David Jason's biography

David John White is 82 years old actor born at Edmonton. He was born on Friday 2nd of February 1940. According to year of birth 1940 David belongs to Silent Generation. Birthday on 2nd of February means he is Aquarius. Aquarius is an Airy sign. They are smart thinkers, social, communicative, independent and intelligent people.

He is white british. David is citizen of United Kingdom. His primary profession is to be actor. You can know him also as autobiographer, comedian. David is recently known as television actor.

David Jason's schools

Detailed informations about his schools

He attended Northside Junior School and than Northside Secondary Modern. He left school at the age of 15 to pursue acting.

David Jason's career

David´s main focus is to be actor. He is famous thanks to A Touch of Frost. "Derek Trotter" In Only Fools and Horses, Darling Buds of May....

Is David Jason gay ?

He is known to be straight.

David Jason's girlfriend

Myfanwy Talog

David Jason and Myfanwy Talog have been together since 1977 for 18 years. She is known as actor. His girlfriend was born on Friday 31st of March 1944 in Caerwys. His girlfriend died on Saturday 11th of March 1995 in Buckinghamshire. Myfanwy Talog was 55 years old, when this happened.

Awards and competitions

David Jason's Awards

He received two awards at the British Television Awards. He got the awards for "Britain's Best Actor" and "Britain's Best Comedy Actor".
He was awarded an O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of British Empire) for his services to drama.
In 1989, after the end of the sixth series of Only Fools and Horses (1981), he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy Performance. He put the award on his mantelpiece, next to the one for Best Actor he had already.

What David Jason has done for a first time

He became a father for the first time at age 61 when his partner Gill Hinchcliffe gave birth to their daughter Sophie Mae White on 26 February 2001.
He didn't watch television until the age of 13, when he saw the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, she later knighted Jason. His family didn't hire a television until he was age 15, when ITV was first launched.
The first review of his work was "David White looked like a young James Cagney and played, though only 16, with the ease of a born actor". He still remembers it but thought it unlikely.
His first experience of playing in the West End was as a pirate in a production of Peter Pan at the Strand; it was also his first experience of touring the country.
He first appeared on television in a BBC pantomime, Mother Goose (1965) on Boxing Day.
Although against illicit substances, he did smoke a joint for the first time when he was 40; it was his only one.
He was given advice by Jon Pertwee when first starting his acting career.
His first public appearance with his changed name was on May 24th, 1965.
He decided to make acting his career at the age of 20 after his first relationship went nowhere. He began professional acting at the age of 25.
His first car was a second-hand Ford Zephyr six-saloon with crimped fins and shiny chrome wing mirrors.
He was a huge fan of The Goon Show (1968) and the first time he went to the theatre was to watch a recording of it.
The first time he went abroad was to Switzerland for a skiing holiday in 1970.

