Basil Rathbone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Basil Rathbone | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 13 June 1892 Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Died | 21 July 1967 New York, New York, USA |
Basil Rathbone (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was an English actor most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, and of suave villains in swashbuckler films such as The Mark of Zorro.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
He was born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, South Africa, to English parents: Edgar Philip Rathbone and Anna Barbara née George. A younger sister and brother, Beatrice and John, rounded out the family. The Rathbones fled to England when Basil was three years of age after his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy near the onset of the Second Boer War.
Basil was educated at Repton School and was engaged with the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies. In 1916 he enlisted for the duration of The Great War joining the London Scottish Regiment ([1]) as a Private, later transferring with a commission as a Lieutenant to the Liverpool Scottish. In the London Scottish, he served alongside Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman. In September 1918 he was awarded the Military Cross.
[edit] Personal life
Rathbone married (1) 1914, actress Ethel Marion Foreman (divorced 1926) and was involved briefly with actress Eva Le Gallienne during his first marriage. He married (2) 1927, to writer Ouida Bergere.
By his first wife he had one son, Rodion Rathbone (1915-1996), who had a brief Hollywood career under the name John Rodion. Basil and his second wife also adopted a daughter, Cynthia Rathbone (1939-1969). Unlike some of his British actor contemporaries in Hollywood and Broadway, Rathbone never renounced his British citizenship.
[edit] Acting career
He made his first appearance on stage at the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, April 22, 1911 as Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, with Sir Frank Benson's No.2 Company, under the direction of Henry Herbert. In October 1912 he went to America with Benson's company, playing such parts as Paris in Romeo and Juliet, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Silvius in As You Like It, etc. Returning to England he made his first appearance in London at the Savoy Theatre on July 9, 1914, as Finch in The Sin of David. In December that year he appeared at the Shaftesbury Theatre as the Dauphin in Shakespeare's Henry V. During 1915 he toured with Benson and appeared with him at London's Court Theatre in December as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
During the Summer Festival of 1919 he appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon with the New Shakespeare Company playing Romeo, Cassius, Ferdinand in The Tempest, Florizel in The Winter's Tale etc; in October he was at London's Queen's Theatre as the Aide-de-Camp in Napoleon, and in February 1920 he was at the Savoy Theatre in the title-role in Peter Ibbetson with huge success.
During the 1920s, Rathbone appeared regularly in Shakespearean and other roles on the English stage. He began to travel and appeared at the Cort Theatre, New York in October 1923, and toured in the United States in 1925 appearing in San Francisco (May) and the Lyceum Theatre, New York, (October). He was in the US again in 1927 and 1930, and in 1931 when he appeared on stage with Ethel Barrymore. He continued his stage career in England returning to the US late in 1934 where he appeared with Katharine Cornell in several plays.
He also commenced his film career in 1925 in The Masked Bride, appeared in a few silent movies, and played the detective Philo Vance in the 1929 movie The Bishop Murder Case. Rathbone rose to fame playing suave villains in costume dramas and swashbucklers of the 1930s, including David Copperfield (1935), Anna Karenina (1935) (where he played her husband, Karenin), The Last Days of Pompeii (1935), Captain Blood (1935), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Tower of London (1939), and The Mark of Zorro (1940). Son of Frankenstein is the third film in Universal Studios' Frankenstein series and the last to feature Boris Karloff as the monster. Released in 1939, it is often cited among the best films released that year. Rathbone played the son of Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Wolf Frankenstein.
He was admired for his athletic cinema swordsmanship (he listed fencing amongst his favourite recreations), particularly in the duel on the beach in Captain Blood and as Sir Guy of Gisbourne in the long fight scene in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Other noteworthy sword fights appear in Tower of London; The Mark of Zorro and The Court Jester (1956). Despite his real-life skill, Rathbone only won one swordfight onscreen, in Romeo and Juliet (1936). Rathbone earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performances as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936), and as King Louis XI in If I Were King (1938).
A Hollywood legend is that Rathbone was Margaret Mitchell's first choice to play Rhett Butler in the film version of her novel Gone with the Wind. The reliability of this story may be suspect, however, as on another occasion Mitchell chose Groucho Marx for the role, apparently in jest (the role went to Clark Gable).
Rathbone, however, insisted that he wished to be remembered for his stage career, which was also legendary, and said that his favorite role was that of Romeo.
