Biography
Early career
David Jason with Denise Coffey and (back row) future "Pythonites" Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Eric Idle, in Do Not Adjust Your Set (ITV, 1967 – 1969).
David Jason started his television career in 1967 as a spoof super-hero Captain Fantastic ( also other roles), in the television sketch comedy series Do Not Adjust Your Set. His co-stars were Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. Humphrey Barclay, who recruited David Jason to appear in Do Not Adjust Your Set (partly to offset the rather intellectual style of Idle, Jones and Palin), admired David's masterful sense of timing.
Jason also appeared in variety shows in support of stars such as Dick Emery. This was in an era when British performers such as Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Tony Hancock, Benny Hill and Kenneth Horne were all regularly demonstrating superb timing skills to humorous effect. David Jason's eye-catching performances would also attract the attention of Ronnie Barker, who would become a mentor to Jason in the next era of his career.
Jason was somewhat ahead of the Austin Powers and Johnny English film genre in an inventive TV series about an inept spy called The Secret Life of Edgar Briggs.
Jason was recruited to play Dithers, the hundred-year old gardener to Barker and co-worker of a maid played by Josephine Tewson, in Hark At Barker, then Blanco in Porridge, a prison-based comedy also starring Barker, then junior employee Granville in Open All Hours, starring Barker as the miserly proprietor of a general store. He also took the lead role in ITV sitcom A Sharp Intake Of Breath.
In the 1970s he did some work for radio, appearing in Week Ending (regularly satirising such figures as then UK Foreign Secretary Dr David Owen), and was the original "B Ark Captain" in the sixth episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Maturity and success
In 1981 he created his most enduring and popular role, that of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses, a wide-boy who makes a dubious living in Peckham, south London, trading in shoddy and counterfeit goods with the assistance of his brother Rodney (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Grandad (played by Lennard Pearce) or, latterly, Uncle Albert, played by Buster Merryfield. In this role David popularised some slang words; examples being the mild insults "dipstick" and "plonker" and the celebratory "lovely jubbly".
He soon earned acclaim for a string of serious roles, for example as Skullion in Porterhouse Blue, Detective Jack Frost in the TV series A Touch Of Frost and acted with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the tale set in rural Kent, The Darling Buds of May (based on the H. E. Bates novel).
He has also worked as a voice artist for Cosgrove Hall on a number of children's television productions, providing voices for Dangermouse, B.F.G, Count Duckula and Toad from The Wind in the Willows, as well as several other cartoon voice-overs and advertising work.
In 1993, David Jason was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and twelve years later, in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2005, he was knighted for services to acting. On the day his knighthood was announced, many British newspapers used the headline "Arise Sir Del Boy" or similar, in reference to his most famous role.
He nursed long-time partner Myfanwy Talog prior to her death in 1995 after a long battle with breast cancer. He then found happiness again with Gill Hinchcliffe, with whom he has a daughter, who was born in 2001. The couple were married in a secret ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 30 November 2005.
On 1 December 2005, David Jason received his knighthood from The Queen at Buckingham Palace. The actor said he was "humbled" by the "fantastic tribute".
Notable work
Radio
Week Ending
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
TV
Hogfather...as Albert
The Quest
A Bit of a Do
A Sharp Intake of Breath
A Touch of Frost...as Detective Inspector Jack Frost
All the King's Men...as Frank Beck
Amongst Barbarians
The Darling Buds of May...as Pa Larkin
David Jason...In His Element
Lucky Feller
March in the Windy City
Only Fools and Horses...as Del Boy
Open All Hours...as Granville
Porridge...as Blanco
The Top Secret Life of Edgar Briggs
Porterhouse Blue...as Skullion
The Bullion Boys
Diamond Geezer
Films
Royal Flash
The Odd Job
Animation
Dangermouse
Count Duckula
The BFG
