William Gillette
Encyclopedia
William Hooker Gillette (July 24, 1853 – April 29, 1937) was an American
actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes
.
Gillette's most significant contributions to the theater were in devising realistic stage settings and special sound and lighting effects, and, as an actor, in putting forth what he called the Illusion of the First Time. His portrayal of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective. His use of the deerstalker cap
(which first appeared in some Strand illustrations by Sidney Paget
) and the curved pipe became synonymous with the character. He assumed the role onstage more than 1,300 times over thirty years, starred in a silent motion picture based on his Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio.
Held by the Enemy, his first Civil War
drama, was a major step toward modern theater in that it abandoned many of the crude devices of 19th century melodrama
and introduced realism into the sets, costumes, props and sound effects. And, at a time when the British had a very low opinion of American art, in any form, Held by the Enemy was also the first wholly American play with a wholly American theme to be a critical and commercial success on British stages.
, was a literary and intellectual center, with such residents as Mark Twain
, Harriet Beecher Stowe
and Charles Dudley Warner
.
Gillette's father, Francis
, was a former United States Senator and crusader for the abolition of slavery, public education, temperance and women's suffrage. His mother was Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Hooker
, the Puritan
leader who founded the town of Hartford and either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government. In the Gillette home, young Will grew up with his three brothers and a sister. Another sister, Mary, died as a small child.
His eldest brother, Frank Ashbell Gillette, went to California
and died there in 1859 from consumption (tuberculosis
). The next brother, Robert, joined the Union army and served in the Antietam campaign, was invalided home sick, recovered, and joined the Navy. Assigned to the U.S.S. Gettysburg, Robert took part in both assaults on Fort Fisher
, but was killed the morning after the surrender of the fort when the powder magazine exploded. After his brother Edward moved to Iowa
, and his sister Elisabeth married George Henry Warner, both in 1863, William was left as the only child in the household.
At the age of 20, he left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. He briefly worked for a stock company in New Orleans and then returned to New England where, on Mark Twain's own recommendation, he debuted at the Globe Theater of Boston with Twain's stage-play The Gilded Age, in 1875. Afterward, he was a stock actor for six years through Boston, New York and the Midwest. He irregularly attended classes at a few institutions, although he never completed their programs. His father, Francis, who had held the strongest objections to the theater in general, offered the least resistance, and drove him to the train station, telling his son that he had driven two other sons to this same station and they had never returned; William was to make sure he was the exception." Francis supplied him with an allowance on which to subsist (his apprenticeship was without pay). When his father's health went downhill in 1878, William forsook the stage for more than a year to care for his father in his final illness. Upon his father's death, he and George Henry Warner were named executors of Francis' estate, and they, Elisabeth and Edward shared in the inheritance.
, caused by a ruptured appendix. He never remarried.
, Gustave and Daniel. The first play he wrote and produced was The Professor. It debuted in the Madison Square Theater
, lasting 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states (as far west as St. Louis, Missouri
). That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written together with Frances Hodgson Burnett
.
Early in his career, Gillette figured out that it would be in the triple role of playwright, director and actor that he would make the most money. Among the premier matinee idols of his day, he was described by Amy Leslie as "one of Gibson's notables materialized". Lewis Strang
observed that "he rarely gesticulates, and his bodily movements often seem purposely slow and deliberate. His composure is absolute and his mental grasp of a situation is complete.”
He could mesmerize an audience simply by standing motionless and in complete silence, or by indulging in any one of his grand gestures or subtle mannerisms. He did not gesture often but, when he did, it meant everything. He would steal a scene with a mere nod, a shrug, a glance, a twitching of the fingers, a compression of his lips, or a hardening of his face. Slight inflections in his voice spoke wonders. “Occasionally”, Georg Schuttler pointed out, “when it was least expected, he gestured or moved his body so quickly that the speed of the action was compared to the swift opening and closing of a camera’s shutter.”
S. E. Dahlinger, leading expert on the play Sherlock Holmes
, summed him up: “Without seeming to raise his voice or ever to force an emotion, he could be thrilling without bombast or infinitely touching without descending to sentimentality. One of his greatest strengths as an actor was the ability to say nothing at all on the stage, relying instead on an involved, inner contemplation of an emotional or comic crisis to hold the audience silent, waiting for the moment when he would speak again.”
He was an unemotional actor, unable to emote, even in love scenes, about which Montrose Moses commented, “he made appeal through the sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness of outward detail, rather than through romantic attitude and heart fervor."
Ward Morehouse
described Gillette's style as "dry, crisp, metallic, almost shrill." Gretchen Finletter recalled that it was "a dry, almost monotonous voice admirably suited to the great Holmes". The Times noted in 1937 that, "it would be hard to convince that portion of the American public that knew and followed him that any better actor had ever trod the American stage ... It would be conservative to say that Mr. Gillette was the most successful of all American actors."
He had a heightened sense of the dramatic, and his two most riveting scenes – the hospital scene in Held by the Enemy and the Telegraph Office scene in Secret Service – are still considered to be among the most dramatic scenes in the history of the American theater.
Gillette treated both sides of the American Civil War, North and South, equally, bestowing integrity, loyalty and honor on both, even as he made a spy each play's sympathetic hero. Yet, what set Gillette apart from all the rest was not simply his reliance on realism, his imperturbable naturalistic acting, or his superior sense of the dramatic. At a time when American art – of all kinds – was held by the British in very low esteem, he “was also a pioneer in making American drama ‘American’, rejecting what had been up until that time a pervasive European influence on American theater.”
His method consisted in “beating with clappers, that represent the hoofs of a horse, upon some material that serves to represent the road-bed over which the horse is supposed to be traveling” as well as “stamping, pawing, or jumping about in a restive manner while the rider is mounting, and then starting off, first at a trot, then a gallop, and finally a run, or at any gait desired, in any order”. He could also imitate the sounds of the hoofs pounding on different surfaces: “stone, brick, clay, gravel, greensward, or when crossing bridges.”
It was not the first patent he had applied for and received. In 1883 he filed the first of four patent requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a Time-Stamp "as stamps upon the upper surface of papers a dial and one or more dial-pointers, representing the time of day at which the papers stamped by it were respectively so stamped." All four requests were granted.
was a young Broadway
producer who had been successful with the exchanging of theater productions between the U.S. and the UK
. After he produced some of Gillette's plays, the two formed a greater partnership. Their productions had great success, sweeping Gillette into London
's society spot, which had been historically reluctant to accept American theatre. With Held by the Enemy in 1887, Gillette became the first American playwright to achieve true success on British stages with an authentic American play.
Gillette finally came fully out of retirement in October 1894 in Too Much Johnson, adapted from the French farce, La Plantation Thomassin, by Maurice Ordonneau. Following its debut at the Park Theatre in Waltham, Massachusetts
, it opened on October 29 at the Columbia Theatre in Brooklyn. This farce was extremely popular, and has been produced on stage several times in the century since its debut.
In 1895 he wrote Secret Service, which was first performed in the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia for two weeks beginning on May 13, 1895, with Maurice Barrymore
in the lead role. Gillette rewrote some of the script and starred in the play when it opened at the Garrick Theatre on October 5, 1896. It was the first time he had taken on the role of the romantic hero in one of his own plays. The production ran until March 6, 1897, and was an enormous critical and popular success. Following its American success, Frohman booked Secret Service to open at the Adelphi Theatre on the West End in London on May 15, 1897, and it became the cornerstone of Frohman's achievements in England.
, feeling that Holmes was stifling him and keeping him from more worthy literary work, had finished his Sherlock Holmes saga and killed Holmes off in The Final Problem, published in 1893. Afterwards, however, Doyle found himself in need of further income, as he was planning to build a new home called "Undershaw
". He decided to take his character to the stage, and wrote a play. Holmes had appeared in two earlier stage works by other authors, Charles Brookfield
's skit Under the Clock (1893) and John Webb's play Sherlock Holmes (1894); nevertheless, Doyle now wrote a new 5-act play with Holmes and Watson in their freshmen years as detectives.
