Frayling taught history at the
University of Bath and was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Arts) from that University in 2003. In 1979, Frayling was appointed Professor of Cultural History at London's post-graduate art and design school, the
Royal College of Art. Frayling was Rector of the Royal College of Art from 1996 to 2009. In 2003, he was awarded the
Sir Misha Black Award and was added to the
College of Medallists. He was the Chairman of
Arts Council England from 2005 until January 2009. He served as Chairman of the
Design Council, Chairman of the
Royal Mint Advisory Committee, and a Trustee of the
Victoria and Albert Museum. He was a governor of the
British Film Institute in the 1980s. In April 2014, he was appointed Chancellor of the
Arts University Bournemouth. He has had a wide output as a writer and critic on subjects ranging from vampires to westerns. He has written and presented television series such as
The Art of Persuasion on advertising and
Strange Landscape on the
Middle Ages. He has conducted a series of radio and television interviews with figures from the world of film, including
Woody Allen,
Deborah Kerr,
Ken Adam,
Francis Ford Coppola and
Clint Eastwood. Frayling has written and presented several television series, including
The Face of Tutankhamun and
Nightmare: Birth of Horror. He studied
Spaghetti Westerns and specifically director
Sergio Leone. Frayling has written a popular biography of Leone,
Something To Do With Death (2000); helped run the Los Angeles-based
Gene Autry Museum's exhibit on Leone in 2005; and appeared in numerous documentaries about Leone and his films, particularly the DVD documentaries of
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He also provided audio commentaries for the special edition DVD releases of
A Fistful of Dollars,
For a Few Dollars More,
Once Upon a Time in the West and
The Colossus of Rhodes. In January 2018, he gave a lecture at the
British Library in the
Hogwarts Curriculum Lecture series on "Defence against the Dark Arts". This specialised in the treatment of vampires. ==Knighthood==