Basil Rathbone

Basil Rathbone

from the trailer for the film Tovarich (1937)
Born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone
(1892-06-13)13 June 1892
Johannesburg, South African Republic
Died 21 July 1967(1967-07-21) (aged 75)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation Actor
Years active 1911–67
Spouse(s) Marion Foreman (1914–1926) (divorced)
Ouida Bergère (1926–1967) (his death)
Children Cynthia Rathbone (1939–1969)
John Rodion (1915–1996)

Philip St. John Basil Rathbone, MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African Republic-born British actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films.

Rathbone frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). His most famous role, however, was heroic — that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. His later career included roles on Broadway, as well as self-ironic film and television work. He received a Tony Award in 1948 as Best Actor in a Play. He was also nominated for two Academy Awards and won three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Early life

Rathbone was born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, to British parents. His mother, Anna Barbara (née George), was a violinist, and his father, Edgar Philip Rathbone, was a mining engineer and scion of the Liverpool Rathbone family. He had two older half-brothers, Harold and Horace, as well as two younger siblings, Beatrice and John. Basil was the great-grandson of the noted Victorian philanthropist, William Rathbone V, and thus a descendant of William Rathbone II. The Rathbones fled to Britain when Basil was three years old after his father was accused by the Boers of being a spy after the Jameson Raid. He was a distant cousin of Major Henry Rathbone, who was present at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and was seriously wounded trying to stop John Wilkes Booth.

Rathbone attended Repton School in Derbyshire from 1906 –1910, where he particularly excelled at sports. Thereafter, he was briefly employed by the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies, to appease his father's wish for him to have a conventional career..

On 22 April 1911, Rathbone made his first appearance on stage at the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, Suffolk, as Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, with his cousin Sir Frank Benson's No. 2 Company, under the direction of Henry Herbert. In October 1912, he went to the United States with Benson's company, playing such parts as Paris in Romeo and Juliet, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Silvius in As You Like It. Returning to Britain, he made his first appearance in London at the Savoy Theatre on 9 July 1914, as Finch in The Sin of David. That December, he appeared at the Shaftesbury Theatre as the Dauphin in Henry V. During 1915, he toured with Benson and appeared with him at London's Court Theatre in December as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The Great War

At the end of 1915, Rathbone was called up via the Derby Scheme into the British Army as a private with the London Scottish Regiment, joining a regiment that also counted in its ranks his future professional acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman at different points through the conflict. After basic training with the London Scots in early 1916 he received a commission as a lieutenant in the 2/10th Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Scottish), where he served as an intelligence officer and eventually attained the rank of captain. Rathbone's younger brother John was killed in action on 4 June 1918.[1] It was after this that Rathbone convinced his superiors to allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight rather than at night, as was the usual practice to minimize the chance of detection. Rathbone describes it thus in his autobiography "Camouflage suits had been made for us to resemble trees. On our heads were wreaths of freshly plucked foliage, our faces and hands were blackened with burnt cork." [2] As a result of these highly dangerous daylight raids In September 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross for "conspicuous daring and resource on patrol".[3] Richard Van Emden in his book Famous 1914-18 speculates that this extreme bravery may have been a form of guilt or a need for vengeance following his brother's death.[4]

Two letters written by Rathbone to his family while serving in the war have recently come to light and help to shed light on his mental state at this time.[5]

Career

During the Summer Festival of 1919, he appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon with the New Shakespeare Company playing Romeo, Cassius, Ferdinand in The Tempest and Florizel in The Winter's Tale; in October he was at London's Queen's Theatre as the aide-de-camp in Napoleon, and in February 1920 he was at the Savoy Theatre in the title role in Peter Ibbetson with huge success.

