Colin Dexter
As part of a special CBS.com series profiling mystery writers, CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason interviews Colin Dexter.
You are in midst of the oldest university in England, in the serene and scholarly city of Oxford. The college dons are headed to chapel. Across the quadrangle, a white-haired police inspector appears. You are in the middle of a scene. You are about to hear a murder. You see, the policeman is inspector Morse. And against this exquisite backdrop, something sinister is about to happen. Such grisly deeds have been all too common in Oxford...
DEXTER: ...and I am told that I have now murdered 73. 73 body bags in Oxford...
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...that is, since Colin Dexter created inspector Morse. An international television hit, inspector Morse is known to most through the face of actor John Thaw. That's fine with Dexter, a former classics teacher who created him and who is, by his own description, "short, bald, fat and deaf."
DEXTER: (speaking to an audience) Some of you are a little disappointed already aren't you? Especially the ladies, they're a bit disappointed. You thought I was going to be John Thaw, didn't you?
MASON: When the first Morse was filmed, were you at all reticent about having your work tampered with?
DEXTER: No.
Dexter rarely watched television. But he saw an opportunity.
MASON: In effect, you have to share your character with another creative talent.
DEXTER: Yes.
MASON: And you don't have a problem being charitable in that respect.
DEXTER: No, I don't. But I do think you put your finger on it. I think it's very much to do with who you get to play the part. And I think you can ruin it pretty easily can't you? And in that sense, as I say, I've been wonderfully lucky.
There are tour guides in Oxford now who'll show you where Dexter buried his bodies and tell you all about Morse, the man.
MASON: What has inspector Morse done to this town?
ROBERT GASSER: I think it's put us on the map. I think a lot of people now think that Oxford is a place interesting murders happen for inspector Morse to solve.
Robert Gasser is the college bursar.
MASON: ...and Oxford, the colleges, haven't viewed this as an intrusion?
GASSER: Not at all. It's one of the few light-hearted TV programs the dons will admit to watching
DEXTER: (to an audience) Seventy-three I've murdered, including 4 heads of colleges, one of whom was a pedophile. One of the surviving dons was on Radio Oxford last year and they asked him whether he thought too many dons were being murdered and he said 'no, dear boy, not half enough'. (laughter)
MASON: When did you write the first Morse book? What got you going?
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In Last Bus to Woodstock, Inspector Morse came to life, as his sidekick Sgt. Lewis would later describe him, "an arrogant, ungracious, vulnerable, lovable man."
DEXTER: A mean sod, isn't he, really a bit miserableÂ…
...with at least a little of the author in him.
DEXTER: I thought very good thing if he had my interest in some things, because at least I knew about for example, I know a lot about Wagner, I know a lot about crosswords, I know a lot about beer. And falling in love with beautiful women, you know, fair and dark, whichever. And that was sort of the basis of the man.
But Dexter says he might never have started writing at all if he hadn't been forced to give up his first career as an instructor of Latin and Greek:
DEXTER: I think I would have been perfectly happy to have continued with that life if I'd not gone deaf. But I went so deaf then, that for example I remember one class, who loved me dearly, I'm sure all of them, but they were playing pop music at the back of the class. And I couldn't hear it at all.
So the Cambridge graduate moved to Oxford and went to work designing tests for the university examination board.
Writing mysteries came naturally to Dexter. He has a passion for solving puzzles--crossword puzzles. In the '60s & '70s he was national champion. Until his latest book, Dexter had kept one aspect of Morse's character a mystery: his Christian name. In Death is Now My Neighbor, the inspector's girlfriend still calls him 'Morse,' even in bed:
DEXTER (reading) Shall I just keep calling you Morse? I'd prefer that, yes. Whatever you say, sir. You sound like Lewis. He always calls me 'sir'. What do you call him? I call him Lewis. Does he know your Christian name? No.
A clue appeared in The Wench Is Dead. The initial 'e' on Morse's medical chart. Bookmakers in Britain started taking bets.
MASON: I'm looking here at the odds. This is from before it came out. Five to one for Ernest. Six to one for Enoch. Seven to one for Edward. Fourteen to one for Elijah and Eustace. Twenty to one for Ebinezer, Edmund, Elliot, Elkton, Englebert, Eric, Edwin or Ethelred.
DEXTER: e kept it very, very closeÂ…
Â…until the final line of his latest book, when, in a note of thanks to his long suffering partner Lewis, Morse reveals his Quaker roots and signs himself, "Endeavor Morse."
This spring, the Morse cast and crew reunited in Oxford to shoot Death Is Now My Neighbor. In almost all the Morse films, Colin Dexter has been an extra, lurking somewhere in the background. This time, producer Chris Burt offered him a rare speaking part: the role of a bishop with 15 seconds of dialogue.
DEXTER: Benedict Nobis, deus omnipotens Â…Amen.
MASON: Do you get to say anything in English in this?
DEXTER: No, no, no, no.
But the impish author delights in even these small moments of stardom:
DEXTER: You don't want me to say the grace again, do you?
He's 67 and semi-retired from writing now. Colin Dexter has enjoyed every moment of Morse's unexpected success. He doesn't need his bishop to tell him: he's been blessed.
MASON: What's going to happen to Morse now?
DEXTER: I maybe shall write one more. But I am getting on a bit, now. And I shan't, I don't think anybody, gets better as they get older. And as I said earlier, we've killed enough people in Oxford.
By Anthony Mason
©1998 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed