Biography

David Jason

Jump to

Overview

Born
February 2, 1940 · Edmonton, London, England, UK
Birth name
David John White
Height
5′ 6″ (1.68 m)

Biography

Sir David Jason has become one of Britain's most famous, versatile and respected actors, who is most famous for his role in Only Fools and Horses (1981) as Del Boy. He made his debut in the series in 1981 and was still playing the same role up to the Christmas special in 2002. His big break came in the 1967 children's comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) starring alongside members of the Monty Python team: Terry Jones; Eric Idle, and Michael Palin.

Sadly, in 1990, he spent time away from work to nurse Myfanwy Talog, the Welsh actress who was his long time partner, before she died of cancer at the age of 49. He has come a long way from his days as an electrician and has won numerous awards for his work. He has managed to combine the comedy aspect of his career with rather more serious roles, such as that of Jack Frost in the highly-rated detective series A Touch of Frost (1992) and has proved that he is a man of many talents. In the mid 1970s, he performed as Blanco, an elderly prisoner, in episodes of Porridge (1974) with Ronnie Barker. He has also done voice work in children's TV.

He has not really concentrated on movies, although he was very impressive in the TV movie All the King's Men (1999), playing Frank Beck, the Commander of the Sandringham Company who mysteriously disappeared whilst in action in The Great War campaign in Gallipoli in 1915.

He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, Gill Hinchcliffe and their daughter, Sophie Mae. His hobbies are a little DIY and gardening. He was knighted in 2005.
- IMDb mini biography by: Hasselbaink007

Family

Spouse
Children
Relatives

Trivia

He did not find out until age 14 that he had a twin brother who had died at birth.
He had no formal education.
He landed the part of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses (1981) by making fun of director Ray Butt's Cockney accent with a pitch perfect imitation.
He worked as a self-employed electrician before becoming an actor, initially in the theatre and later moving to television.
When Jason was cast as Detective Inspector Jack Frost, the character had to be cleaned up from the books, where Frost was a chain smoker, but Jason recently gave up smoking. He used to smoke four or five cigarettes a day, or in the evening with a drink, and didn't want to start again, and smoking was taboo on TV in 1992.

Quotes

I've been fascinated by deep sea diving since watching Jacques-Yves Cousteau's TV programmes as a lad.
Marriage is like throwing yourself into a river when you only wanted a drink of water.
I've never ever 'felt my age', whatever that means. I think that there are a lot of people who feel 22 when in fact they're 62, and there are a lot of youngsters out there who behave as if they were four times their age. It's an attitude of mind, isn't it?
I've done my fair share of waiting on tables in restaurants, cleaning cars, whatever. I was even an electrician at one time, and I've done my fair bit of decorating, too. But slowly my fortunes changed.
It was a long time before TV wanted me - I would have had to commit murder to get a part on the box at one time.