During the 1920s, Rathbone appeared regularly in Shakespearean and other roles on the British stage. He began to travel and appeared at the Cort Theatre, New York, in October 1923 in a production of The Swan opposite Eva Le Gallienne, which made him a star on Broadway. He toured in the United States in 1925, appearing in San Francisco in May and the Lyceum Theatre, New York, in October. He was in the US again in 1927 and 1930 and again in 1931, when he appeared on stage with Ethel Barrymore. He continued his stage career in Britain, returning late in 1934 to the US, where he appeared with Katharine Cornell in several plays.

Rathbone was once arrested in 1926 along with every other member of the cast of The Captive, a play in which his character's wife left him for another woman. Though the charges were eventually dropped, Rathbone was very angry about the censorship because he believed that homosexuality needed to be brought into the open.[6][7]

With John Barrymore and Leslie Howard in Romeo and Juliet, 1936

He commenced his film career in 1925 in The Masked Bride, appeared in a few silent films, and played the detective Philo Vance in the 1930 film The Bishop Murder Case, based on the best-selling novel. In the film there is a coincidental reference to Sherlock Holmes. Like George Sanders and Vincent Price after him, Rathbone made a name for himself in the 1930s by playing suave villains in costume dramas and swashbucklers, including David Copperfield (1935) as the abusive stepfather Mr. Murdstone; Anna Karenina (1935) as her distant husband, Karenin; The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) with a masterful portrayal of Pontius Pilate; Captain Blood (1935); A Tale of Two Cities (1935), as the Marquis St. Evremonde; The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) playing his best-remembered villain, Sir Guy of Gisbourne; The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938); and The Mark of Zorro (1940) as Captain Esteban Pasquale. He also appeared in several early horror films: Tower of London (1939), as Richard III, and Son of Frankenstein (1939), portraying the dedicated surgeon Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, son of the monster's creator, and, in 1949, was also the narrator for the segment "The Wind in the Willows" in the animated feature, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

He was admired for his athletic cinema swordsmanship (he listed fencing among his favourite recreations). He fought and lost to Errol Flynn in a duel on the beach in Captain Blood and in an elaborate fight sequence in The Adventures of Robin Hood. He was involved in noteworthy sword fights in Tower of London, The Mark of Zorro, and The Court Jester (1956). Despite his real-life skill, Rathbone won only once onscreen, in Romeo and Juliet (1936). Rathbone earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performances as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936) and as King Louis XI in If I Were King (1938). In The Dawn Patrol (1938), he played one of his few heroic roles in the 1930s, as a Royal Flying Corps (RFC) squadron commander brought to the brink of a nervous breakdown by the strain and guilt of sending his battle-weary pilots off to near-certain death in the skies of 1915 France. Errol Flynn, Rathbone's perennial foe, starred in the film as his successor when Rathbone's character was promoted.

According to Hollywood legend, Rathbone was Margaret Mitchell's first choice to play Rhett Butler in the film version of her novel Gone with the Wind. The reliability of this story may be suspect, however, as on another occasion Mitchell chose Groucho Marx for the role, apparently in jest. Rathbone actively campaigned for the role, however, but to no avail.

Despite his film success, Rathbone always insisted that he wished to be remembered for his stage career. He said that his favourite role was that of Romeo.

The Sherlock Holmes films

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

Rathbone is most widely recognised for his many portrayals of Sherlock Holmes. In a radio interview Rathbone recalled that Twentieth Century-Fox producer and director Gene Markey, lunching with producer-director-actor Gregory Ratoff and 20th Century-Fox mogul Daryl Zanuck at Lucey's Restaurant in Hollywood, proposed a film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, and when asked who could possibly play Holmes, Markey incredulously replied, "Who?! Basil Rathbone!" The film was so successful that Fox produced a sequel which appeared later in 1939. Interest in Holmes cooled at Fox but Universal Pictures picked up the character and twelve feature films were made between 1941 and 1944 for release until 1947, all of which co-starred Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.

The first two films, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (both produced by Fox in 1939), were set in the late Victorian times of the original stories. The later installments, produced by Universal, beginning with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), were set in contemporary times. The first three had World War II-related plots.

