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Thread: Basil Rathbone

  1. #1
    radiojane Guest

    Basil Rathbone




    Basil Rathbone, MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967), was a South African-born English actor most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and of suave villains in such swashbuckler films as The Mark of Zorro, Captain Blood, and The Adventures of Robin Hood.
    He was born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, South African Republic, to English parents Edgar Philip Rathbone, a mining engineer and scion of the Liverpool Rathbone family, and Anna Barbara née George, a violinist. He had two younger siblings, Beatrice and John. The Rathbones fled to England when Basil was three years old, after his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy near the onset of the Second Boer War at the end of the 1890s. Rathbone was educated at Repton School and was engaged with the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies. In 1916, he enlisted for the remaining duration of World War I, joining the London Scottish Regiment as a Private, serving alongside his future successful acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman. He later transferred with a commission as a Lieutenant to the Liverpool Scottish, 2nd Battalion, where he served as an intelligence officer and eventually attained the rank of Captain. During the war, Rathbone displayed a penchant for disguise (a skill which he ironically shared with what would become perhaps his most memorable character, Sherlock Holmes) when on one occasion, in order to have better visibility, Rathbone convinced his superiors to allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight hours instead of during the night, as was the usual practice in order to minimize the chance of detection by the enemy. Rathbone completed the mission successfully through his skillful use of camouflage, which allowed him to escape detection by the enemy. In September 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross. His younger brother John was killed in action during the war while also serving Britain.
    He commenced his film career in 1925 in The Masked Bride, appeared in a few silent movies, and played the detective Philo Vance in the 1930 movie The Bishop Murder Case, based on the best-selling novel. 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) portraying 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 was admired for his athletic cinema swordsmanship. He fought and lost to Errol Flynn more than any other costar. Despite his real-life skill, Rathbone only won 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 is 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.
    Despite his film success, Rathbone always insisted that he wished to be remembered for his stage career. He said that his favorite role was that of Romeo.
    Rathbone is most widely recognized for his starring role as Sherlock HolmesNigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. in fourteen movies between 1939 and 1946, all of which co-starred The first two films, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles (both 1939) were set in the late-Victorian times of the original stories. Both of these were made by 20th Century Fox. Later installments, made at Universal Studios, beginning with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), were set in contemporary times, and some had World War II-related plots. Rathbone and Bruce also reprised their film roles in a radio series, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939 - 1946). The many sequels typecast Rathbone, and he was unable to remove himself completely from the shadow of Holmes. However, in later years, Rathbone willingly made the Holmes association, as in a TV sketch with Milton Berle in the early 1950s, in which he donned the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape.
    Rathbone also brought Holmes to the stage in a play written by his wife Ouida. Thomas Gomez, who had appeared as a Nazi ringleader in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, played the villainous Professor Moriarty. Nigel Bruce was too ill to take the part of Dr. Watson, and it was played by Jack Raine. Bruce's absence depressed Rathbone, particularly after Bruce died on 8 October 1953, while the play was in rehearsals. The play ran only three performances.
    Through the 1950s and 1960s, he continued to appear in several dignified anthology programs on television. To support his second wife's lavish tastes, he also took roles in films 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 his last film, a low-budget, Mexican horror film called Autopsy of a Ghost (1968).
    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 Vincent Starrett's famous poem "221B."
    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 dramatization of Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar".
    Basil Rathbone has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for motion pictures at 6549 Hollywood Boulevard; one for radio at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard; and one for television at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
    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. Rathbone was involved briefly with actress Eva Le Gallienne. In 1927, he married writer Ouida Bergere. Basil and his second wife adopted a daughter, Cynthia Rathbone (1939-1969).
    During Rathbone's Hollywood career, his second wife Ouida Bergère -- who was also his 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 movie 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".
    The actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell described Rathbone as "two profiles pasted together".
    Unlike some of his British actor contemporaries in Hollywood and Broadway, Rathbone never renounced his British citizenship. His autobiography, In and Out of Character, was published in 1962.
    Basil Rathbone died of a heart attack in New York City in 1967 at age 75. He is interred in a crypt in the Shrine of Memories Mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York

    Rathbone's Sherlock was the inspiration for one of my favorite kid's movies.




  2. #2
    carebearsluv Guest
    As soon as I saw the title of this thread I thought of The Great Mouse Detective!
    I used to love that movie!

  3. #3
    Valerie Guest
    Thanks for the post! I'm a huge fan of his. It's not a real old detective flick unless he's in it.

  4. #4
    Long Gone Day Guest
    I...adored..him..in...the...Sherlock...Holmes....films........I...never..get
    tired...of...watching..them.........He....was...a..wonderful..actor.....and
    a...wonderful...mouse.....

  5. #5
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    I was surprised to find him in "Hillybillys in a Haunted House." It was one of his last roles.

  6. #6
    Guest Guest
    Excellent thread - for me he was/is the definitive Holmes. I recall reading that during rehearsals for one of his later horror film roles, Rathbone had to climb into a coffin, and he hated the experience.
    I would love to read his autobiography.

  7. #7
    GoldwynGal Guest
    They used to play those old Sherlock movies in the middle of the night. I'd stay up watching them when I was sick. Loved him. Excellent thread.

  8. #8
    More Cheese Please Guest
    I always associate Basil with Sherlock Holmes....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcv7n...eature=related

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maxster View Post
    I was surprised to find him in "Hillybillys in a Haunted House." It was one of his last roles.
    True, sadly near the end of his life would take what ever
    they had for money.
    Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by More Cheese Please View Post
    I always associate Basil with Sherlock Holmes....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcv7n...eature=related
    Me too.
    Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by More Cheese Please View Post
    I always associate Basil with Sherlock Holmes....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcv7n...eature=related
    I still enjoy those films.
    Today you could be standing next to someone who is trying their best not to fall apart. So whatever you do today, do it with kindness.

  12. #12
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    He was great at playing Sherlock Holmes along with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. We are so lucky that these old shows were saved for posterity.

  13. #13
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    I so loved the way he talked
    very posh English.
    Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.

  14. 12-23-2018, 12:06 PM


  15. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by jfr121 View Post
    He was great at playing Sherlock Holmes along with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. We are so lucky that these old shows were saved for posterity.
    Very true.
    Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.

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