Doyle offered the role first to Beerbohm Tree and then to Henry Irving
. But Irving turned it down and Tree demanded that Doyle readapt Holmes to his peculiar acting profile; he also wanted to play both Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Doyle turned down the deal, considering that this would debase the character. Noting that the play needed a lot of work, literary agent A. P. Watt sent the script to Charles Frohman
who traveled to London to meet Doyle. There, Frohman suggested the prospect of an adaptation by Gillette. Doyle endorsed this and Frohman obtained the staging-copyright. Doyle insisted on only one thing: there was to be no love interest in Sherlock Holmes. Frohman uttered a Victorian rendition of "Trust me!" Gillette, who then read the entire collection for the first time, started the piece's outlining in San Francisco while still touring in Secret Service. On one occasion, after they had exchanged numerous telegrams about the play, Gillette telegraphed Conan Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" The unwavering Doyle responded: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him."
" and "The Final Problem". Also, it had elements from A Study in Scarlet
, The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery
and The Greek Interpreter. However, with the exception of Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and Billy the Pageboy, all the other characters were his own creations. Different from the intellectual-only original, "a machine rather than a man", Gillette portrayed Holmes as brave and open to express his feelings. He wore the deerstalker cap
on stage, which was originally featured in illustrations by Sidney Paget
.
Gillette introduced the curved or bent briar pipe, instead of the straight pipe pictured by illustrators, supposedly so that Gillette could pronounce his lines more easily; actually, it's as difficult to pronounce lines clearly whether the pipe is bent or straight, and it may have been that Gillette's face was easier to see from the seats with a bent briar in his mouth. Gillette also made use of a magnifying-glass
, a violin
and a syringe
, which all came from the Canon and which were all now established as "props" to the Sherlock Holmes character. Gillette formulated the complete phrase: "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow", which was later reused by Clive Brook, the first spoken-cinema Holmes, as: "Elementary, my dear Watson", Holmes's best known line and one of the most famous expressions in the English language.
Irene Adler
, theretofore "The Woman" of the Holmes canon, was replaced by Alice Faulkner, a young and beautiful lady who was planning to avenge her sister's murder but eventually falls in love with Holmes; and the pageboy, nameless in the Canon, was given the name Billy by Gillette, a name he carried over into the Basil Rathbone
films and has retained ever since. Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner (later renamed Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts) was finished. As the Secret Service company was playing in San Francisco and staying in the Baldwin Hotel a fire swept from the property room of the Baldwin Theatre through the hotel in the early morning hours of November 23. The play's script was in the possession of Gillette's secretary, William Postance, in his room at the Baldwin Hotel. The financial loss was estimated at nearly $1,500,000. Only two deaths were known at first, though several people were missing; and, while the flames were confined to the Baldwin, smoke and water damaged the adjoining structures.
Postance barely escaped, but the entire script was reduced to ashes. Postance went to the Palace Hotel, where Gillette was sound asleep, and awakened him at 3:30 in the morning to break the bad news. Not overly happy about being disturbed in the middle of the night, Gillette simply asked, “Is this hotel on fire?” Assured that it was not, he told Postance, “Well, come and tell me about it in the morning.” With both original scripts — Conan Doyle's and Gillette's adaptation — destroyed, Gillette rewrote the piece, either from notes or an extra copy, in a month. Doyle and Gillette had never met, so when the two finally managed to arrange a meeting Conan Doyle's shock was understandable when the train carrying Gillette came to a halt and, instead of the actor, Sherlock Holmes himself stepped onto the platform. Sitting in his landau, Conan Doyle contemplated the apparition with open-mouthed awe until the actor whipped out a magnifying lens, examined Doyle's face closely, and declared (precisely as Holmes himself might have done), "Unquestionably an author!" Conan Doyle broke into a hearty laugh and the partnership was sealed with the mirth and hospitality of a weekend at Undershaw. The two became lifelong friends.
. Following appearances in Rochester
and Syracuse
, and Scranton
and Wilkes-Barre
in Pennsylvania
, Sherlock Holmes made its Broadway debut at the Garrick Theater
on November 6, 1899, performing until June 16, 1900. It was an instant success. Gillette applied all his dazzling special effects over the massive audience.
The company also toured nationally, along the western United States, from October 8, 1900 until March 30, 1901. This was bolstered by another company also, with Cuyler Hastings, through minor cities and Australia
. After a pre-debut week in Liverpool
, the company debuted in London (September 9, 1901), at the Lyceum Theatre
, performing in Duke of York's Theatre
later.
It was another hit with its audience, despite not convincing the critics. The 12 weeks originally appointed were at full-hall. The production was extended until April 12, 1902 (256 presentations), including a gala for King Edward VII
on February 1. Then it toured England and Scotland with two ancillary groups: North (with H. A. Saintsbury
) and South (with Julian Royce). At the same time, the play was produced in foreign countries (such as Australia
, Sweden
, and South Africa
).
The dean of British actors, Sir Henry Irving
, was touring America when Sherlock Holmes opened at the Garrick Theatre, and Irving saw Gillette as Holmes. The two actors met and Irving concluded negotiations for Sherlock Holmes to begin an extended season at the Lyceum Theatre in London beginning in early May. Gillette was the first American actor ever to be invited to perform on that illustrious stage, which was an enormous honor. Irving was the dean of British actors, the first ever to be knighted, and the Lyceum was his theater.
Sherlock Holmes made its British debut at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool on September 2, 1901. It was the beginning of a major triumph. Gillette then opened Sherlock Holmes at the Lyceum in London on September 9. The Lyceum tour alone netted Gillette nearly $100,000, and it made the most money of all the productions in the final years of Irving's tenure at the Lyceum. In the United States, Gillette again toured from 1902 until November 1903, starring in The Admirable Crichton
by James M. Barrie. Gillette's own play, Electricity, appeared in 1910, and he starred in Victorien Sardou
's Diplomacy in 1914, Clare Kummer's A Successful Calamity in 1917, Barrie's Dear Brutus in 1918, and Gillette's The Dream Maker in 1921. A brief revival of Sherlock Holmes in early 1923 did not generate enough interest to return to Broadway, so he retired to his Hadlyme estate.
canon and in magazines by way of photographs or illustrations, and was also well represented on the covers of theater programs
.
Around the world, other productions took place, based on Gillette's Sherlock Holmes. These were either satiric or spoof
, which were very successful, and/or undue; some lasted several seasons. Frohman's lawyers tried to curb the illegal phenomenon exhaustedly, traveling overseas, from court to court. Legitimate productions were also produced throughout Europe and Australia for many years.
Even Gillette parodied it once. The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes – the first of a handful of one-act plays he would write – was written for two benefits, and was performed for the first time at the Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 24. Holland was an actor who had been forced to retire the year before due to illness. The skit was titled The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, and there were but five characters in the entire skit: Holmes, Billy the page boy (played by Henry McArdle), the madwoman Gwendolyn Cobb (who had nearly all of the dialogue and was played by Ethel Barrymore
), and the two “valuable assistants” who come to take the madwoman away. Its original title was A fantasy in about one-tenth of an act, and the entire scene transpires in Holmes' Baker Street room “somewhere about the date of day before yesterday.” Retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, it was performed again on April 14 for the benefit of the Actors Society of America at the Criterion Theatre (with Jessie Busley
as Gwendolyn Cobb and McArdle again as Billy), and again at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London when Gillette inserted it on October 3 as a curtain-raiser for Clarice. Playing Billy in the curtain-raiser was young Charlie Chaplin
. When Clarice was replaced with Sherlock Holmes, Chaplin continued as Billy.
