Willibrord Frequin has died of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 80. His family confirmed this to the ANP on Thursday.
The TV maker died ‘peacefully’ in his sleep, having ‘reconciled with the inevitable end, after a loving and wonderful life’.
“On the morning of May 26, at the dawn of Ascension Day, the life of Willibrord Frequin, television personality who for more than half a century gave face to various programs, came to an end,” Frequin’s family said.
The TV maker and journalist suffered from an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease. “You can compare this form of Parkinson’s with ALS. All bodily functions stop at some point,” his wife Gesina told De Telegraaf earlier this year. “In addition, Willibrord has had to deal with quite a few heart problems. He is therefore quite fragile.”
Lockheed affair
Frequin became widely known for his work as a reporter for the KRO program Focal point † In it he met Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa and Prince Bernhard, among others. Frequin was particularly acclaimed for that last meeting in 1976: he was the only journalist to ask Bernhard about the Lockheed affair. The husband of then Queen Juliana was involved in a bribery scandal in which the prince received about 1.1 million US dollars in bribes from the American aircraft manufacturer Lockheed in the early 1960s. In 1989 Frequin was fired from Brandpunt. He is said to have staged an episode about trafficking in body parts.
Willibrord’s Week
From the 1990s Frequin worked at RTL 4, RTL 5 and SBS6. For the stations he made programs like Behind closed doors † Willibrord’s Week † eyewitness and Toppers † Later, the controversial television maker, who was known for being quite direct in his questions and not mince words, was given a column in Panorama.
‘My body is finished and doesn’t want any more’
Last year Frequin was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In his own words, this variant was comparable to ALS and all his bodily functions would slowly stop with it. Frequin also struggled with heart problems. In April, the television maker told De Telegraaf that the end of his life was in sight. “It’s not going well. Actually, it just sucks. My body is gone and it doesn’t want to anymore,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t want to dwell on it and try to enjoy it a little more.”
Biography of Fons de Poel
In 2020 Frequin participated in the travel program together with Katja Schuurman, Gerard Cox, Barrie Stevens and Peter Faber. Better late than never † At the beginning of this year, journalist and writer Fons de Poel brought the book Willibrord, Shy Vlegel from. The biography chronicles the life of the cheeky journalist, who grew up as a shy boy. In the book, TV colleagues and friends such as Sven Kockelmann, Angela de Jong, Catherine Keyl and René van der Gijp tell their story about their bond with Frequin.
Frequin was born on September 6, 1941 in Arnhem. At the end of 2019, he secretly married Gesina Lodewijkx, twenty years his junior. Frequin has been married four times in his life. He had three children from a previous marriage: Barbara, Rebecca and Louis.