biography
| name: |
Mortimer, Sir John (Clifford)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1923– )
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| biography:
| Playwright, novelist, and barrister, born in London, UK. He studied at Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1948, and became a QC in 1966, participating in several celebrated civil cases. He came to public prominence as a dramatist with his one-act play The Dock Brief (1957). An autobiographical play, A Voyage Round My Father (1970), was filmed for television in 1982. He has made notable translations, especially of Feydeau, and written several TV screenplays, including I, Claudius (1976) and Brideshead Revisited (1981). His series of novels featuring the disreputable barrister, Horace Rumpole, were adapted for television as Rumpole of the Bailey, and won him the British television writer of the year award in 1980. His other novels include Paradise Postponed (1985), Summer's Lease (1988), Under the Hammer (1994), and Summer of a Dormouse (1999). He was married to novelist Penelope Mortimer (1918–99) from 1949 to 1972. A volume of autobiography, Clinging to the Wreckage, appeared in 1982. He was knighted in 1998. |
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