Featured Image Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage/BBC
Topics: BBC, TV and Film, Celebrity
Jess Battison
Sir David Jason might be an absolute legend of British telly but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced the boot over his career.
Easily best known for playing Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses, the 84-year-old has of course also portrayed the likes of Detective Inspector Jack Frost in A Touch of Frost and Granville in Open All Hours.
But Jason should have apparently also starred in another major British TV classic, Dad’s Army. Unfortunately for us though, the actor was actually sacked from the famous BBC show just three hours after being cast in it.
The star reportedly smashed his audition to play Lance Corporal Jones in the show that ran from 1968 until 1977.
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Jason is said to have impressed the Dad’s Army creators, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, with his skill for playing older characters. However, BBC boss Bill Cotton made the decision to replace him with Clive Dunn.
Looking back on this swift sacking, the actor told the Mirror: “I was cast at 12 o’clock and sacked by three.”
And that’s not the only role the legend missed out on as he apparently missed out on playing Frank Spencer in 70’s sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em as BBC chiefs questioned his ‘star quality’.
Well, there’s no denying nowadays that Jason is quite definitely a star.
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Only Fools and Horses of course kicked off in 1981, so who knows if we would ever have seen him as Del Boy if the actor had landed those earlier roles?
As well as having all kinds of documentary series, he’s also voiced iconic characters in animations like the toad in The Wind in the Willows, Danger Mouse and The BFG.
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But before finding fame in TV and film, Jason actually started off his career as an electrician.
He said: "When you are an apprentice to any trade, you have to absorb all sorts of traits you're bumping into people who are bricklayers, plasterers, pipe benders, plumbers. And if you're interested in making things, it leaves its mark. You get interested in how a plumber bends a piece of pipe, and that sort of thing is still with me, I still love bending pipes."
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Jason’s TV career kicked off all the way back in 1964 in Crossroads. He went on to appear in all kinds of comedy series, kids’ TV shows, stage shows and radio comedies before eventually landing Only Fools and Horses.
LADbible has contacted the BBC for comment.