David Jason's 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 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.
Perhaps being a character actor on radio was, in retrospect, the best training I could get.
When I worked with Ronnie Barker, who was very well known himself at the time, I always remember him saying, 'You don't have to be a shit to be a big star, David.' I've always tried to remember that.
Everything I've done has been a pleasure, touch wood. I love my job. Ronnie Barker said to me, 'Aren't we lucky: being paid very well for making ourselves laugh?'
John Sullivan's scripts were always very funny, and cast and crew got on well. You can't convince an audience if you're not enjoying it yourself.
Comedy is a funny business, which you have to take seriously. It requires a lot of thought, energy and adrenaline, so when you return home you want to calm down, recharge your batteries and not be the life and soul of the party.
I'm not perfect, though. Any woman who takes on someone in this business has a bit of a handful.
People have high expectations. You enter a room and know they're thinking, 'He'll be funny,' and you go, 'Leave it out, love. I'm having a day off.' You then become a disappointment.
[on amateur theatre] This was where I cut my teeth - the first stages of my acting journey.
[on his first job center interview] The whole setup felt fantastically, bowel-liquidisingly intimidating to me. When asked what kind of thing do you have in mind for yourself, my answer was I don't know.
Hell hath no fury like a man spurned and on a motorbike.
[on needing stitches several times as a boy] I probably only needed to go one more time to qualify for my own set of needles.
[on the late 1950s] A period I remember with great affection. My life seemed to be coming together in this period, or settling into a rhythm.
[on failing his first audition] It was dead man walking - one of the longest walks I'll ever make. I felt about as foolish as I have ever felt.
I was a person who rather liked his home comforts.
Learning wasn't really my thing, and it was fairly clear from an early stage that I would be unlikely to be troubling the scorers at Oxford.
Many of the world's leading film stars are shorties, mentioning no Tom Cruises.
I was going to do the unsteady thing. I was going to become an actor.
The real dream for me was acting. I felt time creeping on. I couldn't bear the idea of getting to 35 and not having given it a shot - and then maybe living with the regret and the sense of what if for the rest of my life.
The self-taught among us have our own particularly strong strain of the common actors' virus - and somehow no amount of success and acclaim ever quite squeezes it out of you.
[on his first audition] My tongue had taken on the thickness of a can of Spam.
Comments about my height were water off a not very tall duck's back.
One thing which I definitely had in my favor was determination.
My two favorite activities in the world: diving and flying. I am rarely happier than when deep in the water or high in the sky. Psychiatrists: help yourself.
[on returning to work as an electrician when acting dried up during the early years of his career] It kept my feet on the ground.
[on his height] I was made to realize very early that however this acting life of mine panned out, romantic leads were probably going to be hard to come by.
All actors are a mix of confidence and doubt - of bulletproof self-belief one minute, and trembling insecurity the next. Its what makes us such a joy to be around.
[when his first agent got him work in an ad] Visions of Hollywood movies danced in my mind, but Hollywood would have to wait.
[on his first professional role] I could hardly breathe with the thrill of it. But it was completely tiddly. And I was completely green and oblivious.
I was in the traditional catch-22 that traps so many performers when they first set out on their fumbling way towards a career: you can't get any work unless you've acted before, and if you haven't acted before, you can't get any work.
(Alan) Ladd was one of my earliest cinema heroes.
Lots of actors wait tables while 'resting' between jobs. Not me. I did electrics while 'resting', and waited tables while I was working.
Sometimes you take your life in your hands just walking up the street.
[on his first car] I thought that was going to be the passport to international jet-set pleasure with members of the opposite sex. In fact, I mostly ended up playing taxi driver for all my car-less male mates.
[on telling his parents that he was going to drama school] They couldn't have been less enthusiastic if I'd just proposed setting up a commercial newt-breeding operation in the bathroom.
[on going to drama school] Performing what we might call a reverse Nelly, I unpacked my trunk, metaphorically speaking, and said hello to the circus.
No actor, to my knowledge, has ever been described as steady.
Comedy lies in how you draw out that time and fill it - edging gradually closer, almost committing, backing off, starting again, and hoping to pull the audience in and out with you.
What else is the gift of acting, if not the ability to convince other people that you are something other than what you actually are?
[on working in the electrical business] Quite grubby and uncomfortable work. At the end of the day, I was quite often entirely blackened, like some poor Victorian kid who'd been sent up a chimney.
[on his first apartment] It was the first rung on the ladder to independence. At last, no doubt to my parents' immense relief, I had flown the nest - and at the age of 26, probably not a moment too soon.
Me and alcohol learned to be careful around one another. Tales of tippling actors are legion.
I was used to directors helping an actor to draw the nuance out of a character, as tended to happen in the theatre. In television, you were supposed to know that already.
