ALAN Whicker, one of the most widely-travelled and popular UK broadcasters of his generation, has died aged 87.
The presenter and reporter died in the early hours of Friday at his home in Jersey after suffering from bronchial pneumonia, his spokeswoman said.
For more than 40 years he roamed the world for the BBC and independent TV networks, seeking out the eccentric, the ludicrous and the socially revealing aspects of everyday life from all over the globe.
He was probably best known for Whicker's World, his long-running documentary program which he presented from 1959 to 1990.
And he acquired over the years an enviable reputation of having no equal as a television commentator.
Alan Donald Whicker was born in Cairo, Egypt, on August 2 1925, but moved to England as a young child on the death of his father.
He attended Haberdashers' Aske's School and was commissioned as an officer in the Devonshire Regiment during the Second World War, serving as a captain.
He then joined the Army Film and Photo Unit in Italy in 1943, filming at Anzio.
Whicker was also responsible for taking into custody British traitor John Amery, who was subsequently executed.
In a 2004 TV series, called Whicker's War, he disclosed that he was one of the first of the Allied forces to enter Milan and that he took into custody an SS general and troopers who were looking after the SS money vault.
He also shot footage of the body of Mussolini.
After the war he became a journalist and broadcaster, acting as a newspaper correspondent in the Korean War, during which he was mistakenly reported as having been killed.
He joined the BBC in 1957 and was a reporter for the famous Tonight program.
Soon after that he began his Whicker's World series, which over the years consistently claimed a place in the top 10 ratings.
He was also instrumental in the launch of Yorkshire Television.
Whicker was noted for probing the private worlds of the rich and famous on cruise ships, the Orient Express, at cocktail parties, on world tours, in health spas and gentlemen's clubs.
He lured countless individuals into allowing him a privileged glimpse of sometimes extraordinary lives.
Among his "victims" were John Paul Getty and Haiti's feared dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier.
On one occasion, while in the US, he heard about an Alan Whicker impersonation contest. He entered and came third.
He was also the man behind the popular advertising slogan Hello World for Travelocity.
Whicker was awarded a CBE in the 2005 New Year Honours list for services to broadcasting.
He had lived in Jersey and is survived by his long-standing partner Valerie Kleeman.
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