David Jason

At 84 years old, David Jason has this physical status:

Sir David John White (born 2 February 1940), better known by his stage name David Jason, is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and television producer.

Derek "Del Boy" Trotter of BBC comedy series Only Fools and Horses, Detective Inspector Jack Frost in A Touch of Frost, Granville's Open All Hours, and Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May, as well as voicing Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows and Count Duckula's title characters.

Del Boy's last appearance as Frost was in 2014, but Jason retired his role as Frost in 2010. As part of ITV's 50th anniversary celebrations, Jason ranked the top 50 Most Popular Stars in September 2006.

In 2005, he was honoured for his contribution to drama.

Jason has received four British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), (1988, 1991, 2000, 2001), four British Comedy Awards (1990, 1992, 2001, 2001) and seven National Television Awards (1996, 2002, and 2011).

Early life

Arthur Robert White, Jason's father, and his Welsh mother, Olwen Jones, were from Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan (now Merthyr Tydfil County Borough), Wales, and she worked as a charwoman. She gave birth to twin boys at North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton, London, in February 1940, but Jason's twin brother died during childbirth, making him a twinless twin. Jason loved Jason and the Argonauts as the stage name "David White" was already taken, not in honor of his dead twin as has often been stated.

After failing the 11-plus in 1951, Jason lived at Lodge Lane, North Finchley, and attended Northfield Secondary Modern Secondary School. Jason aspired to be an actor after leaving school, but their father warned him to first learn a trade. He worked as an electrician for six years before retiring and becoming a struggling actor.

Arthur White, Jason's older brother, was born in 1933. Arthur played detective Ernie Trigg in A Touch of Frost, and Ernie Trigg in 2008's comedy The Colour of Magic, where Arthur appeared as a character named "Rerpf." In two episodes of The Darling Buds of May, he appeared briefly with his brother for a brief period of time.

Personal life

Jason lived with his long-term girlfriend, Welsh actress Myfanwy Talog, for 18 years and cared for her breast cancer until she died in 1995. It resembled a situation depicted in A Touch of Frost in which the character's wife died after a long illness.

Jason became a father for the first time at the age of 61 in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury, on February 26, 2001. Jason and Hinchcliffe married in 2005 and now reside in Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire.

Jason is a member of the Shark Trust, a UK registered charity devoted to advance shark conservation worldwide by science, education, influence, and activism. He has served as Honorary Vice Patron of the Royal International Air Tattoo since 1999, and on May 29, 2014, the Fairford-based RAF Charitable Trust presented a cheque to the British RAF Charitable Trust to fund flight simulators for Air Cadets.

Jason is a licensed helicopter pilot. David Jason: My Life, his autobiography, was released in October 2013. It was shortlisted for the 2013 Specsavers National Book Awards' "Best Book of the Year" category. Only Fools and Stories, a second volume, was released in October 2017. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost. In October 2020, Penguin Books published A Del Of A Life, Jason's third autobiography, and it was published in October 2020.

A "true danger to his life was reported" in September 2017, though it is unknown why Jason was assassinated.

Source

Radio and TV career

Jason started his television career in 1964 as Bert Bradshaw in Crossroads. Among other things in Eric Idle's children's comedy series Do Not Adjust Your Set (Rediffusion London/ITV), he played spoof super hero Captain Fantastic in 1967. Humphrey Barclay, who had recruited Jason to appear in Do Not Adjust Your Set (partly to highlight the more highbrow look of Idle, Jones, and Palin), admired his timing. The character appeared on television children's programme Magpie for a time in 1969, but the actor later appeared on television children's programme Magpie for a brief period. In 1967, Jason appeared in Hugh and I, starring Hugh Lloyd and Terry Scott as two friends who lived together in South London. In the Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) episode "That's How Murder Snowballs" (1969) as Abel, a framed actor in a major London theatre, he appeared.

Jason appeared as Lance Corporal Jones in the Jimmy Perry and David Croft BBC comedy Dad's Army in 1968. Croft had been extremely impressed with the actor and knew that he had the ability to portray a man much older than his real age. However, BBC executive Bill Cotton overruled him in casting Clive Dunn because he was more popular. "I was cast at 12 o'clock and fired by three," Jason says. Jason also missed out on the starring role of Frank Spencer in "Some Mothers Do 'Em" in 1973 because BBC executives at the time felt that he lacked "star quality."

He also appeared in radio comedies, including the weekly topical satire Week Ending (in which he often played such figures as then UK Foreign Secretary Dr David Owen) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (in an in-joking reference to his Week Ending role as Owen) in the 1970s. Jason appeared in The Next Programme Follows Almost Immediately and made appearances on panel games such as The Impressionists and his own series, The Jason Explanation. He appeared in Mostly Monkhouse in the early 1970s.

