to the show, he came up with an idea that was new at the time -- namely, doing a news program that itself would make news, rather than follow the news in the manner of newspapers and end-of-day TV newscasts. 

In the show, Frost shares his own perspective on his success as an interviewer in another clip from long ago. Says he: “You can’t fake interest. You can’t fake curiosity.”