Sir David Jason wore a wig and dyed his hair for 'Open All Hours'.
Sir David Jason
The veteran actor was only in his mid-30s when he first played shop assistant Granville opposite Ronnie Barker's Arkwright in 1973, but he had started losing his hair and needed the help of makeup artists to cover up his balding bonce.
Writing in his book 'A Del of a Life', he said: "One day, all was thick and lustrous back there, the next I noticed my crown was privately auditioning for a role in a drama about monks.
"I’d been acting younger than my years when I played Granville in the first place. He was meant to be about 30, and I was 35.
“Thank heavens for the magic of showbusiness, where you are only ever really as old as the make-up department makes you look.
"There was nothing that couldn’t be lastingly remedied by the application of a small hairpiece and some dye.”
David - who reprised the role in 2013 for 'Still Open All Hours' - admitted he was covering up the bald patch for another three series, and "nobody was any the wiser", although things changed when he was in his 40s.
He added: "Not unlike my life insurance policy, my hair started to offer diminishing coverage as I reached my forties.
"‘Typical male-pattern baldness’ was the term for it – or, as I preferred to express it at the time: ‘Typical! Male-pattern baldness!’ "
The 80-year-old actor recently revealed he built a model railway in his garden during lockdown, including a steam train and a track to run it on.
He said: "A real steam engine, which is about six feet long. Then of course I had to build a track around my garden, which I did – I’ve got a big garden.
“The most exciting thing was once I'd built it, then I had to fire it up. It’s the journey, not the destination.
"You fill it up with water and you are thinking ‘Did I do that bolt up right?’, ‘Is that washer going to fit that?’ ”
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