(USA) and The Strand
(UK) pushed Conan Doyle avidly, offering to continue the Sherlock Holmes series for a generous salary. The new chapters were first published in 1901, first with a prequel and later with Holmes revived definitively (1903). It continued for another quarter-century.
Gillette was the model for pictures by the artist Frederic Dorr Steele
, which were featured in Collier's Weekly
then and reproduced by American media. Steele contributed to Conan Doyle's book-covers and, later, doing marketing when Gillette made his farewell performances. Conan Doyle's series were widely printed throughout the USA, mostly with pictures of Gillette on stage. P. F. Collier & Son owned the copyrights of Steele's illustrations and issued drawings in many editions.
In 1907 Gillette was caricatured in Vanity Fair
by Sir Leslie Ward
(who signed his work "Spy
") (see above), and later became the subject of such famous American caricaturists as Pamela Coleman Smith, Ralph Barton
and Al Freuh.
While most of Gillette's work has long been forgotten, his last great masterpiece is still well known today: his castellated “retirement home”. The Washington Post called it “the acme of his dreams.” He once called it his "Hadlyme stone heap.” Others called it “the rock pile” or "Gillette's folly". Today, it is simply called Gillette Castle. He never referred to it as a castle, although his neighbors often did, but it “summarizes the success upon which all his dreams were built,” dreams that “turned his picturesque estate into a small boy’s dream of paradise.”
In 1913, while sailing up the Connecticut River
in his houseboat
, Gillette spotted a hill, part of the Seven Sisters chain, over a ferry
's pier in Hadlyme. He docked, disembarked, and climbed up. He purchased 115 acre (0.4653889 km²) of land the next month. He decided to build up a castle at this location, supposedly inspired by or modeled loosely after the Château de Moulineaux, a French feudal castle built during the era of the Dukes of Normandy and associated in folklore with Robert Le Diable (Robert the Devil
). The design of the castle and its grounds features numerous innovative designs, and the entire castle was designed, to the smallest details, by Gillette.
During the five years of construction, he lived aboard his houseboat, the Aunt Polly, named after a mountain woman in South Carolina who tended to him when he was sick, or at a home he had purchased in Greenport, Long Island
. The material for the castle was carried up by an aerial-tramway designed by him. The castle's walls tapered from 5 feet (1.5 m) thick at the base to 3 foot (0.9144 m) at the upper levels. The castle possessed 24 rooms and 47 doors, with hand-carved puzzle locks, which were also devised by Gillette. The main salon measured 30 by 50 feet (15.2 m) and was 19 feet (5.8 m) high, featuring a complex mirrored system of surveillance of the castle's public rooms from his bedroom. He explained this as a means "to make great entrances in the opportune moment."
The mansion was finished in 1919, at a cost of USD $1.1 million. Gillette called it "Seven Sisters." Its small train was his personal pride. The train's layout was 3 miles (4.8 km) long, and it traveled all around the property, crossing several bridges and going through one tunnel designed by Gillette.
After Gillette, who had no children, died, his will
stated
In 1943, the Connecticut state government bought the property, renaming it Gillette's Castle and Gillette Castle State Park
. Located in 67 River Road, East Haddam, Connecticut
, it was reopened in 2002. After a four years of restoration, costing $11 million, it now includes a museum, park, and many theatrical celebrations. It receives 100,000 annual visitors. The castle is No. 86002103 on the National Register of Historic Places
. It remains a distinctive feature of the view from the Connecticut River, and is one of the top three tourist attractions in the state.
Sherlock Holmes was Gillette's foremost production with 1,300 performances (in 1899–1901, 1905, 1906, 1910, 1915, 1923, and 1929–1932). While performing on other tours, he was always forced by popular demand to include at least one extra performance of Sherlock Holmes. In 1929, at the age of 76, Gillette started the farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, in Springfield, Massachusetts
. Scheduled for two seasons, it was eventually extended into 1932. The first run of the tour included in the cast Theatre Guild actress Peg Entwistle
as Gillette's female lead. Entwistle was the tragic young actress who committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywoodland sign in 1932. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_Entwistle#Death )
In the New Amsterdam Theater of New York, on November 25, 1929, a great ceremony took place. Gillette received a signature book
, autographed by 60 different world eminences. There, in his speech, Arthur Conan Doyle
stated: "I consider the production a personal gratification ... My only complaint is that you made the poor hero of the anemic printed page a very limp object as compared with the glamour of your own personality which you infuse into his stage presentment". Former President Calvin Coolidge
commented that the production was a "public service". Booth Tarkington
told him, "I would rather see you play Sherlock Holmes than be a child again on Christmas morning."
Gillette's last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong's Three Wise Fools in 1936.
. He was buried in the Hooker family plot at Riverside Cemetery, Farmington, Connecticut
, next to his wife.
Method of Producing Stage Effects
, Gillette began building his bungalow, which he later enlarged into a house. He named it Thousand Pines and it is privately owned today. In past years, in November, the town of Tryon celebrated the William Gillette Festival, honoring Gillette. The Polk County Historical Museum there displays Gillete's pipe and slippers from his farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, as well as china, some letters and other items left behind at the actor's North Carolina home (Read about Tryon's 1998 Festival).
, became one of Hollywood's greatest directors and choreographers.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
.
Gillette's most significant contributions to the theater were in devising realistic stage settings and special sound and lighting effects, and, as an actor, in putting forth what he called the Illusion of the First Time. His portrayal of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective. His use of the deerstalker cap
Deerstalker
A deerstalker is a type of hat that is typically worn in rural areas, often for hunting, especially deer stalking. Because of the hat's popular association with Sherlock Holmes, it is also a stereotypical hat of a detective.-Construction:...
(which first appeared in some Strand illustrations by Sidney Paget
Sidney Paget
Sidney Edward Paget was a British illustrator of the Victorian era, best known for his illustrations that accompanied Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand magazine.- Life :...
) and the curved pipe became synonymous with the character. He assumed the role onstage more than 1,300 times over thirty years, starred in a silent motion picture based on his Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio.
Held by the Enemy, his first Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
drama, was a major step toward modern theater in that it abandoned many of the crude devices of 19th century melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
and introduced realism into the sets, costumes, props and sound effects. And, at a time when the British had a very low opinion of American art, in any form, Held by the Enemy was also the first wholly American play with a wholly American theme to be a critical and commercial success on British stages.
Youth
The neighborhood where William Gillette was born, Nook Farm, Hartford, ConnecticutHartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, was a literary and intellectual center, with such residents as Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
and Charles Dudley Warner
Charles Dudley Warner
Charles Dudley Warner was an American essayist, novelist, and friend of Mark Twain, with whom he co-authored the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.-Biography:...
.
Gillette's father, Francis
Francis Gillette
Francis Gillette was a politician from Connecticut, USA. He was the father of playwright William Gillette and politician and editor Edward H. Gillette....
, was a former United States Senator and crusader for the abolition of slavery, public education, temperance and women's suffrage. His mother was Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Hooker
Thomas Hooker
Thomas Hooker was a prominent Puritan colonial leader, who founded the Colony of Connecticut after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts...
, the Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
leader who founded the town of Hartford and either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government. In the Gillette home, young Will grew up with his three brothers and a sister. Another sister, Mary, died as a small child.
His eldest brother, Frank Ashbell Gillette, went to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and died there in 1859 from consumption (tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
). The next brother, Robert, joined the Union army and served in the Antietam campaign, was invalided home sick, recovered, and joined the Navy. Assigned to the U.S.S. Gettysburg, Robert took part in both assaults on Fort Fisher
Fort Fisher
Fort Fisher was a Confederate fort during the American Civil War. It protected the vital trading routes of the port at Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1861 until its capture by the Union in 1865....
, but was killed the morning after the surrender of the fort when the powder magazine exploded. After his brother Edward moved to Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, and his sister Elisabeth married George Henry Warner, both in 1863, William was left as the only child in the household.