[on seeing someone roll a joint] It was a total novelty for me, and I have to admit, it rather fazed me. Alcohol I could happily entertain the concept of, but the thought of illicit substances made me nervous.
Lofty ambitions aside, what I loved about acting was the chance it gave you to adapt.
[on Terry Scott] He didn't suffer fools. Fame had temporarily exhausted his patience with lesser mortals, as fame sometimes will.
[on people during World War II] Physical affection and displays of emotion were rare, and moments of intimacy, too. That was how people were.
[on his childhood home] So tiny that when you opened the front door, you almost fell up the stairs.
[on Do Not Adjust Your Set] Suddenly I was a budding star of children's television. It wasn't the route I'd imagined when I set out and I'm sure the same was true of Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle. But none of us were complaining.
It amuses me that the conversation which gave rise to so much of my career in television took place in the tiny, run-down bar of the Bournemouth Pier Theatre.
[auditioning for a musical] It was my duty to be up for absolutely anything at this crucial formative stage in my professional life.
[on working with the Dulux sheepdog in an ad] He was just a lovely dog with an unusually keen interest in interior decorating. I thought he looked slightly smaller in the flesh. But then people often say the same about me. He was a total nightmare.
[on being rejected for Dad's Army] Well, that knocked the wind right out of my sails, while at the same time, removing the bottom from my world. Ah, well, bet that show doesn't come to anything anyway.
[on his character on Do Not Adjust Your Set] The whole point of Captain Fantastic was that it was a parody of the silent era. If you lost that, you lost everything about it.
[on Bob Monkhouse] He was the first person I knew who had satellite television, presumably so he could plunder the airwaves for gags 24 hours a day. Bob was an early adopter of new technology.
If I had followed the money and not my heart, I wouldn't have got to work with Ronnie Barker. It profoundly affected the course of my life thereafter.
I have never been a naturally assertive or confrontational person. But I knew what I wanted and I made sure I stood firm and got it.
When you're out of work, unsure where you're headed, or even headed anywhere at all, and you're looking at the success that people are having without you...well, I was pretty bitter about it.
[in the 70s] There was no way that I was a name you could put up outside a theatre and expect it to bring in the crowds.
[on the 70s] Those were thrilling times altogether. I was acting in the West End, living in the West End, drinking in the West End - I couldn't have got much more West End without changing my name to "West End".
[on hang gliding] It was a wonderful way to relax and get away from the job. The cheapest way to get into the air, and the cheapest kind of aircraft money could buy.
If any actor tells you their idle contemplations haven't turned longingly, at some point or other, to the prospect of a major American film deal, they're almost certainly fibbing.
[on radio] I love the immediacy of it.
Don't be such a fool as not to use things that work when they're offered to you. If someone has blazed a trail, don't muck about in the long grass: follow them up it. If it works, and has been proved to work, you'd be an idiot not to help yourself.
[on acting in the West End] This whole period was a huge learning curve.
I could perform a reliable pratfall.
[jokes] Some fall on stony ground - beware the in-joke.
You have to have been in a film to be considered for a film. It's a catch-22 and equity all over again. So if you somehow do break through and get to make a film, you're off and running. That's how it works, isn't it? How far from the truth can you get?
It wasn't about Ronnie (Barker) being the big star, the needy comedian, having to get the laughs. It was about what Ronnie, as an actor, thought worked best for the piece. That was his fundamental philosophy. He saw the bigger picture at all times.
I turned up when I was told to turn up, I stood where I was told to stand and I said the words I was told to say - the definition of film-acting.
Very few people blow a raspberry as well as I do; an area of expertise in which I could be described as a world leader.
Diving grew into one of my great passions.
[Danger Mouse] I loved that mouse.
A good comedian is never on holiday.
[Nicholas Lyndhurst] My mate.
[Del, Rodney and Grandad Trotter, the original trio from Only Fools and Horses] The Three Stooges.
[Lennard Pearce, who played Grandad in Only Fools and Horses] Lamented.
There's a motto we Dive Masters know well: 'Stop. Breathe. Think. Act'. I had that thoroughly drilled into me.
I don't want to die alone. I don't even want to die in company. I want to be alive. I've got stuff I still want to do. Reasons to live.
[World War II] Those five years of global conflagration had nothing to do with me. I associate my earliest days with the smell and taste of brick dust.
[being strapped into a gas mask as an infant during World War II] An infringement of my liberty. A rubber deep-sea diver's helmet.
[having your lines DLP] Dead Line Perfect.
[Only Fools and Horses] A series that definitely did work.
[having an article written about him in TV Times for the first time] It made me feel pretty special - like some kind of top gun.
[the ability to stay in character] Why not, if it helps you. Ronnie Barker could slip in and out of character effortlessly.
[a delivery bike] Not as straightforward as it may look. Riding a bike is like...well, riding a bike.
[BBC2] The backwater for a brand new comedy series.
Why Ronnie (Barker) left ITV for the BBC, only those in the know would know, and as I wasn't in the know, you know, I wouldn't know. You know?
[having a stuntman] Where's the fun in that? I was happier being given the chance to channel my inner Buster Keaton.
