From the New York Times:
John Mortimer, barrister, author, playwright and creator of Horace Rumpole, the cunning defender of the British criminal classes, died Friday morning at his home in Oxfordshire, England, said his agent, Katherine Vile. He was 85 years old and had been ill for some time, Ms. Vile said.
....
But as a barrister in Britain, Sir John came to be known in the 1960s as a defender of free speech and human rights for taking up cases that he said were “alleged to be testing the frontiers of tolerance.” He became a Queen’s Counsel just in time to tackle some of the civil rights cases that arose in Britain in that decade, all the while writing fiction, non-fiction, drama and comedy.
....
His memoirs, including “Clinging to the Wreckage” (1982), “Murderers and Other Friends: Another Part of Life” (1994), drop dozens of names of the theater and movie people he spent time with. There are trays upon trays of cocktails in his stories, and interviews late in his life note the presence of what was described in one as a “comfortably large Guinness that he is drinking for his health even though it is still a long time until lunch.”
I've always longed to be "she who must be obeyed", like Hilda, Rumpole's wife, but alas! I never succeeded. Grandpère would not cooperate.
Mortimer was a gifted man who lived life with gusto.
