David Jason: My Life by Jason David

Author:Jason, David [Jason, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781448164202
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-10-09T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

How not to make a movie. In bed with Elizabeth Taylor, but not Richard Burton. And various other adventures in the screen trade, not all of them entirely satisfying.

WE COME NOW to the portion of this narrative which must deal with my days in Hollywood – obviously an unforgettable period for me. The details are etched so vividly in my mind, it’s as though it were yesterday, although, I confess, at the time I was constantly pinching myself to check that it was really me.

Really me, arriving in the entertainment capital of the world! Really me, driving on Sunset Boulevard with the sky above an incredible blue and the sun glistening in the palm trees! Really me, passing in a state of almost childish wonder through the gates of Universal Studios and onto its famous movie backlot!

Ah, what a lovely week’s holiday that was. The summer of 1978, I believe. Linda Ronan, who handled this area for the Richard Stone Partnership, had got me a set of commercials for Cobb & Co., a pub-restaurant chain in New Zealand. The reason they wanted me was because of some physical antics I had got up to in a comedy series for ITV called The Secret Life of Edgar Briggs. The series had inspired a selection of scenarios for adverts in which I played a salesman for whom everything goes wrong and who creates chaos even as he is trying to make his pitch – a kind of anti-commercial, if you like. Anyway, among the perks of the job was a flexible air ticket, meaning that I could break my return journey anywhere I chose. I chose Los Angeles, where a great former girlfriend, who used to work in the bar at Gerry’s, was now living. She had succeeded in securing a job with a publishing house and had emigrated. She agreed to put me up and show me the sights, and we had a fabulous week before I headed back to London.

Those seven days of tourism, which included trips to a number of very good burger bars, represent, even now, the full extent of my experience of Hollywood. Not for want of trying, I should say. Or perhaps I should say, not for want of dreaming. If any actor tells you their idle contemplations haven’t turned longingly, at some point or other, to the prospect of a major American film deal, they’re almost certainly fibbing. Yet it may be significant that, when I was actually in Hollywood that time, I didn’t think about doing anything to make the dream become a reality. My agent, Richard, had a representative working in Los Angeles – his son, Tim. So, at Richard’s suggestion, Tim and I met for lunch one day. Tim booked somewhere buzzing and businessy on the Sunset Strip, or thereabouts – the kind of place where you could believe everyone was talking deals and projects. He was adamant that we should get a good table – by which he seemed to mean one in the middle of the room.

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