January 3, 1942 - John Edward Thaw is born to John and Dorothy Thaw on 48 Stowell Street, West Gorton, Manchester, at the home of his grandparents, Veronica & Walter Thaw. John is named after his father, John Edward Thaw Sr., a lorry driver.
November 15, 1944 - Ray Thaw, John's younger brother is born.
1949 - John's mother, Dolly, walks out on the family. He would not see her again for 12 years.
1950 - By the age of eight John is playing at making radio broadcasts from "Radio Stowell Street" using a discarded BBC microphone at his uncle's home. John sets up a make-believe studio in the lavatory, and is soon "on the air" developing a talent for mimicking impressions and telling jokes. John (and later Ray) attend Green End Junior School in Burnage.
May 19, 1953 – John performs in his first school play, as “Uncle Joseph” in Where The Rainbow Ends, at the age of 11, and quickly catches the acting bug.
1954 – John appears in another school play, King Henry V in the role of “Mistress Quickly”, and Henry IV, Part 2. At this time he is working as a porter at the Smithfield Fruit & Vegetable Market, a job he would hold for 8 weeks. His main task is to haul and stack sacks of potatoes. Among other jobs he would also try his hand at are those of a baker and day laborer.
1955 - John appears as Ben Gunn in a school production of Treasure Island.
1956 - John appears in a school production of Henry IV, Part 1.
1957 – By now John is attending Ducie Technical High School, where he appears in a school production of Macbeth. Although unexceptional in his studies, various teachers notice a gift for acting and suggest it as a possible career choice to John. John uses his free time enjoying listening to jazz records, and occasionally skips school to attend the latest Elvis Presely movie, or listening to the popular comedy revues that appear on BBC radio. During this time he appears in a high school production of St. John .
1958 – Driving a borrowed van, John’s father takes him to an audition at RADA, the Royal Academy of Drama and Acting in London. Although two years younger than the minimum age of 18, John lies about his age and for his audition chooses a reading from Othello. John makes such an impression on the admissions panel that he is immediately offered an opening in the fall term.
September 29, 1958 – John begins a six term, two-year course of studies at RADA, where training centers on the classics. During his time here John would appear as “Guiderius” in Cymbeline,, the “Banished Duke” in As You Like It, “Lopature” in The Cherry Orchard, “Aune” in Pillars Of Society, “Baptista” in The Taming Of The Shrew, “Florizel” in A Winter’s Tale, “Matthew Skipps” & “Hebble Tyson” in The Lady’s Not For Burning, as “Sir Andrew Aguecheek” in Twelfth Night, as the title character in MacBeth , and as the banished Duke in As You Like It.
October 5, 1959 – John begins his second year at RADA. During this time he meets and becomes lifelong friends with fellow student Tom Courteney. Among his second year roles are “Tubby” in Hobson’s Choice, "Mammon" in Paradise Lost, as “Teiresian” in Antigone, “Chorus” in Alcestis, “Mephistopheles” in Faust, and as “Michael” in The Knight Of The Burning Pestle. With glowing evaluations from his drama teachers, John graduates from RADA on July 23, 1960.
1960 – John is now living in Highbury Crescent in London, sharing a flat with fellow students Tom Courteney and Nicol Williamson, and begins casting about for small roles in various productions. John makes his stage debut at the Liverpool Playhouse in a production of the crime thriller A Shred Of Evidence. Other works during this time are bit parts in stage productions of The Wind And The Rain and Staircase.
1961 – John appears in a TV Playhouse production of The Lads which centers around a group of young British soldiers stationed on the island of Cyprus. By now John is a member of “The Younger Generation”, a stock company of young up-and-coming actors who perform plays each week on television by equally young and up-and-coming writers from Manchester. Among his performances during this time at a community theater was a one-act play called Fire Raisers.During one performance Dolly, John’s mother, visits him backstage. It is the first time he has seen her in 12 years and the two will never meet again. Other productions include bit parts in Chips With Everything , and Two Into One .
1962 – Tom Courteney gets a starring role in the motion picture The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner which makes him a bankable actor. John also appears with his friend in a small supporting role ("Bosworth") in this, his first motion picture appearance. John continues to appear on stage, in such productions as Nil Carborundum, as "Sordido" in Women Beware Women, and as "Stan" in A Smashing Day . John also lands his first steady television role, that of Detective Constable Terry Eliott, in the police drama Z Cars, for the 1963-1964 season.
