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DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 3, No. 14 |
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 John Thaw in his most famous role: Inspector Morse |
John Thaw died just a year
after Chief Inspector Morse
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Just a year ago, we all watched with tears in our eyes as John Thaw played one of the toughest scenes he'd ever played on the screen: The death of Chief Inspector Morse, one of the most beloved mystery characters in America, England and throughout the mystery-loving world.
Now we have an even sadder event to bring fresh tears: The death of actor Thaw, who passed away Thursday, Feb. 21, of esophageal cancer at age 60.
If
ever an actor defined a literary character for the screen and
made it his own, it was John Thaw, who will always be Morse to
the millions who loved the character created by author Colin
Dexter. Even Dexter was comfortable with the fact that most of
us will remember Morse as a white-haired man of middle age who
limped slightly--even though that isn't the Morse that Dexter
first put on paper.
Last year Thaw acknowledged his close working relationship with
Dexter and said what many of us had been thinking over the past
few years: "His descriptions
of the character in the later books are actually descriptions
of me."
In fact, I have a good idea that Dexter and Thaw conferred a good deal about the wisdom of letting Morse die in "The Remorseful Day," which effectively ended the series of Dexter novels about Morse last year--as well as the longest-running detective series in the 22-year history of PBS' "Mystery!" Both Dexter and Thaw wanted Morse to go out at the top of his popularity--and that's exactly what happened.
In America, it's common for an actor to become deeply invested in a long-running television character--often so much so that the actor begins to call the shots by demanding producer status during contract negotiations. This is very uncommon in British television, although Thaw did become one of the executive producers of the "Inspector Morse" series during its last few years.
It's also common for television actors to impose their own familiar personalities on the framework of the character they play, eventually absorbing the character with their own personas. That definitely didn't happen with Thaw and Morse. Thaw was too versatile an actor to let that happen. He WAS Morse, all right, but only when he was doing a Morse television show.
For instance, Thaw was totally free of any traces of Morse when he began a second series--"Kavanagh, Q.C."--while still playing Morse. If Kavanagh, the high profile British lawyer, occasionally became cranky--as most of us do from time to time--it was a distinctly different brand of crankiness from the surly bachelor variety that was Morse's specialty.
Still more radically different John Thaws were on display in some of his other roles during the history of "Mystery!" The one I most love showing people just to get their stupefied reactions is the one-legged old tosspot Thaw played in "The Sign of Four" opposite Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.
If you ever had the chance to meet Thaw, you immediately recognized him as being his own man, quite distinct from Morse. The first thing you would notice is the absence of Morse's very precise Oxford manner of speech. When not on camera, Thaw reverted to the speaking rhythms of his native Manchester district. He also was a great deal more genial than Morse ever was on his best days.
Thaw always thought it a sort of compliment when people told him what a perfect fit he had made of Morse. He knew that was a testament to his acting ability. In fact, Thaw once told me he didn't even care for Morse when the part was first proposed to him.
"I
don't really like this guy," was the reaction he remembered.
That troubled him because Thaw believed you had to relate a character
to yourself in order to play him convincingly.
But then he started looking at the subtle changes made in the
scripted Morse as compared to the Morse on the book pages--and
began to find places where he could make a connection after all.
"I began to have little indications that this was right for me," he told me in 1985. "The very first thing was the music. I love music. I often listen to music while I'm learning my lines. I thought that was a pretty good indication of what kind of guy Morse was. So, I asked myself what it was about me--and therefore Morse, too--that finds solace in music. That became the key to his character for me."
At the time of his death, Thaw was one of England's most popular television stars. He had first starred in a TV series--"Redcap"--at 23 and became a hot property with his second series, playing the leading role in "The Sweeney," in which he played another cop, Steely Jack Regan. That ran for 55 episodes--an enormous number in England, where most series runs are quite short.
"Inspector Morse" ran for 64 episodes over 13 years--from "The Dead of Jericho" in 1988 through last year's "The Remorseful Day."
Thaw
was happy that he'd been allowed to warm the Morse character
up over the years and make him somebody we might shed a tear
over when he finally shuffled off this mortal coil.
"He has gotten more
sensitive than in the very early episodes," Thaw said in
a 2001 press release from the "Mystery!" series. "I
think the series has gotten more elegiac, both in the style in
which it is shot and in the way it is written and performed."
Thaw had several favorite episodes, but was especially partial to "Promised Land," which was filmed in Australia--one of several episodes Thaw himself had urged they shoot abroad in order to vary the setting of the series, which normally took place in England's Thames Valley and Oxford.
"(It) finishes with Morse walking up the steps of the Sydney Opera House to the strains of Der Rosenkavalier, the Strauss opera. I thought that was very touching," Thaw said.
(That episode was directed by John Madden, whose feature film, "Shakespeare in Love," won the Best Picture Oscar years later. Another "Inspector Morse" veteran, writer Anthony Minghella, also made an Oscar-winning Best Picture, "The English Patient," after leaving the series.)
It has been a hallmark of the "Mystery!" series that the actors who have played the series' most popular detectives have been so superb that it's difficult to ever imagine anyone else playing the part. That certainly could be said of Leo McKern's Horace Rumpole, Joan Hickson's Jane Marple, Helen Mirren's Jane Tennison, Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, David Suchet's Hercule Poirot and, most notably, John Thaw's Chief Inspector Morse.
As sad as we are to lose this fine actor at such an early age, we can take some comfort in knowing that his legacy will remain for us to enjoy over and over again for years to come.
© 2002 by Ron Miller.
The Ron Miller caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo
of John Thaw is courtesy of WGBH and "Mystery!"
Ron
Miller is the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the
official companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series,
and is currently under contract to WGBH, the PBS station that
produces the series, to write his "Case Book" column
for the offical "Mystery!" website.
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