In the West End of the 1970s, Jason appeared on stage in the West End's No Sex Please, We're British actors Brian Runnicles for 18 months. He appeared in "Darling Mr London," a stage play that toured in 1975, and also appeared with Valerie Leon.

As the supporting act of Dick Emery and his performances captured Ronnie Barker's interest, Jason appeared in a variety of shows. Jason was hired to appear in Hark at Barker (LWT, 1969), starring Barker's Lord Rustless as Dithers, the 100-year-old gardener. His Lordship Entertains (1972) was also a BBC sequel. In the first program of the comedy anthology Seven of One (1973), Jason played idealistic employee Granville and starred Barker as the curmudgeonly proprietor of a corner store.

From 1976 to 1985, four different series of Open All Hours were produced. In three episodes, he appeared in Barker's Porridge (BBC), a prison comedy, as the elderly Blanco. Jason has appeared in several costume in The Two Ronnies, including providing the "raspberry" sound effect for Old London Town's Phantom Raspberry Blower.

Jason appeared in Lucky Feller (1975–76), written by Terence Frisby and produced by Humphrey Barclay. The film centered on two brothers in south-east London and was, in many ways, a forerunner to Only Fools And Horses, though Jason was more in the 'Rodney' role, with Peter Armitage playing the more savvy of the two characters. The brothers rode around in a comedic bubble van, a precursor to the popular Trotters' van; and even where Jason casually leaned back against the bar, unaware that the barman had just lifted it behind his back, they fell through. This incident was brought to an end in Only Fools And Horses. Peter Barnes appeared in the ATV sitcom A Sharp Intake of Breath (1977–81), alongside Alun Armstrong and Richard Wilson. He appeared as Buttons in the pantomime Cinderella at Newcastle's Theatre Royal in 1979, starring Leah Bell and Bobby Thompson, produced by Michael Grayson and directed by John Blackmore.

Jason began a coworking relationship with Cosgrove Hall in the 1980s and was a voice-over artist for a number of children's television shows. This included voices for Danger Mouse, The BFG, Count Duckula, Hugo from Victor and Hugo, and Toad from The Wind in the Willows, which were all produced by Cosgrove Hall for Thames Television/ITV. In Father Christmas and Rola Polar, Rola Polar, Rola Polar, Rola Beard, and The Adventures of Dawdle the Donkey, Angelmouse, he appeared in animated films including Wombling Free and The Water Babies.

Jason discovered his best known role in the BBC situation comedy Only Fools and Horses, created by John Sullivan in 1981. Del is a wide boy who lives in Peckham, south London, and sells in broken, robbed, and counterfeit goods. He is aided by his brother Rodney (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Grandad (played by Lennard Pearce) and Uncle Albert (played by Buster Merryfield).

Ted Simcock, a comedian from 1989, appeared in the ITV drama series A Bit of a Dope from January to December.

Jason appeared as Captain Frank Beck in BBC's feature-length drama All the King's Men about the Sandringham regiment's service in World War I. He has received acclaim for a string of pivotal roles. These include Skullion in Porterhouse Blue (for Channel 4), Sidney "Pop" Larkin in the rural idyll The Darling Buds of May (Yorkshire Television/ITV) and based on Catherine Zeta-Jones' "Bates" book.

In 1992, he signed a golden handcuffs contract with ITV to play Detective Jack Frost in the long-running TV series A Touch of Frost (Yorkshire Television/ITV). He was elected No. 2 by the general public in September 2006. In ITV's list of the Greatest Stars on TV, 1 of them is number one. Albert, Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, appeared on Sky1 in December 2006. He appeared in Diamond Geezer (Granada Television/ITV), in early 2007. This series was released in three segments of 90 minutes each. In 2005, there was a pilot. He appeared in Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic and in the two-part ITV drama Ghostboat in March 2008.

Jason announced on September 16, 2008, that he would rename Jack Frost after 16 years. In autumn 2008, three new episodes of the show were broadcast, followed by a two-part finale. Danny Cohen, the BBC1 controller, read three scripts and decided to film a pilot for The Royal Bodyguard, which was on display at the Edinburgh Film Festival. On Boxing Day, the pilot episode aired on the BBC but got a pessimistic reaction. After six episodes, the series was canceled. In 2010, Jason appeared in a made-for-TV film Come Rain Come Shine with Alison Steadman of ITV about an elderly Millwall supporter.

He has appeared in Still Open All Hours since 2013. Many original cast members (as well as a portrait of Ronnie Barker as Arkwright) are included in this collection, as well as a book by Roy Clarke, the show's original writer and producer. In the animated series Pip Ahoy!, he has appeared as Captain Skipper, a sea captain, sea dog, and Pip's uncle.

Jason appeared on Del Boy's Christmas Special on December 20,2021, when he was riding to a special message from The Repair Shop's Jay Blades, who was performing to the Only Fools and Horses theme tune.

Source