1963 – A 20-year old John Thaw lands a role as Sir Laurence Olivier’s understudy at the Saville Theatre in a production of David Turner’s comedy Semi-Detached. For his 21st birthday the following month Olivier presents him with an inscribed silver cigarette case as a gift. Two weeks later John steps into Sir Laurence’s part for a week as Olivier is forced to take some time off due to gout. During December 1963 John also appears as Alan Roper in a production of Five To One (of the "Edgar Wallace Mysteries" series): "The most carefully laid plans of mice and crooks.... A gang of criminals plots the robbery of a bookmaking joint. Unfortunately, on the day of the heist, things go haywire and tragedy ensues." John also appears in a televised play, in June, called So Long, Charlie, part of the "Sunday Play BBC Television" series, first aired on BBC1 on June 2nd. John plays Charlie Armitage, the title character in a story described: "Life with Charlie Armitage is unpredictable to say the least. An art teacher of seven year's standing (a temporary job he explains, until he resolves his inner conflicts), his spare-time pursuit is building shrines to Womenhood and Commercial Exploitation in the flat he has shared since the evening he dropped in for a party and forgot to go home. His habit of hauling into the flat such offerings for his shrines as an antique gramophone and a shop-window dummy is a perpetual handicap to Jack's efforts to do the right thing and get the right girl - notably Fiona, who lives across the landing and is both baffled and fascinated by Charlie."
June 1964 – A 22-year old John marries Sally Alexander, an aspiring actress one year younger than himself whom he met while appearing in Semi-Detached. They honeymoon on the island of Corsica and return to London to move into a small house in the Notting Hill Gate section.
1964 - Besides getting married, this is a busy year for John. He guest stars (March 14) as "Captain Trench" in an episode of The Avengers titled "Espirit De Corps" opposite long-time friend Diana Rigg, and as "Henery Potter" in a Granada televison production of The Other Man. John also appears in a television play I Can Walk Where I Like, Can't I? opposite another up-and-coming star, Dennis Waterman. John’s luck pans out and he lands his first starring TV role as Sergeant John Mann in the series Redcap which tells the story of the exploits of the Special Investigations Branch of the Royal Military Police at various exotic posts stationed around the world. Redcap will become a cult hit and run for two seasons and 26 episodes.
1965 – John’s first daughter Abigail is born in October. He appears the same month in another epiosde of the "Edgar Wallace Mysteries" series as "David Jones" in the episode Dead Man’s Chest which bears a striking resemblance to Fritz Lang's 1956 thriller "Beyond Reasonable Doubt". To prove the fallability of circumstantial evidence, reporter John Thaw fakes the murder of a colleague. He then plants all the clues to point to himself. So just guess who really dies, leaving John in the lurch?
1966 – Due to irreconcilable differences John and Sally divorce. John moves in with friend and fellow actor Nicol Williamson. He appears in the 5-part made-for-TV series Bat Out Of Hell as "Mark Paxton". He appears again on television in December in The Making Of Jericho, a BBC "Play Of The Month".
1967 - At the Liverpool Playhouse John guest stars as Phileas Fogg in a stage production of Around The World In 80 Days. John also guest stars alongside Michael Caine in The Other Man , a two-and-a-half-hour television play by Giles Cooper which imagined that Britain had made peace with Hitler and was now a Nazi satellite. John also stars in and may have directed Little Malcom And His Struggle Against The Eunuchs.
1968 – John returns to Manchester for the first time since leaving home to attend RADA, to appear in Granada TV’s miniseries Inheritance, which tells the story of life in a Yorkshire town from 1812-1965 through the eyes of a single family. John performs five different roles in the series. He also travels to Africa for 2 months to film the critically acclaimed period action film The Bofors Gun as "Featherstone", John McGrath's television play which was expanded (if not improved) by this film adaptation. The time is 1954, and a weak-willed British corporal (David Warner) desperately wants to improve his lot in the National Service by taking the officer's entrance course. A rebellious, sociopathic Irish private (Nicol Williamson) takes a dislike to the corporal. He hopes to humiliate the would-be officer and to this end commits suicide while the corporal is guarding him. John also makes an appearance as "Himself" on the Morecambe & Wise show.
1969 – John appears, with only a single day’s notice, as "Dicky" in a stage production of So What About Love, a play which will change his life. Here he meets and plays the lover of actress Sheila Hancock, ten years his senior, and both instantly become fast friends. John guest stars on TV in the 16-episode Strange Report (beginning Nov. 9) in which he plays Police Detective Jenner investigating strange paranormal happenings in 1960s London. John then appears against type as hard-drinking, womanizing "Sir Richard" in the 8-part BBC2 series The Borderers, in an episode called Dispossessed, a period action adventure drama set on the Anglo-Scottish border in the 16th century. John also appears in a Saturday Night Theatre televison production of A Talking Head playing a young TV scriptwriter who becomes totally dissatisfied with his lot, letting rip in front of the studio crew of a police drama he has written in a very memorable scene.