Concurrent with the films, Rathbone and Bruce reprised their film roles in a radio series, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which began in October 1939. Rathbone appeared in the radio series as long as the film series was active, but after the films lapsed in 1946, Rathbone ceded his radio part to Tom Conway. Conway and Bruce carried on with the series for two seasons, until both dropped out in July 1947.

The many Holmes sequels typecast Rathbone, and he was unable to shake himself completely free from the shadow of the Great Detective despite appearing in other film roles. Resenting the typecasting, Rathbone refused to renew his contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and returned to Broadway. In later years, however, Rathbone willingly made the Holmes association, as in a TV sketch with Milton Berle in the early 1950s, in which he donned the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape. In the 1960s, dressed as Holmes, he appeared in a series of TV commercials for Getz Exterminators ("Getz gets 'em, since 1888!'").

Rathbone also brought Holmes to the stage in a play written by his wife Ouida. Thomas Gomez, who had appeared as a Nazi ringleader in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, played the villainous Professor Moriarty. Nigel Bruce was slated to portray Dr Watson once more but became too ill and the part was played by character actor Jack Raine. Bruce's absence depressed Rathbone, particularly after Bruce died on 8 October 1953, while the play was in rehearsals. The play ran for only three performances.

Later career

In the 1950s, Rathbone appeared in two spoofs of his earlier swashbuckling villains: Casanova's Big Night (1954) opposite Bob Hope and The Court Jester (1956) with Danny Kaye. He appeared frequently on TV game shows and continued to appear in major films, including the Humphrey Bogart comedy We're No Angels (1955) and John Ford's political drama The Last Hurrah (1958).

Rathbone also appeared on Broadway numerous times. In 1948, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor for his performance as the unyielding Dr. Austin Sloper in the original production of The Heiress, which featured Wendy Hiller as his timid, spinster daughter. He also received accolades for his performance in Archibald Macleish's J.B., a modernisation of the Biblical trials of Job.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, he continued to appear in several dignified anthology programmes on television. To support his second wife's lavish tastes, he appeared as a panelist on the television game show The Name's the Same (in 1954), and he also took roles in cheap film thrillers of far lesser quality, such as The Black Sleep (1956), Queen of Blood (1966), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966, with comic Harvey Lembeck joking, "That guy looks like Sherlock Holmes"), Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967, also featuring Lon Chaney Jr and John Carradine), and his last film, a low-budget, Mexican horror film called Autopsy of a Ghost (1968).

He is also known for his spoken word recordings, including his interpretation of Clement C. Moore's "The Night Before Christmas". Rathbone's readings of the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe are collected together with readings by Vincent Price in Caedmon Audio's The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection on CD. Rathbone also made many other recordings, of everything from a dramatised version of Oliver Twist to a recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (with Leopold Stokowski conducting) to a dramatised version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.[8]

On television he appeared in two musical versions of Dickens's A Christmas Carol: one in 1954, in which he played Marley's Ghost opposite Fredric March's Scrooge, and the original 1956 live-action version of The Stingiest Man In Town, in which he starred as a singing Ebenezer Scrooge.

In the 1960s, he also toured with a one-man show titled (like his autobiography) In and Out of Character. In this show, he recited poetry and Shakespeare as well as giving reminiscences from his life and career (e.g., the humorous, "I could have killed Errol Flynn any time I wanted to!"). As an encore, he recited "221B" a poem written by writer-critic Vincent Starrett, one of the preemiennt members of the Baker Street Irregulars whom Rathbone held in high regard.

Vincent Price and Rathbone appeared together, along with Boris Karloff, in Tower of London (1939) and The Comedy of Terrors (1964). The latter was the only film to feature the "Big Four" of American International Pictures' horror films: Price, Rathbone, Karloff and Peter Lorre. Rathbone also appeared with Price in the final segment of Roger Corman's 1962 anthology film Tales of Terror, a loose dramatisation of Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar."