At the age of 20, he left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. He briefly worked for a stock company in New Orleans and then returned to New England where, on Mark Twain's own recommendation, he debuted at the Globe Theater of Boston with Twain's stage-play The Gilded Age, in 1875. Afterward, he was a stock actor for six years through Boston, New York and the Midwest. He irregularly attended classes at a few institutions, although he never completed their programs. His father, Francis, who had held the strongest objections to the theater in general, offered the least resistance, and drove him to the train station, telling his son that he had driven two other sons to this same station and they had never returned; William was to make sure he was the exception." Francis supplied him with an allowance on which to subsist (his apprenticeship was without pay). When his father's health went downhill in 1878, William forsook the stage for more than a year to care for his father in his final illness. Upon his father's death, he and George Henry Warner were named executors of Francis' estate, and they, Elisabeth and Edward shared in the inheritance.
Marriage
In 1882 Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit. She died in 1888 from peritonitisPeritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
, caused by a ruptured appendix. He never remarried.
Playwright, director, actor
In 1881, while performing at Cincinnati, Gillette was hired as playwright, director and actor for $50 per week by two of the Frohman brothersFrohman brothers
The Frohman brothers were important American Broadway theatre owners and theatrical producers who also owned and operated motion picture production companies.The brothers were:*Daniel Frohman *Gustave Frohman...
, Gustave and Daniel. The first play he wrote and produced was The Professor. It debuted in the Madison Square Theater
Madison Square
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Constitution.The focus of the square is...
, lasting 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states (as far west as St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
). That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written together with Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden , A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.Born Frances Eliza Hodgson, she lived in Cheetham Hill, Manchester...
.
Early in his career, Gillette figured out that it would be in the triple role of playwright, director and actor that he would make the most money. Among the premier matinee idols of his day, he was described by Amy Leslie as "one of Gibson's notables materialized". Lewis Strang
Lewis Strang
Lewis Strang was an American racecar driver. Strang was pole sitter for the inaugural Indianapolis 500. He was killed in a testing accident, becoming the first Indy 500 veteran to die....
observed that "he rarely gesticulates, and his bodily movements often seem purposely slow and deliberate. His composure is absolute and his mental grasp of a situation is complete.”
He could mesmerize an audience simply by standing motionless and in complete silence, or by indulging in any one of his grand gestures or subtle mannerisms. He did not gesture often but, when he did, it meant everything. He would steal a scene with a mere nod, a shrug, a glance, a twitching of the fingers, a compression of his lips, or a hardening of his face. Slight inflections in his voice spoke wonders. “Occasionally”, Georg Schuttler pointed out, “when it was least expected, he gestured or moved his body so quickly that the speed of the action was compared to the swift opening and closing of a camera’s shutter.”
S. E. Dahlinger, leading expert on the play Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
, summed him up: “Without seeming to raise his voice or ever to force an emotion, he could be thrilling without bombast or infinitely touching without descending to sentimentality. One of his greatest strengths as an actor was the ability to say nothing at all on the stage, relying instead on an involved, inner contemplation of an emotional or comic crisis to hold the audience silent, waiting for the moment when he would speak again.”
He was an unemotional actor, unable to emote, even in love scenes, about which Montrose Moses commented, “he made appeal through the sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness of outward detail, rather than through romantic attitude and heart fervor."
Ward Morehouse
Ward Morehouse
Ward Morehouse was an American theater critic, newspaper columnist, playwright, and author.-Biography:...
described Gillette's style as "dry, crisp, metallic, almost shrill." Gretchen Finletter recalled that it was "a dry, almost monotonous voice admirably suited to the great Holmes". The Times noted in 1937 that, "it would be hard to convince that portion of the American public that knew and followed him that any better actor had ever trod the American stage ... It would be conservative to say that Mr. Gillette was the most successful of all American actors."
He had a heightened sense of the dramatic, and his two most riveting scenes – the hospital scene in Held by the Enemy and the Telegraph Office scene in Secret Service – are still considered to be among the most dramatic scenes in the history of the American theater.
Gillette treated both sides of the American Civil War, North and South, equally, bestowing integrity, loyalty and honor on both, even as he made a spy each play's sympathetic hero. Yet, what set Gillette apart from all the rest was not simply his reliance on realism, his imperturbable naturalistic acting, or his superior sense of the dramatic. At a time when American art – of all kinds – was held by the British in very low esteem, he “was also a pioneer in making American drama ‘American’, rejecting what had been up until that time a pervasive European influence on American theater.”
Inventor
During an 1886–87 production of Held by the Enemy, Gillette introduced a new method of his own devising which simulated the galloping of a horse. Where men had slammed halves of coconut shells on a slab of marble to simulate the sound, Gillette found this clumsy and unrealistic. Applied for on June 9, Letters Patent No. 389,294 was issued to him on September 11, entitled “Method of Producing Stage Effects”. It was a method, not a mechanical device, so there were no illustrations in the two-page document. And the patent was very broad, introducing “a new and useful method of imitating the sound of a horse or horses approaching, departing, or passing at a gallop, trot, or any other desired gait, the same to be used in producing stage effects in theatrical or other performances or entertainments, exhibitions, &c.”His method consisted in “beating with clappers, that represent the hoofs of a horse, upon some material that serves to represent the road-bed over which the horse is supposed to be traveling” as well as “stamping, pawing, or jumping about in a restive manner while the rider is mounting, and then starting off, first at a trot, then a gallop, and finally a run, or at any gait desired, in any order”. He could also imitate the sounds of the hoofs pounding on different surfaces: “stone, brick, clay, gravel, greensward, or when crossing bridges.”
It was not the first patent he had applied for and received. In 1883 he filed the first of four patent requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a Time-Stamp "as stamps upon the upper surface of papers a dial and one or more dial-pointers, representing the time of day at which the papers stamped by it were respectively so stamped." All four requests were granted.
Comeback
Charles FrohmanCharles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
was a young Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
producer who had been successful with the exchanging of theater productions between the U.S. and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. After he produced some of Gillette's plays, the two formed a greater partnership. Their productions had great success, sweeping Gillette into London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's society spot, which had been historically reluctant to accept American theatre. With Held by the Enemy in 1887, Gillette became the first American playwright to achieve true success on British stages with an authentic American play.
Gillette finally came fully out of retirement in October 1894 in Too Much Johnson, adapted from the French farce, La Plantation Thomassin, by Maurice Ordonneau. Following its debut at the Park Theatre in Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...
, it opened on October 29 at the Columbia Theatre in Brooklyn. This farce was extremely popular, and has been produced on stage several times in the century since its debut.
In 1895 he wrote Secret Service, which was first performed in the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia for two weeks beginning on May 13, 1895, with Maurice Barrymore
Maurice Barrymore
Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe —stage name Maurice Barrymore — was the patriarch of the Barrymore acting family and great-grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore.-Early life:...
in the lead role. Gillette rewrote some of the script and starred in the play when it opened at the Garrick Theatre on October 5, 1896. It was the first time he had taken on the role of the romantic hero in one of his own plays. The production ran until March 6, 1897, and was an enormous critical and popular success. Following its American success, Frohman booked Secret Service to open at the Adelphi Theatre on the West End in London on May 15, 1897, and it became the cornerstone of Frohman's achievements in England.
Sherlock Holmes
Meanwhile Sir Arthur Conan DoyleArthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, feeling that Holmes was stifling him and keeping him from more worthy literary work, had finished his Sherlock Holmes saga and killed Holmes off in The Final Problem, published in 1893. Afterwards, however, Doyle found himself in need of further income, as he was planning to build a new home called "Undershaw
Undershaw
Undershaw is a former residence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. The house was built for Doyle at his order, and it is the location where he wrote many of his works, including The Hound of the Baskervilles...
