The deerstalker-wearing detective originally died in a cliff top fight with arch enemy Professor Moriarty. Read our full mailing list consent terms here. Anthony wrote “The Bible” for it and he realized, “John Thaw always looked much older than his age. The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium. But Lewis, or rather the actor Kevin Whately, was absent. But the nurse does not hear him properly. CHIEF INSPECTOR Morse was killed off yesterday. Mr. Thaw announced in June that he had cancer but that he intended to continue acting. Thaw is Morse. The elegiac two-hour finale, starring John Thaw, is the last we'll see of the unforgettable, dyspeptic chief inspector of the Thames Valley Police. Thanks to Thaw and Dexter and executive producer Ted Childs, Morse ranks in that pantheon of memorable, fully and artfully fleshed creations. Manchester-born John Thaw played many roles during his TV career. Please be respectful when making a comment and adhere to our Community Guidelines. A married woman drawn to kinky, promiscuous sex is found murdered, handcuffed to her bed. At yesterday's press conference in London, Lewis was yet again not there to hear what was being said. There's a good chance he's playing a Wagner or Mozart tape en route to a crime scene in his beloved cherry-red Jaguar. He dies after refusing to take his medicine, thereby concealing the identity of the murderer in his final mystery. Mired in work and settled bachelorhood, Morse has never married, and his love life is spotty at best. https://dianecapri.com/2012/05/remembering-john-thaw-and-inspector-morse Mr. Thaw's death occurred almost exactly a year after that of his character in the final episode of ''Inspector Morse'' broadcast in the United States. Just take Thursday night's "The Remorseful Day: The Inspector Morse Finale." Unforgettable was not big on BBC Four-style cultural analysis but it made a good go of swiftly sussing The Sweeney ’s appeal, and arguing that Life on Mars owed it everything. That, says his widow, is exactly why she wrote The Two Of Us: My Life with John Thaw (Allen & Unwin). John Edward Thaw, CBE (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor who appeared in a range of television, stage, and cinema roles. The late John Thaw played the legendary Inspector Morse for 13 years, and without him there would be no Endeavour, the prequel series about the Oxford detective’s early days. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more. 11). Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? It will star a relative unknown, Shaun Evans, in the role last played by the late John Thaw. Art mirrors life. Varney ended his days by throwing himself into Mount Vesuvius, because like the author, he was bored. I would not make any more films about Morse after his death.". The great sub-theme of "Inspector Morse" is the corrupt underbelly of the university, a reservoir of suave, tweedy, and odiously dangerous and hypocritical characters. He had a younger brother called Ray. The drama will be called Endeavour , a reference to Morse's first name. On the back of the tv-series and the popularity of the John Thaw version of Morse, Colin Dexter made the retrograde step to make the Thaw-Morse canon. To see him playing other roles or being himself in the hourlong documentary airing just before the final episode -- "The Last Morse," about the making of the finale -- is to see a mock Morse, a provisional man whose only purpose or completion is to be the grouchy and all too messily and likably human inspector. Mr Rymer wrote the serial, The Feast of Blood, which was over a million words long, between 1845 and 1847. He subsequently ret-conned the question of car, Morses appearance, Lewis’ age, and so on, to let the books follow the tv-series. He's pulled toward a kind of melancholy loneliness, fitting for a virtuous knight-errant. At least 106 people shot, 14 fatally, in Chicago weekend violence, Watch live: Gov. Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. "It is a great pity that the old chap's got to go. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Again the two appeared to merge. {{#verifyErrors}} {{message}} {{/verifyErrors}} {{^verifyErrors}} {{message}} {{/verifyErrors}}, Art mirrors life, as Inspector Morse is finally defeated by drinking, You may not agree with our views, or other users’, but please respond to them respectfully, Swearing, personal abuse, racism, sexism, homophobia and other discriminatory or inciteful language is not acceptable, Do not impersonate other users or reveal private information about third parties, We reserve the right to delete inappropriate posts and ban offending users without notification. The Dutch detective who worked in Amsterdam was the basis for a 1970's television series and was killed off by author Nicolas Freeling, a cook married to a Dutch woman. The untimely death of John Thaw from cancer in February 2002 not only left a big hole in the legacy of British television, but also in the lives of his many long-time fans. You are transported directly and without distraction into Morse's vividly detailed world of murder, police politics, and Oxford University tradition. Morse fans will find in the last book that their hero appears reluctant to reopen an unsolved murder case, which may lead them to the conclusion he is implicated in the death in some way. I have a lot of trouble with my diabetes, which is not helped by my one vice. Endeavour Morse, ITV’s longest-serving detective, celebrated his 30th anniversary last week. Dexter has diabetes and said yesterday: "I was up all night eating cereal and sugar. But none of them is more rueful than the finale, in which Morse sometimes seems vague and vaguely defeated by changing police procedures, years of beers, and a gnawing sense of the emotional vacuum of his unmarried independence. I drink far too much alcohol.". . He lost the scholarship as the result of poor academic performance, which in turn resulted from a failed love affair (mentioned in the series at the end of \"The Last Enemy\") and recounted in detail in the novel The Riddle of the Third Mile, chapter 7. It's just the kind of transporting and civilized entertainment Morse himself might enjoy, single malt or pint of bitter in hand . And here is the irony, or paradox, of Morse's popular and critical success. I am sorry to say that, whereas John Thaw was such a screen presence, the actor who plays Endeavour is, for me, utterly without any. However, Holmes returned in The Adventure of the Empty House, explaining to Dr Watson that he had beaten Moriarty by wrestling him over the edge of the falls. High on the list, of course, is the perfectly tailored fit of actor to character, a combo that has created an illusion almost more real than life itself. John Thaw limps on his left leg, Inspector Morse on his right. "I don't want people to think he was Morse. He died at 61 and he always looked 80,” he said, “from the the minute he left RADA.” Lewis, ITV's long-running Morse spin-off, is effectively cancelled after UK series nine. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. I found Morse to be a superb series with a wonderful array of that older generation of actors. Other, related killings follow, prompting multiple, overlapping investigations. "I'm naturally saddened," he said, "to take leave of the melancholy, sensitive, vulnerable, independent, ungracious, mean-pocketed Morse. He dies of complications from diabetes, exacerbated by too much alcohol. They went out at the top by all accounts. It requires a patient regard for the subtlest mute expressions, for equally imaginative directorial attention to untalking heads as to the unhurried unfolding of dialogue. The Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie and famous for his "little grey cells". "But if Colin Dexter says Morse is dead, that is good enough for me. The closing scene is a doctor telling him that's he's patched it up, but that he may develop a minor limp in middle age. While neither gritty nor flashily contemporary, the series has a finely detailed sense of reality and a human pulse and depth that few movies, and fewer TV shows, ever achieve. Following a career of near-misses that often had the hearts of classic car lovers in their mouths, the Inspector Morse Jaguar mark 2 used in … Please continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates. "Morse" addicts know what I mean. Leaving behind a troubled family life, he shot to fame in The Sweeney and went on to create the best-loved detective of modern times. But, in chapter 74 of The Remorseful Day, Morse falls into a diabetic coma at home. Christie wrote the book, Curtain, during the Second World War because she was afraid that she might die, but her publishers persuaded her to place it in a bank vault. What fine acting. John Thaw as Detective Chief Inspector Morse. No doubt, there are other ways to do it, but this modified Method works wonders for Thaw-Morse. Episode to episode, the plots aren't the most suspenseful or artfully fashioned mysteries on TV or movie screens.