[playing the Phantom Raspberry Blower in The Two Ronnies] I'm enormously proud of my contribution to that little moment of comic history.
[Open All Hours] The chance to play opposite Ronnie (Barker) in an entire series was a dream outcome.
[himself and Nicholas Lyndhurst] A pair of silly Buddhas.
[the makeup chair] Quite uncomfortable and not a little boring, but you lump it.
[the ability to slip in and out of character] The sign of true comfort in a role. Some actors never come out of character.
Mr Nobodies with rich fantasy lives: are we beginning to detect a certain theme emerging in my professional roles?
Could I do a convincingly suave and appealing phone manner? Yes, I have to say I could.
Ronnie (Barker) wasn't playing to win. He was playing simply towards the end of getting the laugh. He knew where the laugh was - the winning shot at the end of the rally.
[getting to carry a series] A real vote of confidence.
[after the Daily Mirror compared him to Buster Keaton] As comparisons go...well, I was ready to accept that one.
People always say that the essence of a sitcom is people trapped by their circumstances.
[going with Ronnie Barker to antique and junk shops] The tinier and the more offbeat the shop was, and the further it was into the middle of nowhere, the happier Ronnie was.
In the mid-70s, phone calls were only made possible by someone sitting at a switchboard with a fistful of plugs.
cking] Going through the script and working out all the positions on the set during the scenes.
[industrial action] Very 1970s.
Any way you could find to save money while out on tour was always welcomed.
[finding somewhere to hide in a hurry] Not uncommon in farces, or certain draconian bed & breakfasts too, as I well knew.
[John Sullivan, the creator and writer of Only Fools and Horses] He had a warm personality and was extremely easy to like.
etly spoken] That's often been a surprise to me, with comedy writers. You expect people who write funny things to be loud and constantly saying things. Often it couldn't be further from the truth.
[single beds] Narrow as a plank.
[scantily clad] Popular phrase.
Richard (Wilson) had great timing and I admired him enormously and was very pleased for him with the success he went on to have.
[student beds] Monastically narrow.
[hapless characters in the first part of his TV career] The parts I was getting at this time.
[a sharp intake of breath] The noise people make, sucking air past their teeth.
A wonderful feeling, being part of the creative process.
[encephalitis] I had no idea what that was, or even how to pronounce it.
[the old silent movie] The attitude was: here's what you've got to do: see what you can get out of it; and hope you survive.
[playing Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows] I just about managed to hold my own.
[a hotel room] A sterile environment.
[watching cartoons as a kid] The color and the vibrancy and the silliness made a wonderful impression on me.
[spilling a drink on someone] What larks.
[Cosgrove Hall] That first connection was the start of so much pleasure for me.
[the Wind in the Willows] Classic. Very successful. What a cast Brian (Cosgrove) had managed to assemble.
[a large brandy] Poison. Even the smell of it made the head swim.
[Brian Cosgrove] Deeply dedicated to his craft. Good company.
[Sir Michael Hordern] One of the theatrical greats and a real hero of mine. I could never have stood on a stage with him doing Shakespeare and been competitive.
[going bald] Time had performed its evil depredations.
[Ronnie Barker] Very wise, and if he thought it was OK, that was good enough.
[Maureen Lipman, Hattie Jacques and Roy Kinnear] Distinguished company.
It was easier to carry a quill around than a typewriter.
[comics relying on alcohol to function] There have been many over the years and it's my fortune that I've never been one of them.
Be careful with a Flymo on a slope.
Everyone in a new play gets nerves on a first night.
[Hong Kong entertainment] As far removed from a matinÃ©e performance of Aladdin in Wimbledon over the Christmas period as it is possible to get.
[never knowing where you are in a play] Not an especially useful trait in that line of work.
[at the Jakarta Hilton] It was like being in some kind of fairytale.
[cling film] It will keep you extremely fresh.
The makeup department is a wonderful thing.
[while wearing slippers with leather soles] You don't walk downstairs so much as ski down them.
It's always best to confront things, actor to actor.
[Open All Hours] I was there to be Ronnie's stooge.
[Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubah, Kuala Lumpur and Egypt] Places that were just a vague rumor in a distant atlas.
[getting lost in Hong Kong] Happens from time to time.
[himself] The idea that acting could open up experiences to someone from a terraced house in Lodge Lane seemed staggering to me.
[while flying on a 747 over Iran and Iraq] Somewhere way below us, people were firing rockets and bombs at each other. We, meanwhile, were suspended at 35,000ft, in our unworldly little bubble, sipping cocktails, chinking glasses and saying chin-chin.
Funny how a certain kind of calm can descend on you.
Life is notoriously short.
[his knowledge of art history] Fairly minimal.
My grasp of music is not the best.
The most impolite thing you can do is point your foot at somebody's head. It's the worst kind of insult.
[the eyes going back and forward and the eyebrows going up and down] The manner of someone contemplating magic.
[his character Granville from Open All Hours] Seemingly eternal shopboy. The shop had become the full extent of his world and he didn't have time for anything beyond it.
In Dubai, the Sheikhs seemed to be going in for competitive airport building - fantastically constructed, you wouldn't want your airport to be smaller than anyone else's, would you?
I like a practical project.
[old fairground slot machines] Great, historic machinery.