1970 – John appears as "Banquo" in a "Play Of The Month" television production of Macbeth, and three theatrical small-budget films, the first of which was Praise Marx And Pass The Ammunition. As "Dom", John Thaw portrays a 30-year-old pseudo revolutionary whose main goals are to sleep with women and spout Marxist and Leninist slogans. He is kidnapped by party members and, in a warehouse, is subjected to a trial by his peers. They believe he is only paying lip service to the movement and is not a true revolutionary. The trial is interrupted when word of an impending police raid reaches the gathering. Stock footage of the 1968 Paris riots is used judiciously to enhance the spirit of revolutionary fervor. He next appears as "Terry Mitchell" in The Last Grenade, a grim wartime drama in which two vengeful soldiers of fortune engage in a deadly competition to see who can kill the other first. John rounds out the year in Random Happenings In The Hebrides, a new play by Scottish playwright John MacGrath about a young Scottish Labour MP working for change within the system. John makes an appearance in the suspense-thriller television series Menace, as "Don" in an epsiode titled Tom (April 26).
1971 – Sheila becomes widowed when her actor husband, Alec Ross, dies of cancer. John appears in the play Lady From The Sea, co-starring Robert Powell; also the TV-series Budgie as "Denzil Davies" in the episode titled "Sunset Mansions", and as "Carby" in The Onedin Line, a Victorian-era costume drama about a Liverpool shipping company in the days of sail.
1972 – John has a small role as "Shavers" in the camp horror classic Dr. Phibes Rises Again, which stars Vincent Price. John also appears in an episode of the children's TV series Black Beauty (Sept.30) titled "The Hostage", in which he plays escaped convict "Jack Desmond" who holds Kevin and Black Beauty hostage and forces Vicky to get food and clothing so he can complete his bid for freedom. John also tours Australia for the first time in stage productions of Chinamen, The New Quixote, Black And Silver, and The Two Of Us . During this year an unknown young writer by the name of Colin Dexter pens his first Inspector Morse mystery The Last Bus To Woodstock while on a seaside vacation in Wales, though it is not published until 1975.
1973 – John appears on stage in The Collaborators, a play by John Mortimer which opens in April at the Duchess Theater in London, and the TV-movie The Caucasian Chalk Circle based on the play by Bertolt Brecht, a King Solomon-like story in which two women fight for possesion of the same child in a small Slavic village during the German invasion of WWII. This film boasted a stellar cast that included such veterans as Patrick Magee, Leo McKern, and Robert Powell. John also appears in an epsiode of the Thames Televison series "The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes" title The Sensible Action Of Mr. Horst, as the title character. During this year John and Sheila’s relationship continues to grow and the two are married on Christmas Eve, and set up home in a small house near the Thames, in Chiswick. Also in December, John makes a guest appearance in the Gerry Anderson spy suspense-thriller TV series "The Protectors" starring Robert Vaughn, in the second-season episode "Lena" shot in Italy. Trivia buffs alert: John played "Mauro Carpiano" in an episode that also included David Suchet, who would later go on to find worldwide fame as Hercule Poirot. A shot of the future-Morse with the future-Poirot would be a rare and treasured find indeed!
February 2, 1974 – John’s mother Dolly dies of stomach cancer at St. Anne’s hospice in Hill Green, Stockport. John & Shiela's daughter Joanna is born in July.
1974 – John appears in his second TV series, the critically acclaimed situation comedy Thick As Thieves opposite Bob Hoskins, as two ex-cons who are released from prison and end up moving in together. Although it only runs for 8 episodes and achieves some measure of ratings success, Granada TV hesitates about renewing it for a second season, which enables John to take another offer that will make him into a nationwide star. John as guests stars in an episode of the BBC1 series The Two Ronnies.
June 4, 1974 – The TV-movie Regan premieres on British television. This is a 90-minute police drama in which John plays the role of hard-nosed Jack Regan, opposite co-star Dennis Waterman. The drama is fast-paced and cutting-edge for its day and is an instant ratings success. Thames television quickly commissions an hour-long weekly TV-series based on the film, and The Sweeney immediately goes into production.
February 1, 1975 - The Sweeney debuts on national television and is an instant success. The nation remains glued to their sets every week to watch the gritty, realistic street-wise adventures of Thaw and Waterman, years ahead of any similar American show. The series immediately enters the pop culture consciousness of Britain with memorable catch-phrases and a wide variety of merchandising spin-offs. The show's success will also spawn two big-budget theatrical films and make John Thaw a household name.
