John Mortimer has had an unusually wide range of parallel careers. A successful career at the bar was initially accompanied by his emergence as a novelist. Briefly associated by critics as a part of the "new wave" that included writers such as Harold Pinter in the late 1950s, he was expected by some to become a major force as a writer for the stage. Although many of his stage plays have merited revival, he has become best known as a writer for television--particularly as the creator of the lovable, eccentric lawyer Rumpole of the Bailey. Through his career he has concentrated on what he finds most fascinating, the comic examination of the idiosyncracies and foibles of humankind.

John Clifford Mortimer was born on 21 April 1923. The only child of barrister Clifford Mortimer and his wife, Kathleen, he received an upbringing that equipped him not only for what he described...