[Leslie Philips] A legend of British comedy.
[the song Singin' in the Rain] Long and complex.
[being a team player] What you need to be in a touring production, unless the whole thing is going to implode horribly.
[flying for 23 hours] You get a bit stir-crazy, stuck in a tube that long.
[Â£500 a week] Handsome money.
[derived from Ronnie Barker's nickname on Open All Hours] There was only one Guvnor.
[Ronnie Barker] He was constantly playing with words and was very quick at composing verses.
[egg and bacon sandwiches] Salmonella on legs.
[his childhood home] There was very little for burglars to help themselves to.
[Ronnie Barker's retirement] For all that it disappointed me that he stopped producing work, I respected him so much for it. It gave him 16 relaxed and contented years before his terribly sad death in 2005.
[Wellington boots] A fantastic breakthrough.
[as a 7-year old] I've been going to the house of God all these weeks, and every time I go He's never at home.
Actors don't really retire: there isn't usually a formal moment. You don't give up the business, the business tends to give you up.
[his first radio] I kept it in my bedroom, twitching the whiskers of wire to find voices or music, and lying in bed in the dark, listening to the great wide world.
[the Trotters in Only Fools and Horses] A cross-generational trio.
[Noel Edmonds' hair] Enduring abundance.
[BBC Television Centre] The fabled donut building. I miss that building and was sad to see the BBC leave it, although of course, life teaches us that nothing is permanent. Apart, obviously, from Noel Edmonds' hair.
[Del Boy, his character from Only Fools and Horses] He had a Cockney accent you could have rolled up and beaten someone over the head with.
[the BBC sitcom Citizen Smith] Highly successful.
[becoming a Sir] Heady, heady times.
[BBC coffee] Famously filthy.
[he and Nicholas Lyndhurst getting nervous before a recording of Only Fools and Horses] Why do we do this to ourselves?
Some audiences would be worried for you.
[the script for the pilot episode of Only Fools and Horses] Bright and full of life. The more I thought about Del (Boy), and the more I thought about the script I had seen, the more I felt there was something potentially wonderful there for me.
[Del Boy's sweaters and shirts that he kept] I can't throw them away. It would feel wrong.
[his TV awards] A fistful. Mantelpiece getting a little crowded.
[being knighted] Awards don't get any bigger than this.
[The Jolly Boys' Outing, an episode of Only Fools and Horses] Everyone acted their socks off.
[Only Fools and Horses] Happy days.
[creating the character of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses] I was doing my best to think comedy-drama, not sitcom.
[Nicholas Lyndhurst] Nick.
[Kenneth MacDonald, one of his co-stars on Only Fools and Horses] Jovial.
[Del Boy] He only appeared to have won things which it subsequently turned out he had lost. But he was a winner by mentality.
[appearing in The Color of Magic] Waiting for a better job to turn up.
[his career] A player of life's losers.
[the cast of The Darling Buds of May] One big happy family.
[The Darling Buds of May] Even more happy days.
You are trying to inhabit the character's body, not let the character inhabit your body.
[you can't be funny on an empty stomach] It's one of the great truths of comedy.
Nick (Lyndhurst) and I recognized in each other a kindred urge to mess about, whenever possible.
[firecrackers] Quality entertainment.
[his first impression of Nicholas Lyndhurst] Shiny-faced.
[his first impression of John Sullivan, the writer and creator of Only Fools and Horses] He was very quiet.
[his opinion of Del, Rodney and Grandad after the pilot episode of Only Fools and Horses] They were real people who just happened to be very funny. I felt very, very excited indeed.
[Lennard Pearce, one of his co-stars on Only Fools and Horses] It wasn't like him not to see the funny side.
[Only Fools and Horses] I don't think this is a sitcom. I think this is a comedy-drama.
[Only Fools and Horses] Heady days.
[Del Boy's fashion sense] A bit bright, a bit Jack the lad.
[fashion] Not really my area of expertise, and never has been.
[Terry and June] Designed for sitcom figures.
Only Fools and Horses got off to a ragged and inauspicious start.
[Only Fools and Horses] The series grew into something better.
[gin and tonic] Medicinal.
John (Challis, one of his co-stars on Only Fools and Horses) was charming, well spoken, an actor of great weight, and an absolute gent to work with - another proper team player.
[Only Fools and Horses] We had the makings of a tight team.
[after the pilot episode of Only Fools and Horses went through a chaotic production] I think they must be trying to sabotage us.
[Boycie from Only Fools and Horses] Oh-so-superior.
[cigarettes] Equally medicinal.
[A Touch of Glass, the famous chandelier episode of Only Fools and Horses] There was a lot of pressure on that piece of filming.
[a director yelling Cut] The magic word.
[Series 2 of Only Fools and Horses] The series in which the show broke through the glass chandelier.
[Tuesday evenings] Isn't always the best night to drag in the big numbers.
The prospect of commitment, solid commitment, troubled me.
The closer to London, the more expensive the house.
I have always been very driven and determined to fill the hours.
[A Touch of Glass, the famous chandelier episode of Only Fools and Horses] Classic.
[the East] It was so tricky to get out of London in that direction.
I liked the country life. As much as I loved London, I found the quiet and isolation of the countryside had started appealing to me really strongly.
The traditional paranoid actor's frame of mind: 'will I ever work again?'
[moving in with a partner] All my life I had always resisted any such thing. Indeed, traditionally this was the point in any relationship at which I had always run a mile, causing no little distress along the way. But now I didn't run away. I felt ready.
