Author John Mortimer Dead At 85

Created Rumpole of the Bailey

By: Mark Favermann - Jan 16, 2009

John Mortimer, the highly admired British barrister, author, playwright and screenwriter died on January 16, 2009. He was 85 and though still writing and making public appearances had been in frail, wheelchair-bound condition for several years. Perhaps best known for screenwriting the outstanding 1981 hit PBS series "Brideshead Revisted, " adapted from a novel by Evelyn Waugh and as the creator of the beloved, legal curmudgeon "Rumpole of the Bailey," John Mortimer is considered one of the greatest story-tellers of the last half century.

Educated at Oxford University, he was a prolific writer who started to write his novels and plays while a QC or Queen's Counsel. Mortimer had a distinguished career as an advocate for high profile civil liberties cases even defending Penguin Publishers, the publisher of D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" against obscenity charges in the 1960's. He also defended the radical magazine Oz in another obscenity trial as well as Gay News against a blasphemy charge. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 1998.

Mortimer's father was a brilliant lawyer as well who was well known for his divorce work. His father became blind during Mortimer's childhood, but his mother and father eccentrically acted as if nothing had happened. His mother would ride on the train to London with his father reading sometimes explicit case materials to him. John Mortimer wrote "A Voyage Around My Father," a play inspired by his relationship with his father. The drama was filmed with Alan Bates and Lord Laurence Olivier in the primary two roles.

His legal and literary career spanned six decades. Beginning with a novel in 1947, Mortimer wrote a series of plays and radio dramas in the 1950's while practicing law. He would write in the early morning before heading off to court. His legal work took on everything from divorce cases to murders. He preferred murders as he felt that the hatred in divorce cases was overwhelming while murderers were usually at peace. He later wrote screenplays for film and television.

Other novels by Mortimer included the "Titmuss" trilogy about the rise and fall of an overly reaching Thatcherite politician. But his most enduring and popular creation was "Rumpole of the Bailey." Named for the eccentric writer/historian/politician Horace Walpole and the U.K. term "rum" which means out of the ordinary, Almost a Dickens character, Rumpole was the epitome of the legal character at the Inns of Court in London. Rumpole would take on any case, and after most often surprising twists and turns with parallel stories in his legal chambers, usually would be triumphant.

With passion for the underdog and disdain fior the establishment, Horace Rumpole had great passion for his small cigars, his "plonk" Chateau Thames Embankment that he would imbibe at his local lawyers' watering hole Pomeroy's Wine Bar, love of Wordsworth ( the Lion of the Lake District), and appearing at the Old Bailey ( London's central criminal court). Rumpole appreciated the small pleasures in life. 

Even with his wife Hilda (She who must be obeyed) and others continually urging him, he fought desperately to not become a Queen's Counsel or QC or a Circuit Judge. He referred to the QC as a Queer Customer and the Circuit judgeship as a Circus Judge. Rumpole was rotund, a bit unkempt (with cigar ash on his Westcott), had a stentorian voice, lived with his often disapproving wife at their mansion flat and was brilliantly personified by the great Australian/British character actor Leo McKern (1920-2002). McKern was so great that when one read the Rumpole series of books, the voice of the narrative and the character were McKern's   Horace Rumpole.

I heard John Mortimer speak several times. He was irresistibly charming and a great raconteur. Once I was at a dinner with him at the Harvard Faculty Club. He was amusing, gracious and self-effacing. He autographed everyone's books. He like his writing was quite original. I always looked forward to seeing a new Rumpole book. The books came out generally a year ahead in England than in the US. Reading his Rumpole stories (many were in short story form) was always a pleasure. I never wanted them to end.

Mortimer's own views were eccentric. He was adamantly left wing politically, but he supported the monarchy and the fox hunt. He was skeptical of feminism but loved women. He was quoted as saying that he believed in every aspect of religion except God.

He had great one liners. He said that "there was no brilliance in the law--just common sense and relatively clean fingernails." Personally, he wanted to age disgracefully. To the end even rather infirm, he loved strong drink, social occasions and attractive women. In his Rumpole writings, he would refer to older gentlemen getting a vicarious pleasure out of learning that a contemporary was in worst health than they were. How true! His use of adjectives and descriptive sentences was precise and elegant. In fact, his use of language was about as good as it gets. John Mortimer was a great writer who made us think and smile.