John Mortimer
This article is about the writer. For the leader of the Kent rebellion, see Jack Cade.Sir John Clifford Mortimer CBE QC (born
21 April 1923) is an English
barrister turned prolific writer and
dramatist.
Educated at
Harrow School and
Brasenose College, Oxford, his oeuvre includes over fifty books, plays, and scripts. The play,
A Voyage Round My Father (
1971) is
autobiographical, recounting his experiences as a young barrister and his relationship with his blind father. He developed his career as a playwright by rising early to write before attending court.
Mortimer's most famous creation is a barrister named
Horace Rumpole, whose speciality is defending those accused of crime in London's redoubtable hall of justice, the
Old Bailey. Mortimer created Rumpole for "Rumpole of the Bailey", a
1975 contribution to the
Play For Today anthology series. Played with gusto by
Leo McKern, the character proved popular, and was developed into a
Rumpole of the Bailey television series for
Thames Television and a series of books (all written by Mortimer). In September – October
2003,
BBC Radio 4 broadcast four new 45-minute Rumpole dramatizations by Mortimer starring
Timothy West in the title role. Mortimer also dramatised many of the real-life cases of the barrister
Edward Marshall-Hall in a radio series starring ex-
Doctor Who star
Tom Baker.
John Mortimer was married to Penelope Fletcher, later better known as
Penelope Mortimer, in 1949 and had a son and a daughter by her. They divorced in 1971 and he married Penelope Gollop in 1972. They have two daughters. He has five children altogether,
Sally Silverman,
Jeremy Mortimer,
Ross Bentley,
Emily Mortimer and
Rosie Mortimer and lives with his second wife,
Penny Mortimer, in a village north of
Henley-on-Thames in
Buckinghamshire.
In August 2004, he learned that he had an additional child he had not known about when he met his son Ross Bentley, more than 40 years after a formerly secret affair with
Wendy Craig. The son had been brought up by Craig and her husband,
Jack Bentley, the show business writer and musician. In Mortimer's memoirs,
Clinging to the Wreckage, he wrote of "enjoying my mid-thirties and all the pleasures which come to a young writer."
* Rumpole of the Bailey (1978) ISBN 0140046704
* In Character (1984) ISBN 0140063897
* Clinging to the Wreckage (1984) ISBN 0140068600
* Summer's Lease(1988) ISBN 0140105735
* Quite Honestly (2006) ISBN 0670034835
*
John Mortimer biography*
1987 audio interview of John Mortimer by
Don Swaim