[edit] The Sherlock Holmes Years
Rathbone is most widely recognized for his starring role as Sherlock Holmes in fourteen movies between 1939 and 1946, all of which co-starred Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. The first two films, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (both 1939) were set in the late-Victorian times of the original stories. Both of these were made by Twentieth Century Fox. Later installments, made at Universal Studios, beginning with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), were set in contemporary times, and some had World War II-related plots. Rathbone and Bruce also reprised their film roles in a radio series, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939 - 1946).
Despite the questionable quality of some of the later Holmes films, Rathbone captured the essence of Arthur Conan Doyle's character as convincingly as any actor has on film, was the definitive Sherlock Holmes of his day and to some, still is. Indeed, Rathbone bore a striking resemblance to Sidney Paget's conception of the character in his original Strand Magazine illustrations for the Holmes stories. (By contrast, Nigel Bruce's portrayal of Watson as a doddering old fool was far from Conan Doyle's original concept, although it may have helped endear the duo to the moviegoing public.)
The many sequels had the effect of typecasting Rathbone, and he was unable to remove himself completely from the shadow of Holmes. However, in later years Rathbone willingly made the Holmes association, as in a TV sketch with Milton Berle in the early 1950s, in which he donned the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape. Rathbone also brought Holmes to the stage in a play written by his wife Ouida. Thomas Gomez, who had appeared as a Nazi ringleader in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, played the villainous Dr. Moriarty. Nigel Bruce was too ill to take the part of Dr. Watson, and it was played by Jack Raine. Bruce's absence depressed Rathbone, particularly after Bruce died -- on 8 October 1953 -- while the play was in rehearsals. The play ran only three performances.
[edit] Later Career
In the 1950s, Rathbone excelled in two spoofs of his earlier swashbuckling villains in Casanova's Big Night (1954) opposite Bob Hope and The Court Jester (1956), with Danny Kaye. He appeared frequently on TV game shows, and had a substantive role in John Ford's political drama The Last Hurrah (1958).
Rathbone also acted on Broadway numerous times. In 1948, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor for his performance as the unyielding Dr. Austin Sloper in the original production of The Heiress , which also featured Wendy Hiller as his timid, spinster daughter. The role of Dr. Sloper was later played by Ralph Richardson in the 1949 film version of The Heiress. He also received accolades for his performance in Archibald Macleish's J.B., a modernization of the Biblical trials of Job.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, he continued to appear in several dignified anthology programs on television. To pay the bills, he unfortunately also had to take jobs in films of far lesser quality, such as The Black Sleep (1956), Queen of Blood (1966), Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966, with the inevitable wisecrack from comic Harvey Lembeck, "That guy looks like Sherlock Holmes."), Hillbillies in a Haunted House (1967, also featuring Lon Chaney Jr.), and his last film, a Mexican horror cheapie called Autopsy of a Ghost (1968). Meanwhile, his Sherlock Holmes portrayal became iconic to newer generations through frequent repetition of the Holmes films on late-night television.
He is also known for his readings of the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe, which are collected together with readings by Vincent Price. Especially powerful and striking is his reading of Poe's "The Raven". Price and Rathbone appeared together, along with Boris Karloff, in Tower of London (1939) and Comedy of Terrors (1964). Rathbone also appeared with Price in the final segment of Roger Corman's 1962 anthology film Tales of Terror (in a loose dramatisation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar").
Basil Rathbone has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for motion pictures at 6549 Hollywood Boulevard; one for radio at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard; and one for television at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
[edit] Death
Basil Rathbone died of a heart attack in New York City in 1967 at age 75. He is interred in a crypt in the Shrine of Memories Mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
[edit] The Sherlock Holmes Films
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943)
- Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
- Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
- The Spider Woman (1944)
- The Scarlet Claw (1944)
- The Pearl of Death (1944)
- The House of Fear (1945)
- The Woman in Green (1945)
- Pursuit to Algiers (1945)
- Terror by Night (1946)
- Dressed to Kill (1946)
[edit] References
- Who's Who in the Theatre - 'The Dramatic List', edited by John Parker, 10th edition revised, London, 1947, pps:1183-1184.
[edit] External links
- Basil Rathbone at the Internet Movie Database
- Biography
- As Sherlock Holmes from Nigel Bruce's memoirs [2]
