Out and About Costa Blanca Magazine - June 2021 Issue -188

56 | OUT AND ABOUT COSTA BLANCA
CELEBRITY PROFILE
DAVID JASON
Sir David John White OBE (born 2 February
1940), known professionally by his stage name
David Jason, is an English actor, comedian,
screenwriter, television presenter and producer.
He is best known for his roles as Derek “Del Boy”
Trotter in the BBC comedy series sitcom Only
Fools and Horses, Detective Inspector Jack Frost
in A Touch of Frost, Granville in Open All Hours
and Still 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 the title characters
of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula. His last
original appearance as Del Boy was in 2014, while
Jason retired his role as Frost in 2010.
In September 2006 Jason topped the poll to
find TV’s 50 Greatest Stars, as part of ITV’s 50th
anniversary celebrations. He was knighted
in 2005 for services to drama. Jason
has won four British Academy
Television Awards (BAFTAs),
(1988, 1991, 1997, 2003), four
British Comedy Awards (1990,
1992, 1997, 2001) and seven
National Television Awards
(1996 twice, 1997, 2001 twice,
2002 and 2011).
Jason’s father, Arthur
R White, was a porter at
Billingsgate Fish Market, and his
Welsh mother, Olwen Jones, worked
as a charwoman. She gave birth to twin
boys at North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton,
Middlesex, in February 1940, but Jason’s twin
brother died during childbirth. In 1984, during an
interview on TV-am, David Jason admitted that
the name David Jason was taken from his like of
Jason and the Argonauts, as the stage name “David
White” was already taken.
Upon leaving school, Jason wanted to follow in
his brother’s footsteps as an actor, but their father
insisted that he first got a trade. So, for six years,
he trained as an electrician, before giving up his
girlfriend at the time, and becoming a jobbing actor.
Jason’s elder brother is the actor Arthur White,
born in 1933. The two appeared together in the
crime drama A Touch of Frost, with Arthur playing
police archivist Ernie Trigg; and again in 2008, in the
comic fantasy The Colour of Magic, where Arthur
starred as a character called “Rerpf”
He also appeared briefly with his brother in two
episodes of The Darling Buds of May.
Jason started his television career in 1964 playing
the part of Bert Bradshaw in Crossroads. In 1967, he
played spoof super-hero Captain Fantastic, among
other roles, in the children’s comedy series Do Not
Adjust Your Se. The programme ended in 1969,
and the character then appeared for a time in the
Thames Television children’s programme Magpie.
Jason was going to be cast in the role of Lance
Corporal Jones in the Jimmy Perry and David
Croft BBC comedy Dad’s Army. Croft had
been very impressed with the actor
and knew that he had the ability to
play a man much older than his
real age. However, Bill Cotton
overruled him, casting Clive
Dunn. Jason appeared in the
BBC comedy series Hugh
and I, which starred Hugh
Lloyd and Terry Scott as two
friends who lived together in
south London. He appeared in
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
(“That’s How Murder Snowballs”,
1969) as Abel, a framed performer in a
major London theatre.
Jason appeared in variety shows in support of
stars such as Dick Emery and his performances
caught the attention of Ronnie Barker. Jason was
recruited to appear in Hark at Barker (LWT, 1969),
starring opposite Barker’s Lord Rustless, as Dithers,
the hundred-year old gardener. There was also a
sequel, His Lordship Entertains (1972) for the BBC.
Jason played junior employee Granville in the first
programme of the comedy anthology Seven of One
(1973), called Open All Hours (BBC) and starring
Barker as the miserly proprietor of a corner shop.
Four series of Open All Hours were made from