1976 – John continues to appear in various stage productions both in London and Toronto. In this year John performs in Tom Stoppard's Night And Day, again opposite friend and colleague Diana Rigg, in which he plays the hard-bitten Australian journalist Dick Wagner, at the West End in Wimbledon. The play is later revived in 1979. John also wins rave reviews for his performance in Absurd Person Singular, and a stage version of The Sensible Action Of Mr. Horst.
1977 – The first film Sweeney! opens to rave reviews. This movie wins John the Evening Standard Best Film Actor of the Year Award. John also appears on stage again opposite his wife Sheila Hancock in the romantic comedy The Two Of Us, and at the Royal Court in London in Fair Slaughter. John appears - as a guest - in an ITV Television special of This Is Your Life for his wife, Sheila Hancock. John will later be surpised with the honor himself in a few short years.
December 28, 1978 – The final episode of The Sweeney is aired, garnering its highest ratings of 19 million viewers. After four action-packed seasons and 53 episodes, Thaw and Waterman decide to call it a day and end the show while still on top of the ratings rather than letting the series grow stale. A virtual who’s-who of leading names appear as guest stars over the years, and both Thaw and Waterman even appear in character on a special Christmas episode of the "Morcane & Wise” show in 1977, Britain’s highest rated comedy/variety hour.
1978 – The second series film Sweeney II is released in theaters. John also appears on stage as the tile character in Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance, and will reprise the role in a 1981 revival. Trying to put his Sweeney image behind him, John takes on the part of struggling, middle-aged boxing manager Dinny Matthews in a BBC “Play For Today” called The Sporting Club Dinner, in which his character is driven by a burning ambition to one day produce a real champion. When his best prospect is finally offered a chance at a vital fight that could make his career, John’s character is forced into a crisis of conscience because he knows the young boxer is out of training and in no condition to fight. John also appears as Dick Wagner in another stage production of Night And Day .
1979 - Colin Dexter wins his first Silver Dagger award from the Crime Writer's Association of Great Britain for the Inspector Morse novel Service Of All The Dead. John also goes into Jake West Studios to record an audio play Modesty Blaise: I Had A Date With Lady Janet. "An old and supposedly dead adversary of the exciting duo kidnaps Modesty. How Willie copes and avoids failing into the trap set for him is told by John Thaw."
1980 - John appears with a vivid portrayal of Sir Francis Drake in the Westward Television Production historical miniseries Drake’s Venture. which is re-broadcast a year later simply as Drake. He also appears in the "Saturday Night Thriller" episode called Where Is Betty Buchus? as Jack Buchus.
(Left to Right): John Thaw in action on The Sweeney (1975);
John as the harboiled reporter in Mitch (1984); John as Henry Willows in Home To Roost (1985).
1981 - John next appears as "Dick Turner" in The Grass is Singing opposite Karen Black, a searing saga in which Black plays an unstable white South African woman who marries a well-meaning but failing farmer (Thaw) whose marriage and life disintegrates into poverty while losing her sanity in the process. In late 1981 John is surprised by host Eamon Andrews in an episode of the popular British version of This Is Your Life which becomes one of the most popular episodes of the show ever aired. John also hosts a ten-part series on one of his favorite causes, child abuse, called When The Bough Breaks. Colin Dexter wins another Silver Dagger Award for The Dead Of Jericho, his second in a row.
1982 - John takes some much-deserved time off from acting to spend with his growing family, Abagail from his first marriage, Melanie (Elly Jane) from Sheila's, and his youngest, Joanna, John & Sheila's own daughter. Now being offered his pick of roles John is careful to look for those parts that are different from any he has played before and which will stretch his talents as an actor.
1983 – John spends a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon in which he plays “Cardinal Wolsey” in Henry VIII, “Sir Toby Belch” in Twelfth Night, (which he will revive on stage in 1990 opposite Gemma Jones), and “Nick”, the bar owner, in The Time Of Your Life.
1984 – John returns to London as Professor Higgins in a production of Pygmalion. He also tries his hand at television again in the short-lived series Mitch, in which he plays a hard-drinking London newspaper reporter. The show runs for only 10 episodes. John appears in another historical miniseries as Hubert De Burgh in The Life And Death Of King John.
At this point John also stars in what is perhaps the rarest and most unusual film of his career: playing an ex-army officer, Major Peter Hastings, who becomes a paid assassin in Killer Waiting, a 70-minute made-for-TV movie directed by Michael Ferguson. John plays opposite Diane Keen (who also appeared with John in the original Sweeney! film) and Tom Harrison, in the only villanous role of his entire career. The film is the third in a trilogy of plays exploring murder performed for television, the other two of which were Killer Contract and Killer Exposed.
