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

CELEBRITY PROFILE
JUNE 2021 | 57
1976–85. He featured in Barker’s Porridge (BBC),
a prison comedy, as the elderly Blanco in three
episodes
Jason starred in London Weekend Television’s
Lucky Feller (1975–76). About two brothers in
South-East London, the series was in many ways
a forerunner to Only Fools And Horses, only Jason
was in the more dopey ‘Rodney’ role with Peter
Armitage playing the cleverer of the two. The
brothers drove around in a comical bubble car, a
precursor to the famous Trotters’ van; and there was
even the joke where, just as he was trying to impress
the girl (Cheryl Hall), Jason casually leaned back
against the bar, without his knowing that barman
had just lifted it behind his back, and fell through.
This situation was re-enacted in Only Fools And
Horses. He played the lead role of Peter Barnes in
the ATV sitcom A Sharp Intake of Breath (1977–81).
In 1981, Jason found his most popular role, Del
Boy Trotter in the BBC situation comedy Only
Fools and Horses, created by John Sullivan. Del-
Boy is a wide-boy who makes a dubious living
in Peckham, south London, trading in shoddy,
stolen, and counterfeit goods. He is assisted by his
brother Rodney (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst)
and Grandad (played by Lennard Pearce) and,
in later episodes, Uncle Albert (played by Buster
Merryfield).
In 1989 Jason starred as Ted Simcock in the ITV
drama series A Bit of a Do, aired from January to
December.
In 1999, Jason starred as Captain Frank Beck in
BBC’s feature-length drama All the King’s Men
about the Sandringham regiment lost in World War
I. He earned acclaim for a string of straight roles.
In 1992, he signed a golden handcuffs deal at
ITV to star as Detective Inspector Jack Frost in the
long-running TV series A Touch of Frost (Yorkshire
Television/ITV). In September 2006, he was voted
by the general public as No. 1 in ITV’s poll of TV’s
Greatest Stars
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 and comedy. On the
day it was announced, many British newspapers
used the headline “Arise Sir Del Boy” or similar, in
reference to his most famous role. Upon receiving
the knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II at
Buckingham Palace on 1 December 2005, he said he
was “humbled” by the “fantastic tribute”.
Jason lived with his long-term girlfriend, Welsh
actress Myfanwy Talog, for eighteen years and
nursed her through breast cancer until she died
in 1995. This experience inspired him to create his
own charity, The David Jason Trust for terminally ill
children. It also mirrored the situation in A Touch
of Frost, in which the character’s wife died after a
long illness.
On 26 February 2001, Jason became a father for
the first time at the age of 61 when his girlfriend,
41-year-old Gill Hinchcliffe, gave birth to a baby
girl, born in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury.
Jason and Hinchcliffe married in 2005.
Jason is a patron of the Shark Trust, a United
Kingdom registered charity working to advance the
worldwide conservation of sharks through science,
education, influence and action. He has also been
Honorary Vice Patron of the Royal International Air
Tattoo since 1999, and on 29 May 2014, presented
a cheque on behalf of the Fairford-based RAF
Charitable Trust for £125,000 to the British RAF Air
Cadet Organisation, to fund flight simulators for
Air Cadets.
In October 2013, he released his autobiography
called David Jason: My Life. It was shortlisted for
the 2013 Specsavers National Book Awards “Best
Book of the Year”. A second volume, Only Fools and
Stories: From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to
Frost was published in October 2017.
In September 2017, it was reported that a
“credible threat was made to his life”, although it is
not known why Jason had been targeted.
By Carol Levey