". He decided to take his character to the stage, and wrote a play. Holmes had appeared in two earlier stage works by other authors, Charles Brookfield
Charles Brookfield
Charles Hallam Elton Brookfield was a British actor, author, playwright and journalist, including for The Saturday Review. His most famous work for the theatre was The Belle of Mayfair ....
's skit Under the Clock (1893) and John Webb's play Sherlock Holmes (1894); nevertheless, Doyle now wrote a new 5-act play with Holmes and Watson in their freshmen years as detectives.
Doyle offered the role first to Beerbohm Tree and then to Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
. But Irving turned it down and Tree demanded that Doyle readapt Holmes to his peculiar acting profile; he also wanted to play both Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Doyle turned down the deal, considering that this would debase the character. Noting that the play needed a lot of work, literary agent A. P. Watt sent the script to Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
who traveled to London to meet Doyle. There, Frohman suggested the prospect of an adaptation by Gillette. Doyle endorsed this and Frohman obtained the staging-copyright. Doyle insisted on only one thing: there was to be no love interest in Sherlock Holmes. Frohman uttered a Victorian rendition of "Trust me!" Gillette, who then read the entire collection for the first time, started the piece's outlining in San Francisco while still touring in Secret Service. On one occasion, after they had exchanged numerous telegrams about the play, Gillette telegraphed Conan Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" The unwavering Doyle responded: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him."
Coins Famous Phrase
Gillette's version consisted of four acts. Combining elements from several of Doyle's stories, he mainly utilized the plots "A Scandal in BohemiaA Scandal in Bohemia
"A Scandal in Bohemia" was the first of Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories to be published in The Strand Magazine and the first Sherlock Holmes story illustrated by Sidney Paget....
" and "The Final Problem". Also, it had elements from A Study in Scarlet
A Study in Scarlet
A Study in Scarlet is a detective mystery novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, introducing his new character of Sherlock Holmes, who later became one of the most famous literary detective characters. He wrote the story in 1886, and it was published the next year...
, The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
"The Boscombe Valley Mystery", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the fourth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in the Strand Magazine in 1891.-Plot summary:Lestrade summons Holmes to a...
and The Greek Interpreter. However, with the exception of Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and Billy the Pageboy, all the other characters were his own creations. Different from the intellectual-only original, "a machine rather than a man", Gillette portrayed Holmes as brave and open to express his feelings. He wore the deerstalker cap
Deerstalker
A deerstalker is a type of hat that is typically worn in rural areas, often for hunting, especially deer stalking. Because of the hat's popular association with Sherlock Holmes, it is also a stereotypical hat of a detective.-Construction:...
on stage, which was originally featured in illustrations by Sidney Paget
Sidney Paget
Sidney Edward Paget was a British illustrator of the Victorian era, best known for his illustrations that accompanied Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand magazine.- Life :...
.
Gillette introduced the curved or bent briar pipe, instead of the straight pipe pictured by illustrators, supposedly so that Gillette could pronounce his lines more easily; actually, it's as difficult to pronounce lines clearly whether the pipe is bent or straight, and it may have been that Gillette's face was easier to see from the seats with a bent briar in his mouth. Gillette also made use of a magnifying-glass
Magnifying glass
A magnifying glass is a convex lens that is used to produce a magnified image of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle ....
, a violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and a syringe
Syringe
A syringe is a simple pump consisting of a plunger that fits tightly in a tube. The plunger can be pulled and pushed along inside a cylindrical tube , allowing the syringe to take in and expel a liquid or gas through an orifice at the open end of the tube...
, which all came from the Canon and which were all now established as "props" to the Sherlock Holmes character. Gillette formulated the complete phrase: "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow", which was later reused by Clive Brook, the first spoken-cinema Holmes, as: "Elementary, my dear Watson", Holmes's best known line and one of the most famous expressions in the English language.
Irene Adler
Irene Adler
Irene Adler is a fictional character featured in the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in July 1891...
, theretofore "The Woman" of the Holmes canon, was replaced by Alice Faulkner, a young and beautiful lady who was planning to avenge her sister's murder but eventually falls in love with Holmes; and the pageboy, nameless in the Canon, was given the name Billy by Gillette, a name he carried over into the Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
films and has retained ever since. Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner (later renamed Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts) was finished. As the Secret Service company was playing in San Francisco and staying in the Baldwin Hotel a fire swept from the property room of the Baldwin Theatre through the hotel in the early morning hours of November 23. The play's script was in the possession of Gillette's secretary, William Postance, in his room at the Baldwin Hotel. The financial loss was estimated at nearly $1,500,000. Only two deaths were known at first, though several people were missing; and, while the flames were confined to the Baldwin, smoke and water damaged the adjoining structures.
Postance barely escaped, but the entire script was reduced to ashes. Postance went to the Palace Hotel, where Gillette was sound asleep, and awakened him at 3:30 in the morning to break the bad news. Not overly happy about being disturbed in the middle of the night, Gillette simply asked, “Is this hotel on fire?” Assured that it was not, he told Postance, “Well, come and tell me about it in the morning.” With both original scripts — Conan Doyle's and Gillette's adaptation — destroyed, Gillette rewrote the piece, either from notes or an extra copy, in a month. Doyle and Gillette had never met, so when the two finally managed to arrange a meeting Conan Doyle's shock was understandable when the train carrying Gillette came to a halt and, instead of the actor, Sherlock Holmes himself stepped onto the platform. Sitting in his landau, Conan Doyle contemplated the apparition with open-mouthed awe until the actor whipped out a magnifying lens, examined Doyle's face closely, and declared (precisely as Holmes himself might have done), "Unquestionably an author!" Conan Doyle broke into a hearty laugh and the partnership was sealed with the mirth and hospitality of a weekend at Undershaw. The two became lifelong friends.
Holmes Tour
After a copyright performance in England, Sherlock Holmes debuted on October 23, 1899, at the Star Theatre in BuffaloBuffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. Following appearances in Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
and Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
, and Scranton
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
and Wilkes-Barre
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, Sherlock Holmes made its Broadway debut at the Garrick Theater
Garrick Theatre (New York)
The Garrick Theatre was a 910 seat theatre built in 1890 and located on 67 West 35th Street New York. Designed by Francis Hatch Kimball and commissioned by Edward Harrigan, who managed the theatre, originally named Harringan's Theatre, until 1895. Richard Mansfield took over from Harrigan, renaming...
on November 6, 1899, performing until June 16, 1900. It was an instant success. Gillette applied all his dazzling special effects over the massive audience.
The company also toured nationally, along the western United States, from October 8, 1900 until March 30, 1901. This was bolstered by another company also, with Cuyler Hastings, through minor cities and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. After a pre-debut week in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, the company debuted in London (September 9, 1901), at the Lyceum Theatre
Lyceum Theatre (London)
The Lyceum Theatre is a 2,000-seat West End theatre located in the City of Westminster, on Wellington Street, just off the Strand. There has been a theatre with this name in the locality since 1765, and the present site opened on 14 July 1834 to a design by Samuel Beazley. The building was unique...
, performing in Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
later.
It was another hit with its audience, despite not convincing the critics. The 12 weeks originally appointed were at full-hall. The production was extended until April 12, 1902 (256 presentations), including a gala for King Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
on February 1. Then it toured England and Scotland with two ancillary groups: North (with H. A. Saintsbury
Harry Arthur Saintsbury
Harry Arthur Saintsbury, usually called H. A. Saintsbury was an English actor and playwright. A leading man, he became well known for his stage interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, was an early mentor of Charlie Chaplin and is considered an authority on the work of Sir Henry Irving.Called Arthur by...
) and South (with Julian Royce). At the same time, the play was produced in foreign countries (such as Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
).