1985 – John appears on stage in the role of Joe Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and in Charles Dyer's Staircase. John also performs in what he later describes as his most satisfying stage role ever, as Geoff Hollins, in Douglas Livingstone’s one-man play on Northern Ireland called We’ll Support You Evermore, as a father struggling to come to grips with and understand how his only son had died in the conflict raging there. It later appears on film.
At this time Sheila is diagnosed with breast cancer, and in a year-long struggle she manages to overcome the disease, and later becomes a committed advocate of woman’s health issues.
April 19, 1985 - Home To Roost debuts, John’s second attempt at a situation comedy, and his fourth television series. He plays middle-aged Henry Willows whose life is upended when his teenage son Matthew (Reece Dinsdale) returns home to live with him. It earns John the Pye TV award, John’s first formal award of recognition in an already long and varied career. The show will continue sporadically for four seasons over the next 5 years, including a Christmas special, and run for 29 episodes in all. It is also interesting in that the series later overlaps with the first 3 seasons of Inspector Morse as John appears in both simultaneously.
1986 – John appears as "Tumonie" in the TV-movie Stainheads. John also makes one of his rare overseas ventures, appearing in Toronto, Canada, in the Ray Cooney farce Two Into One with fellow actor Daniel Massey, when he is offered the part that will change his life. Late in 1985 John had met with his longtime friend and producer from his Sweeney days Ted Childs (now director of programming at Central TV) on a project Childs has in mind to film a series of two-hour mysteries, a format which had never been tried before, of the growing series of popular Inspector Morse novels. John meets with author Colin Dexter to discuss how the character should be brought from the page to the screen, and John contributes much of his own personalities and ideas on how Morse should be portrayed. In August 1986 Central TV begins filming the first Inspector Morse film.
January 6, 1987 - The Dead Of Jericho, the first Inspector Morse mystery, airs. The show was unlike anything that had gone before; instead of car chases and shootouts, viewers were treated to intelligent, thoughtful dramas with well-developed characters. Thaw’s brooding, melancholy Morse is perfectly balanced by Sergeant Lewis, ably played by Kevin Whateley. In a series of 3 dramatic puzzlers for this first season, viewers are taken with Morse’s charm, his eccentric tastes in cars, opera, and crosswords, and his unending bad luck with women. Barrington Pheloung’s hauntingly evocative music sets the tone of the series, and Morse’s Jaguar soon becomes one of the most recognized trademarks in England. A sense of humor permeates the relationship with Lewis as their relationship onscreen grows and evolves. PBS stations in America pick up the right to broadcast the shows in North America, thus opening an even wider audience to the series. Soon “Morse” chapters are opening in America, Europe, Africa, and even the Far East.
1987 - After the first series of Inspector Morse airs, John appears opposite Jeremy Brett as Jonathan Small in The Sign Of Four, (Nov.29) an episode of Granada TV’s hugely popular adaptation of Sherlock Holmes stories. Sir Richard Attenborough, an admirer of John’s acting ability, casts him in the role of South African Prime Minister Paul Kruger in his feature film Cry Freedom opposite Denzel Washington. The role earned John a BAFTA nomination as Best Actor in a supporting role. John also appears in a supporting role in Asking For Trouble; and tours Canada in a stage production of Two Into One.
1988 – Four more Inspector Morse mysteries air as the show's international popularity continues to grow. John is now receiving fan mail from around the world. During a break between filming, John appears as "Kieran Flynn" opposite Glenda Jackson in a film about sexual harassment in the workplace titled Business As Usual. John gives his final performance in his hometown of Manchester at the Royal Exchange in a revival stage production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, directed by Gregory Hersov. John had originally performed in the play in 1985 in London.
1989 – In a third season, four more Morse mysteries are broadcast. Chiefly known for exporting comedies, Inspector Morse becomes the most widely-watched British drama series in the world, being broadcast in more than 80 countries. John is delighted with the response, as the team of Thaw and Dexter continue to produce quality television, hailed by one critic as “the most intelligent show ever produced.” Kenny McBain, Morse’s producer for the first two seasons, dies of Hodgkin's disease on April 22 and Ted Childs takes over as Executive Producer of the series. Colin Dexter, by now making a Hitchcockian-appearnce in every episode of Morse, wins his first Gold Dagger award from the Crime Writer’s Association of Great Britain for The Wench Is Dead. John then takes on the role of Sir Arthur Harris, Britain’s controversial head of Bomber Command during World War II, in the television biography How I Won The War. John’s forceful portrayal of the flawed British hero earns him glowing reviews. John also appears on stage during this year in a production of Shakespeare's Henry VII.
1990 – John Thaw wins his first BAFTA (British Academy Award) for his portrayal of Morse, and wins ITV’s Personality of the year award. A fourth season brings with it four more Morse mysteries, among the best of the series, which is now at the height of its creativity. Thaw’s portrayal of a flawed, human Morse, with a weakness for ale and often prone to making mistakes or jumping to wrong conclusions, is seen as the perfect opposite of Sherlock Holmes’ cold, calculating-machine style of solving crimes. John also appears as the special guest on the 2,000th programme of the popular radio show Desert Island Discs . John's love of classical music is reflected by his choice of the chorale from the St. Matthew Passion as his favorite Desert Island Disc.
John also appears on stage in a production of Twelfth Night.
1991 – Morse’s fifth season brings five more classic mysteries, including a foray to Australia, where during the filming of Promised Land. John gets to enjoy an extended stay with his brother Ray and his family. By this point in the series the body count had grown so high that one wit dubs Oxford “the murder capital of the world.” John is honored by being named ITV/Time’s favorite actor of 1991. After filming the final Morse of the season, John next appears in a 4-part adaptation of Kingsley Amis’ novel Stanley And The Women, as the title character Stanley Duke, which provides him with his most challenging and dramatic role yet as a man whose only son suddenly develops a severe mental illness and the unwillingness of the medical community to treat those with the same condition with the care and decency they deserve.
John also appears on televison as a guest on The Michael Aspel Show, along with other guests Oliver Reed and Sir Richard Attenborough.
1992 – Colin Dexter wins his second Gold Dagger award for The Way Through The Woods. In addition, Dexter had also won two Silver Dagger runner-up awards for his literary creation prior to this. Six more Morse’s are aired during the show’s sixth season, including one that takes the duo of Morse and Lewis to Italy in one of the series’ most beautifully filmed episodes. After an absence of five years, John returns to the stage in the touching drama Charlie. John and Sheila spend 15 weeks together during the summer in the south of France while John films the 12-part adaptation of Peter Mayle’s bestseller A Year In Provence, with co-star Lindsay Duncan. John appears in almost every shot in the show, often working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. John and Sheila fall in love with the Provence region, and later purchase a 3-bedroom home in the village of Les Gavots, which they would often use as a summer getaway in the years to come. Sir Richard Attenborough again casts John in his next feature film Chaplin as Fred Karno, opposite Robert Downey Jr. The film receives an Oscar nomination. John also narrates the Discovery Channel television docmentary Submarines: Sharks Of Steel.
January 20, 1993 - Inspector Morse comes to an end with the final three episodes of its seventh season. The last, Twilight Of The Gods features Sir John Gielgud in the cast. John Thaw had felt he had taken the character as far as it would go and was anxious to look for new challenges to conquer, and made the decision that he would not be returning in the character of Morse as part of a regular, ongoing series but would consider doing “occasional” Morse mysteries if the scripts warranted. John wins his second BAFTA for his performance as Morse. The role has made him an international star. During this final season John Thaw had taken on executive producer status of the series alongside Ted Childs. John appears on the popular entertainment series GMTV and does the voice-overs for a series of public service commercials fighting diabetes.
February 20, 1993 – Only a month after Inspector Morse ends, A Year In Provence begins airing for 12 consecutive weeks. Among those who watches is the Queen herself, who declares herself to be an avid Morse and Provence fan. At the series’ completion in May, John is invited to Buckingham Palace to receive the CBE from the Queen and meet with her. The moment is clearly the pinnacle of John’s career; the son of a lorry driver has truly come a long way from his days on the streets of Manchester.
Oct.2, 1993 – John returns to the stage at the National Theatre as "George Jones" in a riveting performance in David O Hare’s The Absence Of War, which dealt with the trials and tribulations of a Labour Party leader on the campaign trail, and his eventual downfall in a national election. John later returns to the role in 1995 when the play is developed as a miniseries for television on BBC2.
1994 – After completing the Inspector Morse series, Ted Childs develops Kavanagh Q.C. as a vehicle especially for John, in what would become his sixth and final regular television series. In it John plays a barrister arguing criminal cases in a British courtroom while dealing with personal crises in his home life. The show would focus on his domestic home life as well as the courtroom, and afforded John Thaw fans a chance to see him in everyday surroundings. Like Thaw, Kavanagh was written as coming from Manchester, which afforded John a chance for nostalgic and sentimental trips back to his hometown, his first since 1968. Filming begins in the summer of 1994.
January 3, 1995 - Kavanagh Q.C.premieres on John’s 53rd birthday in a series of 90-minute dramas, which allows for a more relaxed shooting schedule than John had experienced on Morse. The show would last for five seasons, through March 1999, with a special series finale airing in April 2001, and 29 episodes in all.
November 29, 1995 – After a three-year absence John reprises the role of Inspector Morse in The Way Through The Woods, the first in an annual series of Morse specials. John felt he had put enough time with the character behind him and had developed a number of other interesting projects in the interim that he was willing to take a fresh look at the role and return to it with quality scripts continuing to be penned based on ideas from Colin Dexter. This program became the BBC’s highest-rated program of the year, with 16.5 million viewers. John would return with three more Inspector Morse installments on a yearly basis, one each in 1996, 1997, and 1998. During one of these, for the first time in almost 12 years, Morse’s first name is finally revealed.
(Left to Right): Sheila with daughters Joanna & Melanie at the Bafta Awards;
John & Sheila at Joanna's graduation.
1996 - With his three daughters now grown and out of the house, aspiring for acting careers of their own, John and Sheila move out of London to a country home near Malmesbury, in Wiltshire. John continues filming episodes of Kavanagh Q.C.. John also appears in a 24 minute short film called Masculine Mescaline, about a London alcoholic forced to face his responsibilities by a 'heavenly' messenger (played by Thaw).
1997 – John’s father passes away from cancer. During the summer, in between seasonal shooting of Kavanagh Q.C. John flies to the Greek island of Rhodes to film Out Of The Blue, a two-hour thriller which casts John in the part of a down-on-his luck caretaker, Henry Barnett, who is wrongly accused of murder and sets out to prove his innocence.
1998 – In addition to Kavanagh Q.C. John appeared in the critically acclaimed Goodnight Mister Tom in which he plays Tom Oakley, a widower and recluse who takes on the boarding of a 9-year old boy evacuated from the bombing of London during World War II, and how each provides the love the other had been looking for. The film goes on to win the National Television Award for best drama of 1998 and John Thaw as best actor.
1998 - During July 1998 - and again in July 2000 - television viewers living in the UK's Granada TV region had many chances to see the Christie's against Cancer commercial, the first venture into TV advertising by an NHS hospital trust. Both times the campaign, reaching a television audience of 2.5 million was accompanied by a mailshot to almost a million homes in the region, and reaped substantial rewards in terms of cash donations and an increase in public awareness. The music behind the pictures was instantly recognisable to almost everyone, with Robbie Williams allowing the Appeal to use his poignant hit song Angels without charge, and John Thaw donated his services free for the "voice-over" urging viewers to phone the Donationline on 0500 55 70 55.
1999 – John appears in two major dramas for 1999; the first of these, The Plastic Man, cast John in the role of plastic surgeon Joe MacConnell, who faces two moral dilemmas in his life, one concerning a patient and the other his troubled marriage. 12 million viewers tune in. Next came the two-part The Waiting Time, a post-cold war thriller set in East Germany in which John’s character, Joshua Mantle, becomes involved in international intrigue between a high-ranking member of Parliament and a former member of the East German police.
2000 – John next appears as the title character "Augustin Renard" in the four-part drama Monsignor Renard, in which John portrays a Catholic priest in occupied France during the war, torn between doing what he thinks is best to help his people survive and giving them a cause to fight for by resisting the Germans. The series, filmed entirely in France, gave John a welcome chance to return to his beloved Provence countryside. John is later angered when plans for four more Renard films, continuing through the end of the war, are cancelled as being "too costly." John looked forward to Renard as being his next long-term character and briefly considers changing his contract over from Carlton TV to the BBC in protest but later relents.
John also narrates a 3-part television series called Britain At War In Colour, using rare archival film and photographs.
November 15, 2000 – Undoubtedly the most anticipated project of the year was John’s return as Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse, in the 33rd and final Morse mystery Remorseful Day. Colin Dexter had decided that Morse had run its course, after 13 novels, several short stories, and 33 two-hour films, and wrote an ending befitting the character in which the detective passes away during his final case amongst the gleaming spires of his beloved Oxford. Details remained a closely guarded secret and on November 15, 2000, TV’s most popular detective passed into television history. Morse received its highest ratings ever with over 18 millions viewers tuning in to say their farewells to the character, and the BBC estimates that during its 13-year run Morse was seen in over 130 countries around the globe by more than a billion people, or one out of five of every people on the planet. Such a fictional character has not had such an impact since the days of Sherlock Holmes a century before.
