Top British Screenwriter Terminally Ill : Television: Dennis Potter, the creator of ‘Singing Detective’ and ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ has cancer of the liver and pancreas. He has two works for TV that he is rushing to complete.

Dennis Potter, Britain’s best-known and most controversial screenwriter, has disclosed that he is suffering from terminal cancer of the liver and pancreas and has only months to live.

Potter, 58, whose widely acclaimed successes include the television series “The Singing Detective” and “Pennies From Heaven” (both seen in America on PBS), has known of his condition since February.

A heavy smoker and drinker, Potter has suffered from ill health for much of his life. In 1964, he contracted the skin disease psoriatic arthropathy, which causes his joints to swell and his skin to crack, flake and blister. His hands are gnarled and twisted as a result of the ailment.

Potter discussed his terminal disease on a TV arts program, “Without Walls,” which was recorded last week, and will be broadcast in England Tuesday. In an extraordinary final interview with presenter Melvyn Bragg, Potter was reportedly in typically irascible form, alternating between drinking white wine and liquid morphine, and smoking profusely.

In Britain Potter is known equally for his ground-breaking work as a dramatist and for his mordant humor. “Pennies From Heaven,” his play about a sheet-music salesman set in the 1930s, extended the boundaries of television because its characters suddenly burst into song, lip-syncing to records from that period. Potter later adapted his screenplay for Herbert Ross’ 1981 film starring Steve Martin, transferring the story to America; it failed at the box office, though some critics found it brilliant and provocative.

Potter adapted another of his TV plays for film the following year. “Brimstone and Treacle” starred Sting as a malevolent young man who inveigled his way into the lives of a suburban family. In one controversial sequence, he raped the family’s daughter, who was lying in a coma. The TV version of the play, which was completed in 1976, was banned by the BBC whose then-director of programs Alasdair Milne, described it as “diabolical and nauseating.” It was only shown 11 years later.

Potter’s arguably finest hour was his TV series “The Singing Detective,” which also featured characters lip-syncing to period music, this time from the 1940s. The lead character (played by Michael Gambon) is a writer of pulp detective fiction, who is lying in a hospital bed, stricken by a disease similar to Potter’s own psoriatic arthropathy. It is partly a private-eye thriller in this character’s mind, partly a psychological investigation into his own illness and partly an exploration of his traumatic childhood.

When it was first shown on PBS in 1988, many critics hailed it as one of the finest series ever made for television, although in Britain many tabloid newspapers also complained about the explicit sexual content of “The Singing Detective.” Potter still owns the rights to the work, but despite rumors of a big-screen adaptation starring Dustin Hoffman or Robin Williams, no deal has been made.

The British tabloids finally declared war on Potter in earnest in 1990 when his last series, “Blackeyes,” aired on the BBC. It concerned the sexual and literary manipulation of a beautiful, passive model and was intended as a critique of how society uses women as sexual objects to sell merchandise. Because Potter narrated the voice-over to “Blackeyes” himself, critics immediately charged that he was guilty of the same kind of leering voyeurism he deplored in others. The tabloids nicknamed him “Mr. Filth.”

He has since written another series, “Lipstick on Your Collar,” featuring characters lip-syncing to ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll songs, which was broadcast in Britain last year. The film of the screenplay “Mesmer,” about the 18th-Century Viennese hypnotist, has also been completed. With Alan Rickman in the title role, it is to be released later this year.

Potter worked briefly in newspapers before his illness restricted his mobility--at which point he became a TV critic and then turned to writing TV screenplays. “Son of Man,” for example, attracted flak from religious leaders for its portrayal of Jesus Christ as a highly flawed human being. Potter admits he is probably too outspoken to work in Hollywood with much success, though his screenplay for the 1983 film “Gorky Park” was highly regarded.

Despite his illness, Potter remains feisty, and his interview with Bragg shows him in typically combative mood. He continues to rail against elements in British society that he believes have eradicated all that is best about the country.

The leading villain in the Potter pantheon is 20th Century Fox boss Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the sensationalistic British tabloid newspapers the Sun and the News of the World. Potter deplores the increasingly concentrated ownership of the British media, spearheaded by Murdoch.

“No man is more responsible for polluting the press, and, in turn, polluting political life,” Potter says of Murdoch.

Now, he told the London Observer, he has nicknamed his own diseased pancreas “Rupert,” and curses it when it gives him pain.

Potter has two remaining screenplays for television to complete in a rush. “Karaoke” uses the metaphor of a karaoke machine for mapping out relationships, while “Cold Lazarus” combines the ideas of virtual reality and cryogenics. It is about a head frozen at death.

Potter has urged the BBC and Channel 4 television to show the works after his death--a wish they have said they will honor. “I want my last work to be a memorial,” he said. “I have the same feeling about these two as I had about ‘Pennies From Heaven’ and ‘The Singing Detective.’

“If I could do that, I will go out with a fitting memorial. My only worry is that I die four pages too soon.”