He was the first great Sherlock Holmes. But few will have heard of US actor William Gillette.

[Surya Gayatri]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30932322



William Gillette: Five ways he transformed how Sherlock Holmes looks and talks

A 1916 silent movie featuring Sherlock Holmes - long presumed lost - is due to have its premiere in Paris. It stars a man who changed the way we see Conan Doyle's famous sleuth forever.

He was the first great Sherlock Holmes. But few will have heard of US actor William Gillette.



He is thought to be a distant relation of the family behind Gillette razors, wrote plays about the American civil war, patented a noise to imitate the sound of a galloping horse and built an enormous castle in Connecticut. But it is his Holmes that fascinates people today.

And until three months ago, it seemed that no-one would ever see it.

Gillette adapted Sherlock Holmes for the stage in 1899 and played Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective more than 1,000 times.

He made only one film, the 1916 silent movie version of Sherlock Holmes. For decades the movie was presumed lost, one of the great missing links of Sherlockiana. Then in October 2014 it was discovered at the Cinematheque Francaise, a film archive in Paris.

"At last we get to see for ourselves the actor who kept the first generation of Sherlockians spellbound," says Professor Russell Merritt, who has been researching the film's origins. "As far as Holmes is concerned, there's not an actor dead or alive who hasn't consciously or intuitively played off Gillette."


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If you're a Sherlock fan of whatever stripe, the BBC article is a must!

[Blue_Tires]

1. Jeremy Brett or GTFO

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Cumberbatch fan here--wonderfully drole and nice to look at!

[Ilsa]

11. Me too. And he was fantastic in The Imitation Game. nt

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Well, yes

for the classic adaptation of the genre. For newer interpretations however, Cumberbatch.

And he does a wicked Alan Rickman impression.

[Surya Gayatri]

3. And, thank the French and their obsession with history,

including the history of cinema, for this wonderful discovery:

"He (Gillette) made only one film, the 1916 silent movie version of Sherlock Holmes. For decades the movie was presumed lost, one of the great missing links of Sherlockiana. Then in October 2014 it was discovered at the Cinematheque Francaise, a film archive in Paris."

[johnp3907]

4. I can't wait to see this!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. I'm the biggest Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fan I know

I live and breathe Sherlock Holmes novels and stories and the Brett and Rathbone incarnations on the screen which I love. I wish I could disappear back into that era. I'm not a big fan of Cumberbatch, but I'm more a purist. Christopher Lee did an excellent Holmes, although in a real low budget film. Peter Cushing was fantastic, I thought, as Holmes. I'm also a big fan of the horror and fantasy fiction from the 1800s and early 1900s. I've read that the pipe most associated with Holmes, the large bent Calabash pipe with a meerschaum bowl fitting into a gourd was an addition of Gillette, because a small pipe wouldn't be noticed on the stage. In the Holmes stories, they mention three pipes, a briar churchwarden, a cherrywood pipe, and his favorite, a white clay pipe turned black from the nicotine and smoke. Gillette I believe wrote the stage play of Sherlock Holmes, consisting of an extensive rewrite of a play started by Conan Doyle. It was later loosely adapted into the Basil Rathbone period Holmes movie The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, the only Basil Rathbone Holmes portrayal occurring back in the Victorian era.

I had heard a lot of William Gillette the stage actor who played Holmes on the stage. I never knew there was a surviving movie showing Gillette in his famous role. I'd love to see it.

[valerief]

7. Wow, that photo of Gillette. What a looker!!!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. That's a very cool smoking jacket he's wearing

I wish we were living back in the day when you could find exotic-looking smoking jackets or robes for eccentric pipe smokers like me.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. Back in the '70s, there was a nightly radio program

called the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. One of the episodes was about a couple who were part of a tour of the Gillette Castle and somehow got locked inside the castle for the night, during which time they encountered the ghost of William Gillette playing his role of Sherlock Holmes.

[johnp3907]

14. Do you know the name of the episode and whether it's available online?

I'm an old time radio fan and would love to hear this one.

[Art_from_Ark]

15. It's called Nightmare in Gillette Castle

I think you can listen to it here:

[johnp3907]

16. Thanks!

[90-percent]

10. If you're from Connecticut

You've heard of William Gillette. His Gillette's Castle is a major tourist attraction.

http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2716&q=325204&deepNav_GID=1650

I remember fondly a visit during a family reunion ten years ago. Interesting place and unfortunately the miniature train he had wasn't in operation at the time.

-90% Jimmy

[pipi_k]

12. Or even if you're not...

I've been there a couple of times. Really neat place.


Another neat tourist attraction is the steam train and riverboat trip in Essex, CT.

Goes past the castle and Goodspeed Opera house

http://essexsteamtrain.com/the-train-boat/

[UTUSN]

13. R#8 & K n/t

[mw]

17. I grew up in CT in sight of Gillette's Castle, which he built and lived in

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSdB2j5-Z7RksuqzbzNmLnyR1224S8lM_sT7oVg5ozKRpFaK7VzTQ