In 1965 Belmont Books issued the anthology Basil Rathbone Selects Strange Tales, a collection of classic horror stories by Poe, Hawthorne, Bulwer-Lyttton, Charles Dickens, Allston Collins, Le Fanu, and Wilkie Collins. The volume features a cover portrait of Rathbone; however, the back cover's legend "Produced by Lyle Kenyon Engel" indicates the anthology was probably not edited by Rathbone himself. Canadian editor and book packager Engel packaged shows and magazines for other horror movie stars including Boris Karloff.[9]

Basil Rathbone has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for films, at 6549 Hollywood Boulevard; one for radio, at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard; and one for television, at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Personal life

Rathbone married actress Ethel Marion Foreman in 1914. They had one son, Rodion Rathbone (1915–1996), who had a brief Hollywood career under the name John Rodion. The couple divorced in 1926. In 1924 he was involved in a brief relationship with Eva Le Gallienne. In 1927, he married writer Ouida Bergère; the couple adopted a daughter, Cynthia Rathbone (1939–1969). The American actor Jackson Rathbone is a distant relation (a third cousin, several times removed).[10] Basil Rathbone was a first cousin once-removed of the British campaigning independent MP, Eleanor Rathbone.

During Rathbone's Hollywood career, Ouida Rathbone, who was also her husband's business manager, developed a reputation for hosting elaborate expensive parties in their home, with many prominent and influential people on the guest lists. This trend inspired a joke in The Ghost Breakers (1940), a film in which Rathbone does not appear: During a tremendous thunderstorm in New York City, Bob Hope observes that "Basil Rathbone must be throwing a party". Actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell described Rathbone as "two profiles pasted together".[11] As cited in the same autobiography, Mrs. Campbell would later refer to him as, "a folded umbrella taking elocution lessons."

He was the cousin of the eminent actor Frank Benson, to whom he bore a strong resemblance. Benson's elder brother, W. A. S. Benson, was well known in the world of art as one of the pioneers in the revival of English industrial craftsmanship, especially in the field of the metallic arts; and his younger brother, Godfrey Benson, was a Liberal politician.

Death

Rathbone died suddenly of a heart attack in New York City on 21 July 1967 at age 75. He is interred in a crypt in the Shrine of Memories Mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Filmography

