Biography
Sir John Mortimer was an English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. Born in Hampstead, London, he was educated at Harrow and Brasenose College, Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1948. He began writing during the Second World War, producing scripts for the Crown Film Unit, and later combined a legal career with prolific work for theatre, film, television and radio.
Mortimer is credited with the screenplay for the 1981 Granada Television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Other screen credits include Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), The Running Man (1963) and Tea with Mussolini (1999). He created the long-running television series Rumpole of the Bailey and wrote the autobiographical play A Voyage Round My Father (1970). He received a CBE in 1986 and was knighted in 1998.