[Only Fools and Horses avoiding the axe] Suddenly, deep in the heart of the BBC, faith was renewed, the candle re-lit, the flag run back up the flagpole. Order du jour! as Del might have put it. Only Fools had been granted the time to grow.
[Grandad in Only Fools and Horses] A silent presence.
[Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses] Lovable.
[mistakes during filming a sitcom] Every time, I blame someone and make it into a joke. If you can make the audience think you don't care, the audience relax and they like you and they feel part of it.
Life was a bit topsy-turvy but no less enjoyable for that. I was very busy and very content.
The pressure on you in front of an audience and cameras is very high and if you've never done it before it can really get to you.
[Lynda Bellingham] Great and lovely.
[Buster Merryfield] He had been a fit young man.
[Only Fools and Horses losing its first BAFTA nomination] We were the nearlys, but not quites. We were stoic enough about it, though. And also, thoroughly refreshed.
[when Buster Merryfield joined Only Fools and Horses] Happy years to come.
I was happy to have my substance exploited.
[Lennard Pearce's death and Buster Merryfield's arrival on Only Fools and Horses] Out of adversity grew something really positive. The arrival of Buster led John Sullivan into a new rich vein.
Buster (Merryfield) must be just about the only person who wrote away for a role in an established television sitcom (Only Fools and Horses) and got it.
[crashing into the audience on a sitcom] Delivering lines without waiting for the laughter to die down.
[Lennard Pearce on Only Fools and Horses] Nick (Lyndhurst) and I used to tease him, saying he was a lazy sod and that we were basically a 20-minute warm-up act for his one killer gag. Lennard would just say, 'I'm old - I'm allowed."
Who would have thought that Jim (Broadbent) would go on from here (Only Fools and Horses) to make The Borrowers and then on to Hollywood? I could never work out why he didn't take me with him.
[Ray Butt, one of the directors on Only Fools and Horses] He did love a gin and tonic, that man. Purely recreationally of course.
[fly-pitching on Only Fools and Horses] Del's core business. I loved doing them - the patter, the banter, the rhythm.
It stands to reason that you can't go on television over and over again and not get recognized every now and again.
Fame would operate to restrict my life.
[on Only Fools and Horses and Minder] A kind of rivalry between the two programs was easy to connect by the press. Minder was a show I loved to watch, so the rivalry didn't feel particularly hostile to me, but I guess it was a good story for the papers.
[John Sullivan's writing on Only Fools and Horses and elsewhere] Classic.
There was a (Second World) war on. There was a lot of death about.
[he and Nicholas Lyndhurst after Only Fools and Horses became a giant success] Both of us were beginning to learn some lessons about fame and beginning to make adjustments.
As a baby, I was given a carrot as a pacifier.
[his height] Less than statuesque.
[he, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Buster Merryfield appearing on the Royal Variety Performance in 1986] The nerves between the three of us would have powered a wind turbine.
[on Only Fools and Horses] The show was capturing the nation's attention to an extent that none of us had conceived it would, even in our wildest and most optimistic imaginings.
[the day he was born] My memories are bound to be a bit patchy.
[a glider] A glorified Perspex tube.
I was to get most of my growing done by about the age of fourteen when I reached five foot six and my body decided that it had had enough of lengthening and left it at that.
[Buster Merryfield refusing to join him and Nicholas Lyndhurst for a drink] All the more for me and Nick.
[the answer to questions during the production chaos on A Royal Flush, a notoriously troubled episode of Only Fools and Horses] Fuck knows.
You want to be watching television on Christmas Day, not appearing live on it.
[he and Bob Monkhouse at the Royal Variety Performance in 1986] That night I'm sure we both felt like we were a long way from Weston-Super-Mare.
[nerves evaporate] They will when an audience is immediately responsive.
[the Royal Variety Performance in 1986] A lovely interlude.
[Bob Monkhouse] My old colleague.
[on filming] The peculiar sights you would see and walk past and find people taking absolutely for granted, as if they were the most normal thing in the world.
In television the money has always gravitated towards drama.
[on a proper theatrical exit in a Shakespeare play] You go, you pause, you slightly come back, you go again. Play it right, and you could virtually guarantee a round of applause, no matter what had happened in your exit speech.
I loved being part of huge set pieces. It enabled me to give some rein to my film-actor fantasies. It was certainly very different from the slightly grab-it-and-run Only Fools and Horses shoots.
[his reply when people doubted that Only Fools and Horses could work beyond 30 minutes in length] Yes, that's true of average writers. But we're talking about John (Sullivan). And you must agree: we keep cutting gold.
[one of his most famous scenes from Only Fools and Horses] Olivier had his Othello, Gielgud his Lear, Branagh has his Hamlet; I have my falling through a pub bar flap. And do you know what? I'm perfectly happy with that.
You should never hold an artist back from realizing his vision.
[winning BAFTAs] This, to my astonishment, was getting to be a bit of a habit.
[playing on bomb sites as a child] The (Second World) war had gifted us the perfect playground.
[his childhood scrapes] If the wounds didn't get you, there was a decent chance the treatment would. It's a wonder I made it through this period at all.
