Trivia

His son, Jim Sullivan has joined him as a comedy writer.

When he wrote the Only Fools and Horses (1981) episode Strained Relations that dealt with Grandad's death, it was a watershed episode because it was the first time a sitcom had ever directly tackled the topic of death, which had always been a touchy subject for sitcoms in the past. But he didn't want Lennard's Pearce's death to go unacknowledged by the BBC.

On November 24th, 1986 Only Fools and Horses (1981) was honored with a slot at the Royal Variety Performance, something that excited the whole crew; David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Sullivan thought about either re-doing a bit from an old script, or from the current one, A Royal Flush, which was filming on the Dorset Coast, that year's Christmas special. Sullivan opted for something new, a four-minute sketch Jason described as really neat. Del Boy, Rodney and Uncle Albert have a consignment of knock-off whiskey bottles, and mixed up meeting at a nightclub with the stage of the Theatre Royal, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Jason, Lyndhurst and Buster Merryfield rehearsed it to within an inch of their lives. It was a scene they didn't want to screw up. The tight schedule forced them to drive up from Dorset on the day of the show. There were so many acts at the Royal Variety that the dressing rooms of the Theatre Royal couldn't house them. Watching the other acts from CCTV in their dressing room, they were the only ones doing something original, something that made them very nervous. They needn't have worried; the show was a success. Jason said it was a lovely interlude.

Before the sixth series of Only Fools and Horses (1981), David Jason was annoyed about something and went to see Sullivan. Sullivan was writing terrific scripts that were too long and had to be edited down to 30 minutes. Jason felt they were cutting more funny material than most sitcoms manage in a full episode. One edit that had particularly vexed Jason was during the Series 5 episode Tea For Three. After Del Boy returned from a disastrous hang-gliding session, he originally had a speech Jason described as "beautifully constructed, full of suppressed rage" about all of the places Del had visited. Jason considered it a comic masterpiece, but because the episode had overrun, half the speech got cut. Sullivan agreed with Jason that the episodes needed to be longer. Jason and Sullivan approached Gareth Gwenlan while he was producing Series 6 with the plan to extend the episodes from 30 to 50 minutes. Gwenlan didn't think that was possible since sitcoms were traditionally 30 minutes in length, and couldn't sustain a longer running time. Jason said that would be true of an average writer, but not one of Sullivan's caliber. And yet they still keep cutting great material. Gwenlan than okayed the idea.

He felt David Jason was wrong for the part of Del Boy; he envisioned Del a winner, whereas Jason was known for playing life's losers, but later changed his mind after the read-through for the pilot episode. The BBC also felt Jason was wrong because he and Nicholas Lyndhurst looked nothing alike; Sullivan disagreed. Del needed to be shorter to remove any sense of physical intimidation between the brothers, and to imply the suspected illegitimacy of the Trotters.

Sullivan and Gareth Gwenlan approached David Jason in 2011 with Del Boy coming back at 65 and what had become of everyone from Only Fools and Horses (1981). Jason was up for it because anything was possible in Sullivan's hands. But two weeks later, Gwenlan phoned Jason saying Sullivan was in intensive care with viral pneumonia. He seemed on the mend, and got to leave hospital and go home at one point, but he had a relapse and went back to hospital and died not long after.

He was awarded the O.B.E. (Officer of the order of the British Empire) in the 2005 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to Drama.

He left school at the age of fifteen with no qualifications.

Derived Del Boy's catchphrase in Only Fools and Horses (1981) "Lovely Jubbly" from "Lubbly Jubbly", a pyramid carton of frozen orange juice.

Attended David Jason's 50th birthday party; he parked his car in a neighboring drive so as not to spoil the surprise. Jason said it was a lovely, high-spirited evening, and the nicest of surprises. But he wasn't surprised though, because all the lights were off upon his arrival - something his wife never did.

David Jason said "Sullivan's death came too soon. His loss devastated us all. I could only meet his death with disbelief. You can't believe you're never going to see that person again, that they're just gone. It's the most difficult thing in the world".

David Jason described Sullivan's writing as "classic and clever. Sullivan was a traditionalist, in a way: he made the characters do the work and they didn't need to resort to extremities of language or action. Yet there was such tremendous light and shade. Only Fools has a death, it has a miscarriage, it had a birth...the more John saw how we worked together, the more he felt he could push into areas where comedy didn't ever go. It was great, honest stuff and it touched people's lives. We had most of the nation behind us, really, when we properly got going".

His father, John, Sr., was a plumber and his mother, Hilda, occasionally worked as a charwoman.

Discovered writing through an English teacher named Jim Trowers who sparked an interest in the works of Charles Dickens.

When Sullivan wanted to write a second trilogy for Only Fools and Horses (1981) after making the Trotters millionaires, David Jason acknowledged that the critics felt it was wrong to go back to it - that the bow so neatly tied in 1996 was now undone again. But the public wanted more, and so did the BBC, and since Sullivan was writing it, everyone felt obligated to return.

After the Only Fools and Horses (1981) episode Fatal Extraction, many people assumed that was the end of the show because there was a three-year gap until the next episode, but Sullivan was keen on tying up the loose ends by making the Trotters millionaires.

Wrote Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses (1981) with Buster Merryfield in mind to play him.

When Sullivan wrote the Only Fools and Horses (1981) scene where Del Boy falls through an open bar flap, it derived from Sullivan watching the exact same thing happen to a man in a wine bar, except he grabbed onto the fixed part of the bar so he didn't fall right over. Sullivan thought it funny for the man's body language, trying to recover his cool. Sullivan wanted a slip, stumble and a tree like fall; David Jason thought Del should go all the way over - start to go sideways, and than go over without looking in the direction of the fall, which Jason thought was the key to the scene. There was a hidden crash mat, but it was a hard shot to get because it was hard not to look where Jason was falling; Jason had done a number of falls in the theatre so that came in handy.

Worked a variety of low-paid jobs for fifteen years before finding success as a screenwriter.

David Jason described Sullivan as someone who had a warm personality and was extremely easy to like. But he was surprised when he first met him after reading his script for the pilot episode of Only Fools and Horses (1981). Sullivan was very quiet, even morose, and not at all like the script he'd written, which was bright and full of life. As it turns out, Sullivan wasn't morose, but he was worried, since they hadn't found an actor to play Del Boy. Director Ray Butt felt they had, with Jason, but Sullivan disagreed, which only increased Jason's determination to win the role. He didn't think he'd get the part, like he missed out on Dad's Army (1968), but Ray Butt asked him to read again with Nicholas Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce, who were cast already. He described the first read-through like "when the three of us began to put our voices to the lines, the magic was in the room. All the component parts just fitted. The whole thing was sounding like it had been written for us. When we reached the end of our read, silence fell on the room." Then Jason was hired.

During the episode of Only Fools and Horses (1981) when Raquel gives birth to Damien, her words were taken from Sullivan's wife when she was in labor. Neither Tessa Peake-Jones nor David Jason were parents at that time so to make the scene realistic, they took advice from midwives at the West Middlesex Hospital while filming the scene.

After his death, Sullivan's wealth was valued at just under 8.5 million pounds.

He is based in Surrey, England. (January 2007)

The BBC felt his title Only Fools and Horses (1981) was too obscure and should be changed.

When David Jason was knighted in 2005, Sullivan attended the after party for fifty people, but Nicholas Lyndhurst couldn't attend; Jason took the opportunity to announce his second wedding, to rapturous applause and table thumping.