The dean of British actors, Sir Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
, was touring America when Sherlock Holmes opened at the Garrick Theatre, and Irving saw Gillette as Holmes. The two actors met and Irving concluded negotiations for Sherlock Holmes to begin an extended season at the Lyceum Theatre in London beginning in early May. Gillette was the first American actor ever to be invited to perform on that illustrious stage, which was an enormous honor. Irving was the dean of British actors, the first ever to be knighted, and the Lyceum was his theater.
Sherlock Holmes made its British debut at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool on September 2, 1901. It was the beginning of a major triumph. Gillette then opened Sherlock Holmes at the Lyceum in London on September 9. The Lyceum tour alone netted Gillette nearly $100,000, and it made the most money of all the productions in the final years of Irving's tenure at the Lyceum. In the United States, Gillette again toured from 1902 until November 1903, starring in The Admirable Crichton
The Admirable Crichton
The Admirable Crichton is a comic stage play written in 1902 by J. M. Barrie. It was produced by Charles Frohman and opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 4 November 1902, running for an extremely successful 828 performances. It starred H. B. Irving and Irene Vanbrugh...
by James M. Barrie. Gillette's own play, Electricity, appeared in 1910, and he starred in Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
's Diplomacy in 1914, Clare Kummer's A Successful Calamity in 1917, Barrie's Dear Brutus in 1918, and Gillette's The Dream Maker in 1921. A brief revival of Sherlock Holmes in early 1923 did not generate enough interest to return to Broadway, so he retired to his Hadlyme estate.
Worldwide Fame
In his lifetime, Gillette presented Sherlock Holmes approximately 1,300 times (third in the historical stage-record), before American and English audiences. He was also shown widely, through appearances in many editions of the Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
canon and in magazines by way of photographs or illustrations, and was also well represented on the covers of theater programs
Event programme
A programme or program is a booklet available for patrons attending a live event such as theatre performances, fêtes, sports events, etc. It is a printed leaflet outlining the parts of the event scheduled to take place, principal performers and background information. In the case of theatrical...
.
Around the world, other productions took place, based on Gillette's Sherlock Holmes. These were either satiric or spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, which were very successful, and/or undue; some lasted several seasons. Frohman's lawyers tried to curb the illegal phenomenon exhaustedly, traveling overseas, from court to court. Legitimate productions were also produced throughout Europe and Australia for many years.
Even Gillette parodied it once. The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes – the first of a handful of one-act plays he would write – was written for two benefits, and was performed for the first time at the Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 24. Holland was an actor who had been forced to retire the year before due to illness. The skit was titled The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, and there were but five characters in the entire skit: Holmes, Billy the page boy (played by Henry McArdle), the madwoman Gwendolyn Cobb (who had nearly all of the dialogue and was played by Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
), and the two “valuable assistants” who come to take the madwoman away. Its original title was A fantasy in about one-tenth of an act, and the entire scene transpires in Holmes' Baker Street room “somewhere about the date of day before yesterday.” Retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, it was performed again on April 14 for the benefit of the Actors Society of America at the Criterion Theatre (with Jessie Busley
Jessie Busley
Jessie Busley was an American actress/comedian who performed on stage, screen and radio for over six decades.-Personal life:...
as Gwendolyn Cobb and McArdle again as Billy), and again at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London when Gillette inserted it on October 3 as a curtain-raiser for Clarice. Playing Billy in the curtain-raiser was young Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
. When Clarice was replaced with Sherlock Holmes, Chaplin continued as Billy.
Models for Holmes' portrait
The magazines Collier's WeeklyCollier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
(USA) and The Strand
Strand Magazine
The Strand Magazine was a monthly magazine composed of fictional stories and factual articles founded by George Newnes. It was first published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950 running to 711 issues, though the first issue was on sale well before Christmas 1890.Its immediate...
(UK) pushed Conan Doyle avidly, offering to continue the Sherlock Holmes series for a generous salary. The new chapters were first published in 1901, first with a prequel and later with Holmes revived definitively (1903). It continued for another quarter-century.
Gillette was the model for pictures by the artist Frederic Dorr Steele
Frederic Dorr Steele
Frederic Dorr Steele is an American illustrator best known for his work on the Sherlock Holmes stories.Steele, a descendant of William Bradford , was born on 6 August 1873 at Eagle Mills, Marquette, Michigan, and studied at the National Academy of Design and elsewhere in New York City...
, which were featured in Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
then and reproduced by American media. Steele contributed to Conan Doyle's book-covers and, later, doing marketing when Gillette made his farewell performances. Conan Doyle's series were widely printed throughout the USA, mostly with pictures of Gillette on stage. P. F. Collier & Son owned the copyrights of Steele's illustrations and issued drawings in many editions.
In 1907 Gillette was caricatured in Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (British magazine)
The second Vanity Fair was a British weekly magazine published from 1868 to 1914.-History:Subtitled "A Weekly Show of Political, Social and Literary Wares", it was founded by Thomas Gibson Bowles, who aimed to expose the contemporary vanities of Victorian society. The first issue appeared in London...
by Sir Leslie Ward
Leslie Ward
Sir Leslie Matthew Ward , was a British portrait artist and caricaturist who drew or painted numerous portraits which were regularly published by Vanity Fair, under the pseudonyms "Spy" and "Drawl".-Background:...
(who signed his work "Spy
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
") (see above), and later became the subject of such famous American caricaturists as Pamela Coleman Smith, Ralph Barton
Ralph Barton
Ralph Barton was an American artist best known for his cartoons and caricatures of actors and other celebrities...
and Al Freuh.
Gillette Castle
In 1913, while sailing up the Connecticut River
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
in his houseboat
Houseboat
A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...
, Gillette spotted a hill, part of the Seven Sisters chain, over a ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
's pier in Hadlyme. He docked, disembarked, and climbed up. He purchased 115 acre (0.4653889 km²) of land the next month. He decided to build up a castle at this location, supposedly inspired by or modeled loosely after the Château de Moulineaux, a French feudal castle built during the era of the Dukes of Normandy and associated in folklore with Robert Le Diable (Robert the Devil
Robert the Devil
Robert the Devil is a legend of medieval origin. Robert is the devil's own child, for his mother, despairing of heaven's aid in order to obtain a son, has addressed herself to the devil...
). The design of the castle and its grounds features numerous innovative designs, and the entire castle was designed, to the smallest details, by Gillette.
During the five years of construction, he lived aboard his houseboat, the Aunt Polly, named after a mountain woman in South Carolina who tended to him when he was sick, or at a home he had purchased in Greenport, Long Island
Greenport, Suffolk County, New York
Greenport is a village in Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is located on the north fork of Long Island. The population was 2,048 at the 2000 census....
. The material for the castle was carried up by an aerial-tramway designed by him. The castle's walls tapered from 5 feet (1.5 m) thick at the base to 3 foot (0.9144 m) at the upper levels. The castle possessed 24 rooms and 47 doors, with hand-carved puzzle locks, which were also devised by Gillette. The main salon measured 30 by 50 feet (15.2 m) and was 19 feet (5.8 m) high, featuring a complex mirrored system of surveillance of the castle's public rooms from his bedroom. He explained this as a means "to make great entrances in the opportune moment."
The mansion was finished in 1919, at a cost of USD $1.1 million. Gillette called it "Seven Sisters." Its small train was his personal pride. The train's layout was 3 miles (4.8 km) long, and it traveled all around the property, crossing several bridges and going through one tunnel designed by Gillette.
After Gillette, who had no children, died, his will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
stated
I would consider it more than unfortunate for me – should I find myself doomed, after death, to a continued consciousness of the behavior of mankind on this planet – to discover that the stone walls and towers and fireplaces of my home – founded at every point on the solid rock of Connecticut; – that my railway line with its bridges, trestles, tunnels through solid rock, and stone culverts and underpasses, all built in every particular for permanence (so far as there is such a thing); – that my locomotives and cars, constructed on the safest and most efficient mechanical principles; – that these, and many other things of a like nature, should reveal themselves to me as in the possession of some blithering saphead who had no conception of where he is or with what surrounded.
In 1943, the Connecticut state government bought the property, renaming it Gillette's Castle and Gillette Castle State Park
Gillette Castle State Park
Gillette Castle State Park is straddling the towns of East Haddam and Lyme, Connecticut, in the United States. Sitting high above the Connecticut River, the castle was originally a private residence commissioned and designed by William Gillette, an American actor who is most famous for his...
. Located in 67 River Road, East Haddam, Connecticut
East Haddam, Connecticut
East Haddam is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,333 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water....
, it was reopened in 2002. After a four years of restoration, costing $11 million, it now includes a museum, park, and many theatrical celebrations. It receives 100,000 annual visitors. The castle is No. 86002103 on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. It remains a distinctive feature of the view from the Connecticut River, and is one of the top three tourist attractions in the state.
Last Years and Farewell Tour
Gillette announced his retirement many times throughout his career, despite not actually accomplishing this until his death. The first announced retirement took place after the turn of the century, after he purchased the boat Aunt Polly which was 144 feet (43.9 m) in length and weighed 200 tons.Sherlock Holmes was Gillette's foremost production with 1,300 performances (in 1899–1901, 1905, 1906, 1910, 1915, 1923, and 1929–1932). While performing on other tours, he was always forced by popular demand to include at least one extra performance of Sherlock Holmes. In 1929, at the age of 76, Gillette started the farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, in Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
. Scheduled for two seasons, it was eventually extended into 1932. The first run of the tour included in the cast Theatre Guild actress Peg Entwistle
Peg Entwistle
Peg Entwistle was an English stage and screen actress who gained notoriety after her suicide at the age of 24 by leaping off of the Hollywood Sign.-Early life:...
as Gillette's female lead. Entwistle was the tragic young actress who committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywoodland sign in 1932. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_Entwistle#Death )
In the New Amsterdam Theater of New York, on November 25, 1929, a great ceremony took place. Gillette received a signature book
Signature
A signature is a handwritten depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying...
, autographed by 60 different world eminences. There, in his speech, Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
stated: "I consider the production a personal gratification ... My only complaint is that you made the poor hero of the anemic printed page a very limp object as compared with the glamour of your own personality which you infuse into his stage presentment". Former President Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
commented that the production was a "public service". Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams...
told him, "I would rather see you play Sherlock Holmes than be a child again on Christmas morning."
Gillette's last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong's Three Wise Fools in 1936.
Death
Gillette died on April 29, 1937, aged 83, in Hartford, due to a pulmonary hemorrhagePulmonary hemorrhage
Pulmonary hemorrhage is an acute bleeding from the lung, especially in the upper respiratory tract and the endotracheal tube. When evident clinically, the condition is usually massive, associated with bleeding in other sites as well as more than one third of the lungs...
. He was buried in the Hooker family plot at Riverside Cemetery, Farmington, Connecticut
Farmington, Connecticut
Farmington is a town located in Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census. It is home to the world headquarters of several large corporations including Carrier Corporation, Otis Elevator Company, and Carvel...
, next to his wife.
Patents Issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office
Time-Stamp- Letters patent No. 289,404, filed April 25, 1883, granted December 4, 1883.
- Letters Patent No. 300,966, filed May 2, 1883, granted June 24, 1884.
- Letters Patent No. 302,559, filed on May 14, 1883, and granted July 29, 1884.
- Letters Patent No. 309,537, filed December 5, 1883, and granted December 23, 1884.
Method of Producing Stage Effects
- Letters Patent No. 389,294, filed June 9, 1887, granted September 11, 1887.
Audio/Visual
- Fox Movietone News: "Sherlock Holmes" Turns Engineer [Newsclip of William Gillette], featuring William Gillette (Fox, 1927, two minutes, sound, b&w, 35mm). Also heard in William Gillette: A Connecticut Yankee and the American Stage, Connecticut Heritage Productions, Peter Loffredo, Producer, SDF-V7, debuted on Connecticut Public Television on July 11, 1994.
- Sherlock Holmes (1934), recorded by G. Robert Vincent for his private collection; Gillette reads excerpts from Sherlock Holmes; Dr. F.C. Packard from Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
takes the part of Dr. Watson. Running Time: 9.8 min; from An Inventory of Spoken Word Audio Recordings in the Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State UniversityMichigan State UniversityMichigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
(DB7455).3; also in the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
Filmography
- 1915 – Esmeralda, directed by James KirkwoodJames Kirkwood, Sr.James Kirkwood, Sr. was an American actor and director....
and starring Mary PickfordMary PickfordMary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, released on September 6, 1915, and re-released July 27, 1919 - 1916 – Sherlock Holmes, starring Gillette in the first cinema-adaptation of his Sherlock Holmes, albeit not the first film about Holmes. It was a seven-reel silent film by Essanay Film Manufacturing Co.Essanay StudiosThe Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture studio. It is best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies of 1915.-Founding:...
directed by Arthur BertheletArthur BertheletArthur Berthelet was an American movie director who went from directing stage plays to directing silent movies....
. Marjorie Kay played Alice Faulkner and Ernest Maupain was Moriarty (no copy of the film known to have survived) - 1919 – Secret Service, Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, directed by Hugh FordHugh FordHugh Ford was an American film director and screenwriter. He directed 31 films between 1913 and 1921. He also wrote for 19 films between 1913 and 1920.He was born in Washington, D.C..-Selected filmography:...
with Robert Warwick in Gillette's role of Captain Thorne and Shirley Mason as the female lead. - 1919 – Too Much Johnson, Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
– Director: Donald Crisp; Writers: William Gillette and Thomas J. GeraghtyThomas J. GeraghtyThomas J. Geraghty , was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 70 films between 1917 and 1939.He was born in Rushville, Indiana and died in Hollywood, California.-Selected filmography:* When the Clouds Roll by...
; Release Date: December 1919; Starring Bryant WashburnBryant WashburnBorn Franklin Bryant Washburn , Bryant Washburn was an American film actor. He appeared in 330 films between 1911 and 1947....
as Augustus Billings, Lois Wilson as Mrs. Billings, and Adele FarringtonAdele FarringtonAdele Farrington was an American actor of the silent era. She appeared in 74 films during her career between 1914 and 1926. She was a relatively old actress for the silent film era, being 47 at the beginning of her film career. She appeared in many films directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley...
as Mrs. Batterson; 5 reels, 4,431 feet - 1920 – Held by the Enemy, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
– Director: Donald CrispDonald CrispDonald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter...
; Writers: William Gillette and Beulah Marie DixBeulah Marie DixBeulah Marie Dix was an American screenwriter of the silent era and an author of children's books. She wrote for over 55 films between 1917 and 1942.-Selected filmography:* The Squaw Man...
; Release Date: October 24, 1920; Starring Agnes Ayers as Rachel Hayne, Wanda HawleyWanda HawleyWanda Hawley , was a veteran of the silent screen films era. She entered the theatrical profession with an amateur group in Seattle, and later toured the U.S. and Canada as a singer. She co-starred with Rudolph Valentino in the 1922's The Young Rajah, and rose to stardom in a number of Cecil B...
as Emmy McCreery, Lewis StoneLewis StoneLewis Shepard Stone was an American actor.Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, son of Bertrand Stone and Philena Heald Ball. Stone's hair grew gray by the time he was twenty. He fought in the Spanish-American War, then returned to a career as a writer. He soon began acting...
as Capt. Gordon Haine, Jack HoltJack Holt (actor)Jack Holt was an American motion picture actor. He was a leading man of silent and sound films, and was known for his many roles in Westerns.-Early life:...
as Colonel Charles Prescott, and Robert Cain as Brigade Surgeon Fielding; 6 reels - 1922 – Sherlock Holmes, Goldwyn Pictures, based on Gillette's play, directed by Albert ParkerAlbert ParkerAlbert Parker was the owner of The Claxton Bakery and creator of the Old Fashion Claxton Fruitcake. Parker got his start working with Savino Tos, the founder and previous owner of The Claxton Bakery, in 1927 when he was eleven years old. In 1945, Tos sold the bakery to Albert Parker and retired...
