He was best known as the host of BBC sports and current affairs shows including Grandstand, Nationwide and Breakfast Time, which he launched alongside Selina Scott and Nick Ross.

[4][7] He played football for the university against Cambridge, entered the employment of ICI at Billingham-on-Tees, and did his national service in the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, serving in West Germany.

[citation needed] Bough was twice a surprise guest on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special, in 1977 performing a song and dance routine in a sailor's outfit with other television personalities, including the film critic Barry Norman, the presenter Michael Aspel and the rugby league commentator Eddie Waring.

Bough later said that he had to give Waring dancing lessons before the sketch, which was based on a comic version of the song "There is Nothing Like a Dame" from the musical South Pacific.

As fellow presenter Ross recounted: None of us had remotely the experience of long, unscripted slabs of live TV that Frank had from his sports broadcasting.

His unruffled composure made us feel this had all been done before, and on the first morning, as the last minutes ticked down to our opening transmission, when hearts were thumping and nerves were jangling, he clapped his hands and—addressing the producers and the technicians as much as Selina and me—gently and firmly said, "Calm down."

In her autobiography, published in 2008, she wrote early in their professional relationship, Bough asked her, "Well, young lady, I wonder how long it will be before I'm having an affair with you."

On 13 June 1988, Bough left the BBC for a rest[16] before being sacked, after the News of the World reported he had taken cocaine and worn lingerie at parties involving prostitutes.

[17] The newspaper's former deputy editor, Paul Connew, later said of the scandal, "It caused a sensation at the time, given Bough's public image as the squeaky clean front man of breakfast and sports television.

"[18] Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at City University London, said that Bough made a "terrible mistake" by agreeing to speak to newspapers before publication of personal allegations, worsening the story.

[1] In 1993, after his activities were regularly ridiculed in monologues on Have I Got News for You by Angus Deayton (who himself was later dismissed from the show following cocaine and prostitute use), Bough agreed to appear as a guest on the programme.

Bough met Nesta Howells, a physiotherapist, while he was undertaking his national service in Park Hall camp at Oswestry,[8] and they married after he left the army in 1959.