April 26, 2001 – John Thaw performs on stage for the last time at the Royal Festival Hall during a one-night performance of Peter Pan, in which John takes on the dual roles of both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. This evening is especially touching for John as both his wife and daughter Melanie also appear on stage with him. This special "all-star" performance is directed by Julia McKenzie with a cast that included John Thaw, Sheila Hancock as the narrator, Laura Michelle Kelly and Joseph McFadden along with the BBC Concert Orchestra. This concert was recorded by BBC Radio and was subsequently broadcast on New Year's Eve 2001.
May, 2001 – John next appears as Jim Proctor in the 6-part television drama Glass which tells the story of a woman (Sarah Lancashire) torn between the affections of an older working class man (Thaw), the owner of a window company, and a 22-year old fortune hunter. This is actually John's last project, which completes filming in October, 2000, though Buried Treasure , which was filmed in March-April 2000, is held back out of sequence and becomes John's last film to be aired. He plays Harry Jenkins, a widower who suddenly discovers upon the sudden death of his daughter that he is the grandfather of a mixed-race 9-year old girl. Also in May John is awarded the Radio Times reader-voted Lew Grade Award for the Inspector Morse series, and a Lifetime Achievement Fellowship Award from the Royal Academy of Drama and Acting. Both awards were presented to John by his old friend, Sir Tom Courteney.
June 19, 2001 – John Thaw hold a press conference to announce that he has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. “I am receiving treatment, and as soon as this has been completed, I intend to return to work.” Always a heavy smoker, all those who knew John felt that if anyone could beat the disease, he could, John was always a fighter. John’s father had died of cancer only four years before and Sheila’s first husband has also been taken by the same disease. John and Sheila then leave for a brief vacation in France before beginning his programme of treatment.
November 15, 2001 – Exactly one year to the day after the passing of Endeavour Morse, John’s last performance appeared on screen in the sentimental and moving Buried Treasure in which John’s character suddenly discovers that he is the grandfather of a mixed-race child he never knew existed. When John discovered the drama would air on his brother Ray’s birthday, he excitedly called him from England to tell him the news. Filming of Buried Treasure had been completed in the spring of 2000, before John had been diagnosed with cancer, and throughout the summer and fall of 2001 he had undergone a 6-month program of treatment that was completed in time for the Christmas holidays. Also in November, John attends a black-tie reception at Buckingham Palace for the broadcast industry hosted by the Queen. Ever shy, John arrives early and avoids most of the press.
December 31, 2001 - John feels well enough to appear in a BBC-radio performance of Peter Pan , in the dual-roles of both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling. A recording of the Royal Festival Hall performance from April is broadcast on New Year's Eve.
January 3, 2002 – John Thaw celebrates his 60th birthday.
February 13, 2002 – John and Sheila meet for tea with longtime friend and producer Ted Childs to discuss John returning to work on various projects. John had agreed to reprise the role of Kavanagh Q.C. in two more episodes, in which the barrister is finally made a judge. John approves the scripts and filming is scheduled to begin in late March.
February 20, 2002 – John spends the evening after dinner walking in his garden at home, and signs a one-year contract with ITV for the upcoming Kavanagh episodes which John expects to begin filming in a few weeks’ time.
February 21, 2002 – John Thaw passes away at his small cottage home in Wiltshire, surrounded by Sheila and his daughters, and three grandchildren. John’s condition had taken a turn for the worse during the night. The family decides on a private ceremony at home for his friends and family.
February 22, 2002 – ITV Television airs a 30-minute tribute to John’s life and career hosted by his friend and Morse colleague Kevin Whateley.
February 25, 2002 – John Thaw is cremated and his ashes scattered in the garden at home that he loved so much. Tributes will continue to pour in from fans and colleagues across the world for months to come.
Left: Sheila & the grandchildren.
April 20, 2002 – John Thaw is awarded his second BAFTA, the coveted Lew Grade Award for his final performance in Buried Treasure. The audience stands and gives a thunderous ovation when Kevin Whateley presents the award which is accepted on his behalf by his widow, Sheila. Altogether John had received four BAFTA nominations in his life, winning twice. And Morse’s famous Jaguar from the series sells this month for a record-making $78,000 at auction.
September 4, 2002 – A memorial service is held in London with fellow actors and some members of the public in attendance to say their final goodbyes.
June 9, 2004 - Ray Thaw dies after a brief struggle with cancer, at the age of 59. Raymond Stuart Thaw, of McDowall, Brisbane, Australia, is survived by his wife Anne, sons Jason and Jon, Jason's wife Nicole, and two grandchildren, Timothy and Nicholas. He is cremated and services are held three days later. Both Thaw brothers are reunited once more.
Next: The Complete John Thaw Episode Guide, Pt.1
