Writer John Mortimer dies
Authour created Rumpole of the Bailey
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Mortimer combined a career as a lawyer with a large literary output that included dozens of screen and stage plays and radio dramas. His most famous creation was Horace Rumpole, a cigar-smoking, wine-loving barrister who appeared in a TV series and a string of novels and stories.
Mortimer qualified as a lawyer in the 1940s and worked as a barrister in the British courts.
A lifelong supporter of the Labour Party -- sometimes dubbed a champagne socialist by his critics -- Mortimer took up several high profile freedom of speech cases. He defended Penguin, the publisher of D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover," against obscenity charges in the 1960s.
His legal career took in everything from divorce cases to murders -- and he said he preferred the latter.
Mortimer combined legal and literary careers for years, writing early in the morning before heading off to court. He published his first novel in 1947 and produced a stream of plays and radio dramas from the 1950s.
His work included understated and poignant dramas such as "A Voyage Round My Father," a play inspired by his relationship with his own lawyer father that was filmed with Alan Bates and Laurence Olivier.
He wrote screenplays for film and television, including the 1981 television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited," one of the decade's biggest TV hits.
His novels included the "Titmuss" trilogy about the rise of an ambitious Thatcherite politician named Leslie Titmuss.
But his most popular creation by far was Rumpole, the barrister and bon vivant who would take on any case, and usually triumphed. Played on television by Leo McKern, Rumpole had a passion for the underdog, a love of poetry and a wife he referred to as "she who must be obeyed."
In a series of stories and shows beginning in the 1970s, Rumpole applied his motto -- "never plead guilty" -- to cases that touched on issues from fox hunting to alternative lifestyles, child abuse to devil worship.
A noted raconteur and wit, he was famous for his one-liners.
"No brilliance is required in law," he once said. "Just common sense and relatively clean fingernails."
Mortimer was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998.
He is survived by his wife Penelope and five children, including actress Emily Mortimer.
