Happy Birthday to telly legend Sir David Jason, who is 80 tomorrow.
The Only Fools And Horses star was born David John White in Edmonton, north London, the son of Billingsgate Fish Market porter Arthur and house cleaner Olwen.
Just like his Del Boy character, from his humble beginnings he went on to become a millionaire, with a reported cushty fortune of £6.9million.
During Jason’s birth, tragedy struck when his twin brother died. It was long believed he chose the stage name ‘Jason’ as a tribute to his dead brother.
But he has denied this, saying it was actually taken from his love of 1960s film Jason And The Argonauts as the name David White was already taken by another actor.
During Jason’s birth, tragedy struck when his twin brother died (Image: PA)
Jason has an older brother Arthur, who is also an actor and has appeared in London’s Burning and Heartbeat, as well as alongside his brother in A Touch Of Frost and The Darling Buds Of May.
His brother’s acting success inspired Jason to go into the same profession, but after his father insisted he get a trade he spent six years working as an electrician before quitting.
He also split with his first girlfriend Sylvia – who he was expected to marry – when he stopped having a steady job.
His TV career started in 1964 when he took on the minor role of Bert Bradshaw in motel soap Crossroads.
His big break came three years later, when he played spoof superhero Captain Fantastic in Do Not Adjust Your Set – a kids’ show which gained a cult following among adults thanks to a stellar cast including Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
His TV career started in 1964 (Image: BBC)
Although the role of Del Boy came 13 years later, in 1968 Jason missed out on another iconic role, that of Lance Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army.
Writer David Croft was said to be impressed with Jason’s ability to play a character much older than his real age, but was overruled by the show’s producer, Bill Cotton, who went on to cast Clive Dunn.
Throughout the 1970s, he appeared in stage shows, radio comedies and various TV programmes. One of these was Open All Hours, which started in 1976.
Jason played Granville, the nephew of miserly shop owner Arkwright (played by Ronnie Barker), and also starred alongside Barker in Porridge.
He starred in Open All Hours, which started in 1976
When Barker died in 2005, Jason, who referred to his long-term friend and colleague as “the Guvnor”, said: “Working with Ronnie was always a joy and were, without doubt, some of the best years of my career.”
In 1977, Jason entered into a relationship with Welsh actress Myfanwy Talog. The pair were together for 18 years until she tragically died from breast cancer aged 50 in 1995.
The pair met through Talog’s friend Olwen Rees, who starred in a movie version of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood with Jason.
The actor later joked that a scene in the film in which he touched a woman’s breasts was “one of only two occasions in my acting life when I found myself doing anything that could remotely be described as a sex scene”.
In 1977, Jason entered into a relationship with Welsh actress Myfanwy Talog (Image: SCOPE)
Although the film tanked and effectively ended Jason’s big-screen career, it brought Talog into his life.
“I was instantly taken with Myfanwy and she with me,” says Jason. “We started to go out together, which was quite tricky at first because she was in Wales and I was either in London or on tour.
“You find a way through, if you really want something.
“We made it last for 18 years.”
Talog’s death led Jason to start his own charity for terminally ill children, the David Jason Trust.
In February 2001, Jason became a father for the first time at the age of 61 when his girlfriend, Gill Hinchcliffe, who is 20 years his junior, gave birth to their daughter Sophie Mae.
Hinchcliffe and Jason married in 2005. That year, Jason was knighted for services to acting and comedy, with many newspapers using the headline “Arise, Sir Del Boy”.
In February 2001, Jason became a father for the first time at the age of 61 (Image: SIPA USA/PA Images)
The Del Boy Trotter role in Only Fools And Horses was his most famous. Jason reprised the part of the character in 2014 for a Sport Relief special.
He is also well-known for playing Det Insp Jack Frost in the long-running detective series A Touch Of Frost, which lasted from 1992 to 2010.
In 2008, Jason said the drama would come to an end as he was “the oldest detective on British television”.
But he could make a comeback.
Jason recently said: “There was a script about coming back. He could come back as the character was never killed off.”
The actor is a patron of the Shark Trust, a charity working to end the shark fin trade
The actor is a patron of the Shark Trust, a charity working to end the shark fin trade, and is a qualified helicopter pilot.
And he is still going strong.
Last year he made travel series Planes, Trains And Auto-mobiles and a new show, David Jason’s Great British Inventions, is in the pipeline, plus he will stay as Granville in Still Open All Hours.
And how will he be celebrating his birthday? “Lunch out with my family and that will be it,” says Jason. “Time goes quick and I am trying to pretend it is not happening.
“I am not a person who enjoys a lot of fuss or to make a big issue of it. I find a bit difficult to cope with.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
