Clifford's loss of sight was not acknowledged openly by the family.
- El canto del cuco (Spanish Edition)!
- I am Anonymous.
- Product details!
- The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make: A Complete and Thorough Understanding of What it Means to be Born Again.
- Catalog Record: Sir Mortimer a novel | Hathi Trust Digital Library.
At seventeen, he went up to Brasenose College, Oxford , where he read law, though he was actually based at Christ Church because the Brasenose buildings had been requisitioned for the war effort. With weak eyes and doubtful lungs, Mortimer was classified as medically unfit for military service in World War II. I lived in London and went on journeys in blacked-out trains to factories and coal-mines and military and air force installations. For the first and, in fact, the only time in my life I was, thanks to Laurie Lee, earning my living entirely as a writer. If I have knocked the documentary ideal, I would not wish to sound ungrateful to the Crown Film Unit.
Sir John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey
I was given great and welcome opportunities to write dialogue, construct scenes and try and turn ideas into some kind of visual drama. He based his first novel, Charade , on his experiences with the Crown Film Unit. But he made his debut as an original playwright with The Dock Brief starring Michael Hordern as a hapless barrister , first broadcast in on BBC Radio 's Third Programme , later televised with the same cast and subsequently presented in a double bill with What Shall We Tell Caroline?
It was revived by Christopher Morahan in as part of a touring double bill, Legal Fictions. His play A Voyage Round My Father , given its first radio broadcast in , is autobiographical, recounting his experiences as a young barrister and his relationship with his blind father. In a slightly longer version the play later became a stage success first at Greenwich Theatre in with Dignam, then a year later at the Theatre Royal Haymarket , now starring Alec Guinness.
In , he and his wife wrote the screenplay for the Otto Preminger film Bunny Lake is Missing , which also starred Olivier.
Keep Exploring Britannica
Mortimer was called to the Bar Inner Temple in , at the age of His early career consisted of testamentary and divorce work, but on taking silk in , he began to undertake work in criminal law. He has sometimes been cited as a member in the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial defence team, though this is inaccurate. Mortimer was also defence counsel at the Oz conspiracy trial later in Lemon for the publication of James Kirkup 's " The Love that Dares to Speak its Name " against charges of blasphemous libel ; Lemon was convicted with a suspended prison sentence, later overturned on appeal.
Mortimer retired from the bar in Mortimer is best remembered for creating a barrister named Horace Rumpole , inspired by his father Clifford, [16] whose speciality is defending those accused of crime in London's Old Bailey.
Sir Mortimer by Mary Johnston
Although not Mortimer's first choice of actor in an interview on the DVD set, he said he wanted Alistair Sim -- "but he was dead" , Leo McKern played the character with gusto and proved popular; accordingly, the idea was developed into a series, Rumpole of the Bailey , for Thames Television in which McKern again took the lead role. A Tale of Colonial Virginia. The Goddess of Reason: A Drama in Five Acts. Works of Mary Johnston. The Fortunes of Garin. How to write a great review.
The review must be at least 50 characters long. The title should be at least 4 characters long. Your display name should be at least 2 characters long.
At Kobo, we try to ensure that published reviews do not contain rude or profane language, spoilers, or any of our reviewer's personal information. You submitted the following rating and review.
We'll publish them on our site once we've reviewed them. Item s unavailable for purchase. Please review your cart. You can remove the unavailable item s now or we'll automatically remove it at Checkout. Continue shopping Checkout Continue shopping. Chi ama i libri sceglie Kobo e inMondadori. A Novel by Mary Johnston. Buy the eBook Price: Available in Russia Shop from Russia to buy this item. Or, get it for Kobo Super Points! Ratings and Reviews 0 0 star ratings 0 reviews. Overall rating No ratings yet 0. How to write a great review Do Say what you liked best and least Describe the author's style Explain the rating you gave Don't Use rude and profane language Include any personal information Mention spoilers or the book's price Recap the plot.