[The Darling Buds of May] I don't suppose any of us had even the faintest inkling at that stage of exactly how mind-bogglingly successful this project would be. I certainly didn't.
The world of entertainment was moving on rapidly.
Black-tie showbusiness occasions don't make me very comfortable. It was a bit like going willingly to your own execution.
[The Darling Buds of May] I didn't want it to be a studio production. If they did it on film, I knew the series would at least look good and have some quality about it, even if nothing happened.
The characters I tended to be known for playing - Del Boy merely the most prominent among them - had their foibles but were meant to be essentially forgivable and lovable. They were great seekers of the audience's sympathy.
[waiting for the next acting job] Like Mr Micawber, I was hoping for something to turn up.
[his first thoughts about the series, The Darling Buds of May] It'll either be enormously successful or it'll fall flat on it's face. It was enormously successful.
[during his childhood] Girls might as well have been another species for all that we had to do with them at that stage.
As occupied as I was, there was always the drive within me - the basic actorly thing. Be someone different. Be someone else. And take the work while it's there to be taken.
[the baker who did his 50th birthday cake] The man was an artist with the marzipan.
If I hadn't got a part in A Bit of a Do, I might not have ended up appearing in The Darling Buds of May. And if I hadn't got a part in The Darling Buds of May, I might not have ever ended up appearing in A Touch of Frost.
[Tessa Peake-Jones and Gwyneth Strong, two of his co-stars from Only Fools and Horses] Those two knew what they were doing and fitted straight into the team.
[his 50th birthday party] It was a lovely, high-spirited evening, and the nicest of surprises.
[best actor at the BAFTAs] Even to be shortlisted in that category was an honor.
Times have changed, and customs with them.
A baby couldn't upstage you or tell you your lines.
[The Darling Buds of May] The set constantly hummed with the smell of frying bacon and the crew would be walking around with drool hanging out of their mouths.
[on putting on weight playing Pop Larkin, he couldn't fit into a dinner jacket for the BAFTA Awards] I looked like Hardy wearing something belonging to Laurel.
[Catherine Zeta-Jones in The Darling Buds of May] The show's big discovery.
[Pop and Ma Larkin from The Darling Buds of May] Loving, cheeky, generous, trusting.
[Pop Larkin] The role made a few unusual demands on me.
Altogether the cast (of The Darling Buds of May) felt like a family off the set as well as on it. We genuinely liked each other and I think an extra degree of warmth came through because of that.
[Catherine Zeta-Jones] She was extremely beautiful, and you knew the camera was going to love her. She was also as lovely a person as she looked.
[Pam Ferris, one of his co-stars on The Darling Buds of May] She was down-to-Earth, which I immediately liked about her, and we relaxed in each other's company very quickly.
Philip (Franks in The Darling Buds of May) was so perfectly cast. He had sent most of his career in the theatre and he was a great team player because of that.
[before he got cast as Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May] If someone ever asks you if you would be interested in milking a cow, say yes. You never know when it might come in handy in your professional life.
Kids have minds like sponges.
[being helped into bed, pajamas and with a plastic bottle] The indignity that the elderly know.
[The Darling Buds of May] The series was a high-quality piece of work altogether. We owed a lot to the whole team put together.
[after Barry Gibb's cameo in an episode of Only Fools and Horses set in Miami] Barry was wonderfully self-effacing. His house was a palace.
[after Richard Branson's cameo in Only Fools and Horses] I assumed, that a happy lifetime of free rides and regular upgrades lay ahead of me. Alas, I was wrong. Showbusiness can be a very cruel industry.
[Richard Branson's cameo in Only Fools and Horses] The great publicist. Charming, but would it be unreasonable to say that I've seen better actors?
[The Darling Buds of May] It was very much the way of things on that show. We all looked after each other. Which stands to reason: we were one big (and overfed) family.
The message of (The) Darling Buds (of May) was the message of Only Fools (and Horses) too: that the most important thing is what happens at home and with the family.
[playing Batman in Only Fools and Horses] The dream role, satisfying the burning aspiration to play a superhero which had been planted in me by the Dan Dare comic strips of my childhood.
[doing Only Fools and Horses Christmas Specials] It was as if we hadn't stopped. You just fell straight back into the way of things. I would put on Del Boy again and find that he fitted like a pair of wonderful old carpet slippers.
[Al Capone] A kind of (Del Boy) Trotter in his way, albeit a bit more violent.
[when asked for the first time what he'd like to do as an actor] The thing I like watching is detective shows. I'd love to play a detective.
[meeting Michael Douglas] My first sight of this great Hollywood star was as he came towards me, hand extended, just out of the pool, dripping wet, with Bermuda shorts on. All very relaxed.
Only Fools and Horses seemed to be about as popular as it was possible for a television show to get. Perfick!
How hard it is and how unfair it seems, letting go of someone you know so well.
[the Batman and Robin episode of Only Fools and Horses] If I go back to Bristol, the one they all remember is Batman and Robin. That's the one they always come up and say, "I was there". It really seemed to chime.
I was a young lad who had lived among the bricks and mortar of London.
A fairly deep streak of eccentricity ran through the family.
[Paddington Station in London] A stunning scene of noise and smoke.
