Harvey Jason

Popular stage, film and TV actor Harvey Jason was born on Leap Year's Day, 1940 in London, England. From childhood he aspired to a career as an actor. His efforts, and his substantial talent, paid off. At 19 he was in New York, ready to go. A year later, he was appearing in Joseph Papp's prestigious Shakespeare in the Park.

Other shows followed: off-Broadway, national tours, Broadway: A Taste of Honey, Hostile Witness with Ray Milland, Marat/Sade and others, his reviews always excellent. With the late Peter Cook and the fames satirical revue, The Establishment, he toured the U.S and Canada. Jason's incredible facility with dialects, his ability to do with total authenticity, any accent imaginable, made him a truly sought after actor. Soon he was film and TV.

Oscar-winning director Robert Wise brought him out to California for the Julie Andrews film, Star. Then it was non-stop work. Guest star roles on TV, one after the other; a season with James Whitmore in My friend Tony: a season on the famed Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, co-starring with Bruce Boxleitner on the series run of Bring 'Em Back Alive - show after show. Jason became a national favorite as Harry Zeff in the hugely successful all-star NBC mini-series Captains and the Kings. Movies to: With Michael Caine in Robert Aldrich's in Too Late the Hero, Lost in the Stars, Save the Tiger with Jack Lemmon, Stanley Kramer's Oklahoma Crude with George C. Scott, the zany Lapchik in Gumball Rally, Air America, then as Ajay Sidhu, one of the stars in Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Yet it was in Necromancy, starring Orson Wells and Pamela Franklin, that he met Pamela, the woman who would become his wife. They have been married since 1970 and have two sons, Joshua and Louis.

Jason retired for acting in 1997 to open, with his son Louis, the famed exclusively First Edition collectible literature bookshop, Mystery Pier Books, called One of the Most Important First Edition Bookshops in the U.S.