Simon Henry King OBE (born 27 December 1962) is a British television presenter and cameraman, specialising in nature documentaries.
King has been working in the field of natural history film making for over 30 years. He has credited his media career to his parents, his father being in the television industry and his mother being involved in the music industry.[1] He began his career as a child actor at the age of ten in such films as The Fox and Secret Place. In 1976 he accompanied naturalist Mike Kendall in the BBC series Man and Boy, in which they searched the country for Britain's wildlife.
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King was born in Nairobi, Kenya to parents John King and Eve King (née Shulman). His father worked with the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Nairobi and later created and produced the antiques programme Going for a Song. They moved to Bristol in the United Kingdom in 1964.[2] when John got a job as a reporter for the BBC's Points West news programme. When his parents separated when he was just nine years old, he lived with his mother and elder sister, Debbie
King attended Henbury School from 1974 to 1979.[3]
King first appeared on the television as an actor in 'The Fox' in 1973 and in 1984, he made his first film for television - "The Willow", a study of the wildlife which surrounds a willow tree. This was broadcast as an episode of the BBC series The World About Us, as was his following film "The Hidden Land", a study of the wildlife which exists around the hotels in Spain's Costa del Sol. He has since gone on to produce in excess of 80 natural history films as principal cameraman, director, producer and many more as presenter.
King made two series of King's Country and a series of King's Country Diary for the BBC. He was also responsible for BBC Two's Christmas dramatised wildlife documentaries including "Rannoch the Red Deer", "Dusk the Badger", "Shadow the Peregrine" and the programmes "Aliya the Asian Elephant" and "Tyto the Barn Owl", which were produced and narrated by his father and won industry awards.
He presented the highly successful six-part series King and Company and A Walk on the Wildside which was two-and-a-half years in the making. Since 1992, King has worked on programmes for the BBC Natural History Unit. His early credits included presenting stints on series such as Nature Detectives and Wild Nights with Simon King, as well as fronting the Unit's occasional live "Watch" broadcasts. He was a regular presenter on BBC Two's Tracks, fronted Watch Out on the same channel and filmed all over the world for Hot Shots, a series which looked at the making of natural history films.
More recently, King has filmed and co-presented the long-running BBC One series Big Cat Diary alongside Jonathan Scott and Saba Douglas-Hamilton, which follows the progress of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara Game Reserve. He also co-presents BBC Two's annual Springwatch and Autumnwatch series with Bill Oddie and later with Chris Packham) and Kate Humble. For these, King films and presents live outside broadcasts from wildlife hotspots around the British Isles, including Shetland, Mull, the London Wetlands Centre and the Somerset Levels.
Recent filming projects include principal camera credits for Wild Africa and The Blue Planet. He has won BAFTA awards for his camerawork on Life in the Freezer and Planet Earth, for which he filmed a celebrated slow-motion sequence of a great white shark leaping out of the water to catch a Cape fur seal.
In 2007, it was announced that King and an assistant had been attacked by a rabid cheetah in Kenya while filming for Natural World. They were given rabies jabs and did not develop the disease, although the cheetah itself later died. This attack was documented in the Natural World episode "Toki's Tale."[4]
In 2011, King was part of the camera team for the Disney film, African Cats.
In addition to his broadcasting and film-making career, King has written three books: Wild Guide, Wild Life, and Shetland Diaries. King has also written a number of forewords, scripts for some of David Attenborough's films, and is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers. He is also a qualified scuba diver and enjoys wildlife photography, art, and composing and arranging music. He is on the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine.
King is married to his second wife, Marguerite Smits van Oyen, a fellow wildlife film-maker, with whom he often works. They have a daughter called Savannah, born in August 2006.[5] He also has three children from his first marriage: Alexander (born 1986), Romy (born 1989), and Greer (born 1995).
Apart from watching wildlife, King lists his hobbies as drawing and painting, playing the Irish flute, swimming, walking, archery, yoga, astronomy, gardening, cooking, and reading. Less well known is Simon's valuable contribution to The Wildlife Trusts. Simon has recently been appointed president of The Wildlife Trusts, as well as already being president of the Avon Wildlife Trust, and patron of Somerset Wildlife Trust.[3] Simon is also involved with other charities such as Tusk Trust, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, The Woodland Trust, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Lee Valley Bats, Marwell International Wildlife Art Society, Birdlife International, Keneth Allsop Memorial Trust, Secret World Wildlife Rescue Centre, The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, and the British Naturalists' Association.
King was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to wildlife photography and conservation.[6]
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