William Gillette, America’s Sherlock Holmes

I just found a nice article about Henry Zecher in the East Haddam-Haddam Patch (Connecticut) online newsletter and learned of his William Gillette, America’s Sherlock Holmes, of which I am sure most Sherlockians are already aware. But I must remember that many people are unaware that before Jeremy Brett and before Basil Rathbone, William Gillette was Sherlock Holmes

In many ways, Gillette’s stage performances as Holmes (according to the Wikipedia article more than 1,300) cemented the mannerisms and appearance of the Great Detective. He wore the deerstalker depicted in the Sidney Paget drawings, carried the Meerschaum or calabash pipe and actually spoke the lines, “Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow.” Gillette wrote his Sherlock Holmes: A Drama in Four Acts, that borrowed from the Canon but was original. And he had the benefit of a long friendship with Holmes’s creator.

Zecher’s biography of Gillette examines the actor’s career, his many innovations in stagecraft and his ability to make European audiences embrace his portrayal of Holmes. Zecher seems to be a character himself, as you will find from his website, and interested in a wide arrray of subjects.