David Jason

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. Lee's great grandparents formed Australia's first opera company, performing before miners in towns in the outback. Jason has never married. Lee will reprise his Star Wars role as Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. 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. Lee was a natural choice for the Lord of the Rings movies, where he plays the role of Saruman, as he makes it a habit of reading the novel at least once a year. 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. Also, he narrated the Dark Secret EP by Italian power metal band, Rhapsody.

Bates novel). Lee appeared on the cover of the Wings album Band on the Run along with other people, including Clement Freud. E. Lee would eventually play another Bond villain, Francisco Scaramanga, in The Man with the Golden Gun. 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. Julius No. In this role David popularised some slang words; examples being the mild insults "dipstick" and "plonker" and the celebratory "lovely jubbly". Author Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, is his cousin and wanted Lee to play the first James Bond film villain, Dr.

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. This calculation uses a modification of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. He also took the lead role in ITV sitcom A Sharp Intake Of Breath. As an indication to his profligacy and longevity, Lee has, according to the Oracle of Bacon at Virginia (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/), an average Bacon number of 2.684104 (as of December 2003), making him second on the list of most suitable centres of the Hollywood universe.
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. He appeared as Flay in the BBC television miniseries Gormenghast, based on Mervyn Peake's novels. 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. Lee has played roles in over 220 films since 1948, and has had many notable television roles.

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. From then on, Lee was periodically featured in numerous horror roles for various studios. 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. That led to his first Dracula film, Horror of Dracula, in 1958. 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. His first film for Hammer, made in 1957 with Peter Cushing, was Curse of Frankenstein, in which he played, "The Creature". 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. Throughout the next decade, Lee made nearly 30 films, playing mostly stock action characters.

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 made his film debut in Terrence Long's Gothic Romance, Corridor of Mirrors, in 1948. He trained as an electrician after leaving school while negotiating his way into reperatory theatre. He was educated at Wellington College, he volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939, then served in the Royal Air Force and intelligence during World War II. 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. Lee is now over 80 years old, and still appearing in films such as The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The Odd Job. He is viewed by many as the quintessential film villain. Other notable films include The Wicker Man and The Man with the Golden Gun.

Royal Flash. Lee became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. The Bullion Boys. He should not be confused with Christopher Lee, historian. Porridge. Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (born May 27, 1922 in London) is a prolific British actor known for his versatility and film longevity. 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.