Close Report a review At Kobo, we try to ensure that published reviews do not contain rude or profane language, spoilers, or any of our reviewer's personal information. Would you like us to take another look at this review? No, cancel Yes, report it Thanks! This was not, one feels, an attitude shared by Penelope.
Theirs was, in fact, a remarkable marriage, although its final stages were somewhat bitterly reflected by Penelope in her novel The Home John, typically, celebrated more of the fun and laughter in his play Collaborators , in which the couple metamorphosed into characters played by Glenda Jackson and John Wood. By this time, John was a successful silk - he had become QC in - having reinvented himself as an advocate in murder trials.
He found a macabre fascination in the pattern of bloodstains, and acquired a singular ability to charm expert prosecution witnesses out of their preconceptions. He was the greatest cross-examiner of such experts "the art of cross-examination is not to examine crossly" and many alleged murderers owed their liberty to his ability to draw out a doubt in the apparently closed mind. But nothing in the training of the English bar and bench had equipped it for the underground press, and when, in , a largely unreadable magazine called Oz published a cartoon strip featuring Rupert Bear with an erection, its editors were treated as if they had committed treason.
QCs, their cab-rank principles forgotten, fled from the proffered defence brief. A few days before the trial — for conspiracy to corrupt public morals, an offence carrying a maximum of life imprisonment — Richard Neville and I showed John the offending publication while he was lunching a young woman, also named Penelope.
We begged him to take the case. Thus began his second life, as defender of the apparently indefensible, as creator of Rumpole and much else besides, and, from , following his divorce, as husband of Penelope Gollop, Penny the second, and father of Emily and Rosie. His first wife died in Two autobiographies, Clinging to the Wreckage and Murderers and Other Friends speak of a life anchored in family, yet lived in a daily dramatic jumble of court cases, plays and television series, sharply observing the vanities of the world through the blur of diminishing eyesight.
John retired from the bar in Rumpole was the barrister he wanted to be, but wasn't. He was too nervous — petrified before a big case, and diffident about his own abilities. However, his final speeches, meticulously handwritten, were minor works of literature. Almost alone at the bar, he could laugh a case out of court had he stayed, he would have made a fortune in libel defences.
Special offers and product promotions
His forensic contribution to the Oz case was effectively to end censorship for the written word, first for literature, by arguing the appeal which freed Last Exit to Brooklyn the novel by American author Hubert Selby Jr that was prosecuted under obscenity laws for its treatment of sex, drugs and violence , then by persuading the jury to reject the moral corruption charge, and going on to demolish, at the appeal, Judge Michael Argyle's directions on obscenity. Of course pornography corrupted — starting with the policemen charged with enforcing the laws against it, many of whom were later jailed for taking bribes.
John put on his wig and took off his glasses, so he could not see some of the trash he was called upon to defend with a success that drew rage from Mary Whitehouse and an extravagant attack from the Times, which claimed that no jury was immune to his charm. The Williams committee on obscenity, reporting in , agreed with Kenneth Tynan in crediting John with achieving a de facto freedom for the written word by his victorious defence of Inside Linda Lovelace , a shabby little book that would have gone unnoticed had the DPP's office not decided to dignify it with a prosecution, after which it sold a million copies.
From dawn each day John would be at work on his supreme creation, Rumpole of the Bailey. Horace Rumpole had, like all great fictional characters, been composed from fragments of the real people John had worked with, his father, and James Burge a mercurial Old Bailey junior who never quite recovered from the professional consequences of defending Stephen Ward during the Profumo scandal in and Jeremy Hutchinson, a mighty defence silk married at the time to Peggy Ashcroft.
In the hands of Leo McKern and Thames Television from to after an initial appearance on the BBC in , and in novels that continued till , Rumpole achieved international acclaim. There are Rumpole societies of lawyers basking undeservedly in his popularity from Los Angeles to Perth. Rumpole is, perhaps, the first truly Dickensian character to emerge from the medium of television. There remains one great virtue about him - his independence - along with much that has, for good reason, passed away.