Year Title Role
1921 Innocent Amadis de Jocelyn
The Fruitful Vine Don Cesare Carelli
1923 The School for Scandal Joseph Surface
The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots Undetermined Subordinate Role
1924 Trouping with Ellen Tony Winterslip
1925 The Masked Bride Antoine
1926 The Great Deception Rizzio
1929 The Last of Mrs. Cheyney Lord Arthur Dilling
1930 The Bishop Murder Case Philo Vance
This Mad World Paul Parisot
A Notorious Affair Paul Gherardi
The Flirting Widow Colonel John "Johnny" Vaughn-Smith
The Lady of Scandal Edward, Duke of Warrington
The Lady Surrenders Carl Vandry
Sin Takes a Holiday Reginald "Reggie" Durant
1932 A Woman Commands Capt. Alex Pastitsch
After the Ball Jack Harrowby
1933 One Precious Year Derek Nagel
Loyalties Ferdinand de Levis
1935 David Copperfield Mr. Murdstone
Anna Karenina Karenin
The Last Days of Pompeii Pontius Pilate
A Feather in Her Hat Captain Randolph Courtney
Kind Lady Henry Abbott
Captain Blood Levasseur
A Tale of Two Cities Marquis St. Evremonde
1936 Private Number Thomas Wroxton
Romeo and Juliet Tybalt - Nephew to Lady Capulet
The Garden of Allah Count Ferdinand Anteoni
1937 Love from a Stranger Gerald Lovell
Confession Michael Michailow, aka Michael Koslov
Make a Wish Johnny Selden
Tovarich Commissar Dimitri Gorotchenko
1938 The Adventures of Marco Polo Ahmed
The Adventures of Robin Hood Sir Guy of Gisbourne
If I Were King King Louis XI
The Dawn Patrol Major Brand
1939 Son of Frankenstein Baron Wolf von Frankenstein
The Hound of the Baskervilles Sherlock Holmes
The Sun Never Sets Clive Randolph
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes
Rio Paul Reynard
Tower of London Richard - Duke of Gloucester
1940 Rhythm on the River Oliver Courtney
The Mark of Zorro Captain Esteban Pasquale
1941 The Mad Doctor Dr. George Sebastian
The Black Cat Montague Hartley
International Lady Reggie Oliver
Paris Calling Andre Benoit
1942 Fingers at the Window Cesar Ferrari, alias Dr. H. Santelle
Crossroads Henri Sarrou
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror Sherlock Holmes
1943 Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes in Washington Sherlock Holmes
Above Suspicion Sig von Aschenhausen
Sherlock Holmes Faces Death Sherlock Holmes
Crazy House Sherlock Holmes (Cameo appearance)
1944 The Spider Woman Sherlock Holmes
The Scarlet Claw Sherlock Holmes
Bathing Beauty George Adams
The Pearl of Death Sherlock Holmes
Frenchman's Creek Lord Rockingham
1945 The House of Fear Sherlock Holmes
The Woman in Green Sherlock Holmes
Pursuit to Algiers Sherlock Holmes
1946 Terror by Night Sherlock Holmes
Heartbeat Professor Aristide
Dressed to Kill Sherlock Holmes
1949 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad Narrator (segment "The Wind in the Willows")
1954 Casanova's Big Night Lucio / Narrator
1955 We're No Angels Andre Trochard
The Court Jester Sir Ravenhurst
1956 The Black Sleep Sir Joel Cadman
1958 The Last Hurrah Norman Cass, Sr.
1961 Mystic Prophecies and Nostradamus Narrator
1962 Ponzio Pilato Caiaphas
The Magic Sword Lodac
Tales of Terror Carmichael (segment "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar")
Two Before Zero (aka Red Hell) Narrator
1964 The Comedy of Terrors John F. Black, Esq.
1965 Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet Prof. Hartman, Lunar 7
1966 Queen of Blood Dr. Farraday
The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini Reginald Ripper
1967 Hillbillys in a Haunted House Gregor
Autopsia de un fantasma Canuto Perez
1986 The Great Mouse Detective Sherlock Holmes (archive sound)

Radio appearances

Year Program Episode/source
1937 Lux Radio Theatre Captain Blood[12]
1952 Theatre Guild on the Air Oliver Twist[13]
1952 Theatre Guild on the Air The Winslow Boy[14]

References

  1. ↑ "Famous 1914-18," Richard Van Emden, 2010, p. 132
  2. ↑ "In and Out of Character" , Basil Rathbone, 1962, p.2
  3. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 30997. p. 13166. 5 November 1918.
  4. ↑ "Famous 1914–18," Richard Van Emden, 2010 p. 134
  5. ↑ "Basil Rathbone, Master of Stage and Screen: The Great War". Basilrathbone.net. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  6. ↑ "New York Times: Reaction to 'The Captive', 1926-1927 - OutHistory". outhistory.org. 2012. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  7. ↑ "Basil Rathbone, Master of Stage and Screen: Biography". Basilrathbone.net. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  8. ↑ Basil Rathbone: Master of Stage and Screen - Recordings.
  9. ↑ http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/engel_lyle_kenyon
  10. ↑ Millar, John (2010-08-08). "Jackson Rathbone profile, detailing blood relationship to Basil Rathbone". Dailyrecord.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  11. ↑ Basil Rathbone, In and Out of Character (New York: Doubleday, 1962).
  12. ↑ "Those Were The Days". Nostalgia Digest 39 (2): 32–39. Spring 2013.
  13. ↑ Kirby, Walter (February 24, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 38. Retrieved May 28, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ Kirby, Walter (November 23, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 48. Retrieved June 16, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Basil Rathbone.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 20, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.