Naim Attallah: 'My soulmate David Frost and I were bound by our love of women' It was an ambitious project requiring a £2 million budget. The resulting film, The Slipper and the Rose, was selected as the Royal Command Performance Film of 1976, and received its premiere at the Odeon, Leicester Square. As I stood with David waiting to be presented to the royal patrons, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, with the flashing lights of the media scrum all around us, I felt I had entered a new world thanks to him. And it heralded the beginning of a friendship that was to last for almost four decades. Since Sunday, I have been reflecting on what made David so loveable as a human being, so generous with his time, and why it was that I found him to be a breath of fresh air in a world so occupied with superficiality and so defined by a lack of compassion towards those less fortunate than ourselves. What was our common denominator, I pondered. I hope and trust that his widow, Lady Carina, will understand the sentiment when I say that what bound us together was our love of women. We both adored their company, and felt rejuvenated in their presence. It was clear from our early conversations that we had spent our bachelor days with a similar carefree abandon, sowing those proverbial wild oats and taking full advantage of what were to become more permissive times. David was a bon viveur who lived his life to the full. I recall the first time he took me to lunch at what was then called the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. It was grouse season, a plate of which he ordered for both of us. To see him gorge the bird with his hands and the relish on his face as he ate every bit of it was worthy of a masterclass in lack of inhibition. That, to me, was the best English insouciance I had ever encountered. His energy was stupendous. He worked extremely hard and adapted himself to any condition wherever he happened to be. He never complained or whinged, but took things in his stride without any hint of frustration or irritation. He was, what I would term, a cool cat who never felt alien in any environment. His laugh came straight from the belly and would make anyone else grow fat. I learnt a great deal from him, and watching him interview the great and the learned on television made me more proficient interviewing people in print. We often bumped into each other at airports, when he would cheerfully greet me at the top of his voice, unfazed by the multitude of passengers around, calling out: "Hallo, sweet prince!" - an affectionate expression I'm unlikely to ever forget, despite my embarrassment whenever it happened. That was the measure of the man who went out of his way to acknowledge his friends whatever the circumstances. David was endowed with a prodigious memory. He would remember the names of your children, having met them only once. The same applied to the wives of his friends and their many friends. He never spoke ill of anyone and had a wonderful sense of humour. He was a caring family man, a good host, treated everyone with great affability and made you feel the equal of any celebrity in his presence. That was his most amazing virtue. I shall always miss him, miss the resonance of his voice and our frequent breakfast rendezvous at the Wolseley in Piccadilly, where we invariably enjoyed a light-hearted conversation punctuated with a little harmless gossip. While mourning his death, I wish him a safe and comfortable journey to heaven where I'm sure he will be welcomed with open arms. My only consolation is that, knowing him as I did, it will surely not take him long before he embarks on a series of interviews with the saints - perhaps, even the angels.