Sir David Attenborough reveals astonishing secrets behind mountain gorilla scenes
As he turns 100, the veteran broadcaster says he came ‘close to losing everything’ while filming Life on Earth story in Rwanda
Sir David Attenborough reveals the secrets behind his mountain gorilla scenes(Image: Alex Board/BBC/PA Wire)
The extraordinary story behind Sir David Attenborough’s most iconic TV moment alongside the mountain gorillas of Rwanda is to be laid bare in a new BBC documentary to mark his 100th birthday.
The programme reveals that not only did the team worry for their star presenter’s life when the young gorillas decided to sit on him, the footage was almost lost amid a coup in Rwanda, when the team was forced to hand over their film cans to gun-toting soldiers. Sir David recalls: “We had no idea what we were about to witness or how close we would come to losing everything.”
The footage was one of the last stories to be shot for his ground-breaking 1979 series Life on Earth, which was three years in the making and covered 600 species in order to tell the story of evolution for BBC1.
Filming 10,000 feet up in the mountains, it had taken 18 months to set up with American conservationist Dian Fossey, because the access had to be organised by post, and each letter took three weeks to get to her in Africa, followed by another three week wait for a reply.
Sir David says: “She was extraordinary woman who researched gorillas with enormous patience – sat alongside them for weeks and months until they got accustomed to her. We couldn’t have got anywhere near them without Dian. She introduced us to this group and taught us how to behave in their presence – you don’t stare at a gorilla, that’s a challenging thing to do, so you keep your head down.”
Once there, David found himself sitting with an adult who seemed happy in his company. Sitting next to him, he utters his famous line: “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know. We’re so similar. We see the world in the same way as they do.”
Looking back in 2017, producer John Sparks said he’d only expected to film David with gorillas in the background – but suddenly he was “surrounded by them”, with two young gorillas deciding to actually sit on him. “You could only see the top of David’s head. My jaw dropped, everyone’s jaw dropped, we didn’t expect this at all,” he explains, also admitting: “I thought my God, his head’s going to come off and we haven’t finished the series yet, which was a very uncharitable thing to think.”
David says: “I was just about to start talking about the opposition of the thumb and the forefinger when I felt a hand on my head and it was the adult female and she twisted my head so she could look in my eyes and then she looked in my mouth and put a finger in my mouth.”
Afterwards, when he crawled back through the undergrowth, he reveals he was shocked to discover they hadn’t filmed the whole thing – because they were waiting for him to start talking. “I said, ‘that was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life – was it wonderful?’ And he said ‘yes, I think we got a few moments of it’.
Surprised by this, when he’d been in there for 15 minutes, he learned that the camera crew had been waiting for him to explain about gorillas being about to grip. “It’s quite difficult to talk about the opposition of the thumb and forefinger when a female gorilla has a finger in your mouth,” he laughs now.
En route to the airport, managing to keep hold of the beautiful moments they’d shot on film came down to the quick-thinking of cameraman Martin Saunders. Despite having previously secured all the necessary permissions for filming, the team was stopped at a roadblock and told they were being taken into custody by the local police HQ.
Sir David recalls being surrounded by army personnel in what felt like a “very dangerous situation with the crack of rifles firing over our heads”. He credits Saunders with saving the day having had the presence of mind to think ahead. “Martin, the cameraman, was realising there was a danger that the film we had shot, which we were absolutely thrilled to death about, was going to be confiscated. So he changed the labels on the film cans so they’d think they’d got the film we had shot, but in fact it was just unused film.”
Nevertheless, David and John were taken to an army compound. “We were told to stand in the middle of this compound, in the sun, and I thought ‘are they going to put us against the wall and shoot us or something?” John remembers. “We couldn’t understand what the problem was.”
But finally they were allowed to get onto to the plane with their gear and the aircraft took off, bringing John great comfort. “As I saw the runway of Kigali disappear into the distance I heaved a sigh of relief.”
Looking back on his time with the gorillas, Sir David says: “It was one of the most privileged moments of my life, really. When we came to say goodbye I promised Dian I’d do what I could to get funds to support her in what she was doing.” The series, watched by 500million worldwide, was credited with providing a huge boost to conservation efforts.
Assistant producer Mike Salinsbury said that getting the crew and David out to Rwanda had been “challenging”. He remembers being thrilled when John Sparks told him that his job was to go and check out many of the filming locations for Life on Earth. “He said, ‘I want you to sort out all the logistics and meet the scientists we want to work with, so when the expensive film crew and David come to get there everything will go smoothly’. As a young assistant producer I had the most amazing time going round the world and seeing places I could never have imagined I would go to.”
When the ratings started at 9million and rose to 15million by the end of the series, the team were left thrilled. Mike says: “I remember being in London after the first one had gone out and walking down the street with David and a taxi driver wound down his window and shouted ‘Nice one Dave!’”
Asked to provide the secret of David’s success as a broadcaster, he explains: “He has a natural enthusiasm which comes over on screen, he’s very knowledgeable and he’s a very good looking man as well, which can’t be a bad thing.”
Documentary maker Victoria Bobin said that looking back on the “fantastic, ground-breaking, pioneering” series Life on Earth had seemed like an excellent way to celebrate Sir David’s centenary. “It is probably one of the series of which he is most proud, because he was so heavily involved in its creation and in terms of writing the script – telling the story of evolution is very much his passion, so it felt like a nice tribute to his career.”
– Making Life on Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure, BBC1, Sunday 3 rd May, 8pm
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