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Obituary: John Thaw, TV's Inspector Morse

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

John Thaw the actor, died on 21 February aged 60. He had been suffering from cancer of the oesophagus inducing by a lifetime of heavy smoking. "John died with his family around him," his wife, the actress Sheila Hancock, said in a in a statement. She had given up work to care for her husband in in last months following his unsuccessful chemotherapy treatment.

John Thaw, who came from a working class family in Manchester, made his debut as an actor in 1960 at the Liverpool Playhouse after studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He became internationally known, with something of a cult following as the idiosyncratic 'Inspector Morse' in the long running TV series set among the dreaming spires of Oxford. He built a depth of character into his playing of the emotionally flawed fictional detective rivaling that of Sir Alec Guinness's portrayals of John le Carre's MI5 spycatcher Smiley in an earlier era.

The British tabloid describes John Thaw as to "the ultimate TV tec" in their tribute to his memory; a view endorsed by other papers. The Times broadsheet described 'Inspector Morse' as the "capstone of his career", which stretched over three decades of TV drama.

He quickly came to prominence in the criminal TV drama series of the 1970s, The Sweeney, as the flying squad detective Jack Regan, commanding a large and dedicated audience to the series. From then on he was in constant demand as one of television's most popular and highly paid British actors.

It will be as the opera loving Inspector Morse who could never quite cement a successful lasting relationship with women that John Thaw will be best and lastingly remembered. The series, based on Colin Dexter's novels, became ITV's most popular crime drama slot and repeats are regularly shown both sides of the Atlantic.

John Thaw played his Inspector Morse character to a terminal end in the last episode of the series which was watched by 13 million people. He is shown dying of a heart attack in the quadrangle of Brazenose, one of the medieval Oxford University Colleges which were the picturesque backdrop to the filming of all Inspector Morse episodes. It was a prescient finale. Joe Joseph, writing in The Times recalls the interview when the actor was asked if he would continue playing older and older characters after the demise of Morse. "I'll be dead," he replied, tapping a packet of cigarettes. "I smoke too many of these."

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