A Touch of Frost was contemporary, clever, dark and revolved around unpleasantness like murders of drug addicts and robberies at strip clubs. Frost was shabby, bitter, caustic and a commanding character, unlike Pop Larkin.
[The Darling Buds of May's wrap party] It was a very jolly affair.
[watching the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at age 13] You've never seen such a crowd gathered in a single sitting-room.
[watching TV for the first time at age 13] Unthinkable levels of magic. I rather liked the look of television. My hunch was that it had a great future ahead of it, if it ever managed to catch on.
[18 years as Detective Inspector Jack Frost] A long time to spend in the skin of a shabby detective. But, boy, I did love playing that part.
They don't call me Derek Trotter for nothing.
[paying full price for a house like Toad Hall after losing a coin toss] So much for my standing as a wheeler-dealer.
[lonely after his first wife's death] How I felt.
[Detective Inspector Jack Frost] I would have happily played him forever.
[Detective Inspector Jack Frost] He bowed out pretty spectacularly.
[Only Fools and Horses] It was just a TV sitcom, and yet how the tentacles of that program reached out.
[the Only Fools and Horses Christmas trilogy from 1996] For many people, the story's true conclusion. The moment when the curtain came down. Everything about the narrative pointed to these being the last ever episodes.
[the RAF] I was in awe at what they do and their bravery at spirit.
The impact of Only Fools and Horses and the way that people responded to it was constantly surprising to me and continues to do so.
Nobody has ever written to offer me a flat in Peckham, on the grounds of my expertise as Del Boy, nor indeed a corner shop in Doncaster, on the grounds of my expertise as Granville.
Breast cancer is such a blight.
[the war in Afghanistan] Bad times.
How life came round full circle.
Whenever I'm out and about and I see a film unit at work, I still feel that glow of excitement I used to get, driving onto the set to work.
(A Touch of) Frost was also the show on which I started doing rocket launches - to great acclaim, I must say. Well, sometimes.
Drinking other people's teas and coffees became something of a habit for (Detective Inspector Jack) Frost - a little humanizing moment which chased through the series to make him more than just an efficient cop.
[the mountain behind his cottage] Wonderful view.
[the death of a loved one] It's not a thing I would want anyone to go through, nor a thing I find easy to go back over.
[the end of Time on our Hands, the episode of Only Fools and Horses where the Trotters finally became millionaires] The Trotters now officially on their way to wealth.
You can fight age hard, but unfortunately age hasn't lost a battle yet.
[losing his first wife and meeting his second wife] I didn't expect to find someone new and settle down. I thought I'd had my chance of that and it had gone. How fortunate for me that I was wrong.
[Del Boy coming back at 65 and what had become of everyone from Only Fools and Horses] I was up for it. I thought anything was possible in (the show's writer and creator) John Sullivan's hands.
[using work to ease the pain of losing his first wife] Even though work was no longer the great healer, I still had work to do.
[A Touch of Frost] One of the country's favorite drama serials. We had come on a bit of a journey. It was nice to reach this point on the road.
Everybody who's moved house knows how stressful that is.
[A Touch of Frost's popularity] The hunch had well and truly paid off.
[David] A good name for a boy - kind of resolute, and noble.
[naming his child Sophie after doing The BFG] The name had extra resonance for me.
[his first baby] The baby was now a date in the diary which I at least found reassuring amid the mounting anticipation.
[the perfect wedding] A way that wouldn't create stress and fuss.
The good fortune showered upon me in these recent years is, I am truly aware, more than any man would have a right to dream of. Oh, and the knighthood. I nearly forgot the knighthood.
[becoming a father at the age of 60] Something else I thought I had missed, something else for which I thought the time had swept by while I was below the surface, at work. How lucky is that?
[when he was offered a knighthood] There had been no word of warning of this. It was totally out of the blue. Naturally, I assumed a wind-up and checked for evidence of the hand of the usual suspects.
[naming his daughter Sophie Mae] It sounded nice when you put the two together.
[starting a family] I quite liked the idea of continuing the line.
I get recognized and it can get a little out of hand.
If it's a nice day, I might fly my helicopter. Which sounds a bit flash, I suppose: a bit 'TV's man of action', as the TV Times once had it - you might even say a bit 'celebrity lifestyle'. But there it is.
[starting a family at the age of 60] Older than people conventionally are when they think about these things.
On a hot Summer's day in Wales, and just occasionally, you did get one of those...
Wales was a magical place to my boyhood self.
I spent an awful lot of the Summers of my childhood determinedly crossing my legs clenching my buttocks, evacuating my bowels and bladder only as a very last resort.
[when he announced his second wedding at a party to celebrate his knighthood] The place erupted with cheering and thumping on the tables.
The general trend was for the London part of the family to visit the Welsh part, rather than the other way around.
[his brushes with death] Sundry.
I don't know if you have ever been attacked by a cockerel, but if you haven't, then allow me to tell you that it's an experience with very little to recommend it.

David Jason's height, body shape

Lets describe how David Jason looks. We will focus on his height, body shape and hair color. He is tall as 5' 6" (168 cm). Body build is average. David´s hair is shade of grey.

David Jason