Billy Halop

Billy Halop Online (http://home.comcast.net/~shelga/index.html). He nursed long-time partner Myfanwy prior to her death in 1995 after a long battle with cancer and then found happiness again with current partner Gill, with whom he has a daughter who was born in 2001. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide. Jason has never married. For the rest of his life, Billy Halop supplemented his nursing income with small TV and movie roles, gaining a measure of latter-day prominence as Archie Bunker's cab-driving pal Bert Munson on the '70s TV series All in the Family. He has also worked as a voice artist for Cosgrove Hall on a number of children's television productions, providing voices for Dangermouse, Count Duckula and Toad from The Wind in the Willows, as well as several other cartoon voice-overs and advertising work. John's Hospital in Malibu. In the 1970's 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.

In 1960, he married a multiple sclerosis victim, and the nursing skills he learned while taking care of his wife led him to steady work as a registered nurse at St. Bates novel). Diminishing film work, marital difficulties and a drinking problem eventually ate away at Halop's show business career. E. A long-standing rivalry between Halop and fellow Dead-Ender Leo Gorcey (both actors wanted to be the leader of the gang) led to Billy's breakaway from the Dead End Kids and its offspring groups, the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys, though Halop briefly starred in Universal's "Little Tough Guys" films. After serving in World War II, Halop found that he'd grown too old to be effective in the roles that had brought him fame; at one point he was reduced to starring in a cheap "East Side Kids" imitation at PRC studios, Gas House Kids (1946). He soon earned acclaim for a string of serious roles, for example as Detective Jack Frost in the TV series A Touch Of Frost and acted with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the rural Kentish tale The Darling Buds of May (based on the H. After several years as a well-paid radio juvenile, Billy was cast as Tommy Gordon in the Broadway production of Sidney Kingsley's Dead End (1935), where thanks to his previous credentials he was accorded star status. Traveling to Hollywood with the rest of the Dead End Kids when Samuel Goldwyn produced a film version of the play in 1937, Billy had no trouble lining up important roles, specializing in tough kids, bullies and reform school inmates in such major pictures as Dust be My Destiny (1939) and Tom Brown's School Days (1940). In this role David popularised some slang words; examples being the mild insults "dipstick" and "plonker" and the celebratory "lovely jubbly".

The original leader of the original "Dead End Kids," American actor Billy Halop came from a theatrical family; his mother was a dancer and his sister Florence Halop was a busy radio actress. This was followed by 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. February 11, 1920 - November 9, 1976. He also took the lead role in ITV sitcom A Sharp Intake Of Breath.
Jason was recruited to play Dithers, the hundred-year old gardener to Barker and co-worker of a maid played by Josephene 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. His 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.

This was of course 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. Humphrey Barclay, who recruited David to Do Not Adjust Your Set partly to offset the rather intellectual style of Idle, Jones and Palin, admired David's masterful sense of timing. He 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. He appeared, most notably, as a spoof super-hero Captain Fantastic, in Do Not Adjust Your Set, and co-starred with Denise Coffey in End of Part One.

He started his career at the same time as Michael Palin in At Last the 1948 Show and appeared in variety shows in support of stars such as Dick Emery. He trained as an electrician after leaving school while negotiating his way into reperatory theatre. David White (born February 2, 1940 in Edmonton, London), better known as David Jason, is a highly regarded British actor, admired equally for his dramatic work as for his comedy roles. The Odd Job.

Royal Flash. The Bullion Boys. Porridge. Open All Hours.

Only Fools and Horses. March in the Windy City. Lucky Feller. David Jason...In His Element.

The Darling Buds of May. Amongst Barbarians. All the King's Men. A Touch of Frost.

A Sharp Intake of Breath. A Bit of a Do. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Week Ending.