. John BarrymoreJohn BarrymoreJohn Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
played Holmes. William PowellWilliam PowellWilliam Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...
made his screen debut as Foreman Wells in this film, restored by the George Eastman HouseGeorge Eastman HouseThe George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and... - 1931 – Secret Service, Radio Pictures, directed by J. Walter RubenJ. Walter RubenJacob Walter Ruben was an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He wrote for 35 films between 1926 and 1942...
with Richard DixRichard DixRichard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.-Early life:...
as Captain Thorne - 1937 – Too Much Johnson, Mercury Theatre Company, Director: Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
; Writers: William Gillette and Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
; Starring Joseph CottonJoseph CottonJoseph Cotton aka Jah Walton is a reggae deejay active since the mid-1970s.-Biography:...
as Augustus Billings and Ruth FordRuth Ford (actress)Ruth Ford was an American model and stage and film actress. Her brother was the bohemian surrealist Charles Henri Ford. Their parents managed the Tennessee Hotel in Clarksville, Tennessee.-Life and career:As a model she posed for Harper's, Town and Country and Mademoiselle...
as Mrs. Billings. Was to be inserted into a stage production of the play but was never shown in public; only known print destroyed in 1970 - 1977 – Secret Service, Broadway Theatre Archive, starring John LithgowJohn LithgowJohn Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
as Captain Thorne and Meryl StreepMeryl StreepMary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
as Edith Varney. This was the first time Streep was seen on film, and it is the only play by Gillette still available on commercial VHS or DVD - 1981 – Sherlock Holmes, Home Box OfficeHome Box OfficeHBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
in collaboration with the Williamstown Theater Festival and artistic director Nikos Psacharopoulos, and was broadcast on November 19, 1981, with repeats on November 23, 27, 29, and December 1 and 5. This production starred Frank LangellaFrank Langella-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
as Holmes, Stephen Collins as James Larrabee, Susan ClarkSusan ClarkSusan Clark is a Canadian actress, possibly best-known for her role as Katherine on the American television sitcom Webster, on which she appeared with her husband, Alex Karras.-Personal life:...
as Madge Larrabee, Richard WoodsRichard WoodsEdward "Richard" Woods, CNZM is Chairman of the Board of the Environmental Risk Management Authority, a New Zealand Government Agency that ensures compliance with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act - HSNO Act 1996...
as Dr. Watson, and 12-year-old Christian SlaterChristian SlaterChristian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
in his film debut as Billy the Pageboy. This production is not available on commercial VHS or DVD. - 1982 – Sherlock Holmes, Guy Dumur translated Gillette’s play into French for the 1982 filming of Sherlock Holmes, starring fifty-four-year-old Paul GuersPaul GuersPaul Guers is a French film actor. He appeared in 70 films between 1955 and 1996. He starred in the 1963 film Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance.He was born in Tours, France.-Selected filmography:* A Tale of Two Cities...
as Holmes. Directed by Jean Hennin, it was broadcast on October 5, 1982
Radio
- On October 20, 1930, Gillette performed the first serial radio-version of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled BandThe Adventure of the Speckled Band"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the eighth of the twelve stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It is one of four Sherlock Holmes stories that can be classified as a locked...
. It was based on the original theater version by Conan Doyle, re-adapted by Edith Meiser, and was the first time Holmes was portrayed on radio as part of a continuing series. It was transmitted by WEAF-NBCWNBCWNBC, virtual channel 4 , is the flagship station of the NBC television network, located in New York City. WNBC's studios are co-located with NBC corporate headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan...
(New York) and sponsored by G. Washington Coffee Co.. This show became the pilot of a series and, after Gillette, Richard Gordon took over the part for the remaining 34 programs in the series. - On November 18, 1935, Gillette, now 82 years old, performed his own Sherlock Holmes on WABCWABC (AM)WABC , known as "NewsTalkRadio 77 WABC" is a radio station in New York City. Owned by the broadcasting division of Cumulus Media, the station broadcasts on a clear channel and is the flagship station of Cumulus Media Networks...
radio of New York. His play was again re-adapted by Meiser. Reginald Mason played Dr. Watson and Charles BryantCharles Bryant (actor)Charles Bryant was a British actor and film director.-Biography:Bryant was born in Hartford, Cheshire on 8 January 1879. He was educated at Ardingly College...
played Professor Moriarty. Its duration was 50 minutes. This play was the pilot for a new Holmes series by Lux Radio TheaterLux Radio TheaterLux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...
. The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said that Gillette was "still the best, with all his shades and improvisation".
Tryon, North Carolina
In 1891, after first visiting Tryon, North CarolinaTryon, North Carolina
Tryon is a town in Polk County, North Carolina, United States. According to the 2000 Census the population of Tryon was 1,760. The area is a center for equestrian activity and fine arts....
, Gillette began building his bungalow, which he later enlarged into a house. He named it Thousand Pines and it is privately owned today. In past years, in November, the town of Tryon celebrated the William Gillette Festival, honoring Gillette. The Polk County Historical Museum there displays Gillete's pipe and slippers from his farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, as well as china, some letters and other items left behind at the actor's North Carolina home (Read about Tryon's 1998 Festival).
New York City
On December 7, 1934, Gillette attended the first dinner meeting of the Baker Street Irregulars in New York. As of 2011, the BSI continues its William Gillette Memorial Luncheon on the Friday afternoon of their annual January meeting in New York City (Baker Street Irregulars Weekend, The Annual Gathering of the oldest Literary Society dedicated to Sherlock Holmes).Famous Namesake
Among Gillette's friends was actress Gertrude Berkeley. Gertrude had a son whom she apparently named after two of her friends, actress Amy Busby and William Gillette, after Busby and Gillette agreed to be the boy's godparents. The son's name was Busby Berkeley William Enos who, as Busby BerkeleyBusby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
, became one of Hollywood's greatest directors and choreographers.
Quotations
- "Elementary, my dear fellow! Elementary!"
- "There isn’t any reason in the world why we can’t do as well in this farewell business as any other country on the face of the globe. We have the farewellers and the people to say farewell to. If I can only keep it up I will be even with my competitors by the Spring of 1922, and by the Winter of 1937 I will be well in the lead."
- "It just seems, somehow, that every five years finds me back again, so you can expect me back at it again once more in 1941. Probably in 1976, when they are celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, or what ever it is, 40 years from now, I'll still be farewelling. I should apologize for being here, but I am a man among Yankees, and they take promises with a grain of salt – in fact they usually take them home and pickle them in brine, so they probably knew I'd be back. Besides I have several good excuses – but they really don't count. And besides – and you men who follow horse racing will know what I mean – I'm not running against anyone, they're merely letting me trot around the track."
- "Farewell, Good Luck, and Merry Christmas."
Sources
- "Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha", compiled by Jack TracyJack TracyJack Tracy was an American jazz producer and journalist.- Early years :...
- "The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", compiled by Peter HainingPeter HainingPeter Alexander Haining was a British journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk...
- Zecher, Henry, William Gillette, America's Sherlock Holmes (Xlibris Press, 2011).
External links
- William Gillette Introduction
- The Baker Street Journal – writings about Sherlock Holmes
- Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, Connecticut
- Portrait of William Gillette ; University of Washington, Sayre collection
- William Gillette Portrait gallery; NY Public Library, Billy Rose collection
- William Gillette; PeriodPaper.com about 1910
- Website for biographer Henry Zecher.