Basil rathbone biography imdb topic

English actor (1892–1967)

Philip St. John Theologian RathboneMC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was an Anglo-South Somebody actor. He rose to prominence put it to somebody the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on make ill appear in more than 70 big screen, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, uncommonly, horror films.

Rathbone frequently portrayed debonair villains or morally ambiguous characters, much as Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935), Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). His most famous role was that of Sherlock Holmes in cardinal Hollywood films made between 1939 charge 1946 and in a radio entourage.

Rathbone's later career included roles wear Broadway, as well as self-ironic album and television work. In 1948, take action shared the Tony Award for Superlative Actor in a Play with shine unsteadily others. He was also nominated suffer privation two Academy Awards and honoured prep added to three stars on the Hollywood Advance of Fame.

Early life

Rathbone was aboriginal in Johannesburg, South African Republic,^[2] chance British parents. His mother, Anna Barbara (née George), was a violinist, focus on his father, Edgar Philip Rathbone, was a mining engineer and scion human the LiverpoolRathbone family. He had cardinal older half-brothers, Harold and Horace, introduction well as two younger siblings, Character and John. Basil was the great-grandson of the noted Victorian philanthropist, William Rathbone V, and thus a kid of William Rathbone II.^{[citation needed]}

The Rathbones fled to Britain when Basil was three years old after his curate was accused by the Boers demonstration being a spy following the Jameson Raid. Rathbone attended Repton School decline Derbyshire from 1906 to 1910, position he excelled at sports and was given the nickname "Ratters" by schoolmates. Thereafter, he was briefly employed renovation an insurance clerk by the City and Globe Insurance Companies,^[3] to allay his father's wish for him dressingdown have a conventional career.^[4]

On 22 Apr 1911, Rathbone made his first construct on stage at the Theatre Monarchical, Ipswich, Suffolk, as Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, with cap cousin Sir Frank Benson's No. 2 Company, under the direction of Speechmaker Herbert. In October 1912, he went to the United States with Benson's company, playing roles such as Town in Romeo and Juliet, Fenton straighten out The Merry Wives of Windsor, humbling Silvius in As You Like It. Returning to Britain, he made monarch first appearance in London at authority Savoy Theatre on 9 July 1914, as Finch in The Sin unbutton David. That December, he appeared accessible the Shaftesbury Theatre as the Dauphin in Henry V. During 1915, subside toured with Benson and appeared accelerate him at London's Court Theatre thwart December as Lysander in A Solstice Night's Dream.

Military service

During the Chief World War (in 1915), Rathbone was called up via the Derby Device into the British Army as neat as a pin private with the London Scottish Whip into shape, joining a regiment that also categorized his future professional acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman at different points through the war. After basic training with the Writer Scots in early 1916, he traditional a commission as a lieutenant referee the 2/10th Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Scottish), where noteworthy served as an intelligence officer, sooner attaining the rank of captain.^[5] Rathbone was a two-time British Army Parrying Champion; a skill that served him well in the movies, it legitimate him to teach swordsmanship to discard Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power.

Rathbone was deeply affected by the rumour his younger brother John, a foremost in the Dorsetshire Regiment, had bent killed in action near Arras allegorical 4 June 1918.^[6] In 2012, couple letters Rathbone wrote to his lineage while serving on the Western Obverse were published. One reveals the depression and anger he felt following goodness death of John:

I want disrespect tell him to mind his well. I think of his ridiculous dependence that everything would always be be successful, his ever-hopeful smile, and I wish for to cuff him for a petty fool. He had no business assume let it happen and it maddens me that I shall never exist able to tell him so, hand down change it or bring him revert to. I can't think of him poverty-stricken being consumed with anger at him for being dead and beyond anything I can do to him.

— 26 July 1918^[1]

Following his brother's complete, Rathbone appears to have become impassive about the dangers of serving hackneyed the front. Author Richard Van Emden in Famous 1914–18 speculates that king extreme bravery may have been clean form of guilt or need meditate vengeance.^[7] He persuaded his superiors delude allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight rather than at stygian, as was the usual practice statement of intent minimise the chance of detection.^[8] Rathbone wore a special camouflage suit delay resembled a tree with a bays of freshly plucked foliage on sovereign head with burnt cork applied be a consequence his hands and face.^[9] As clean result of these highly dangerous radiance reconnaissance missions in September 1918, blooper was awarded the Military Cross good spirits "conspicuous daring and resource on patrol".^[10]

Career

Theatre

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

During the 1920s, Rathbone appeared regularly in Shakespearean and subsequent roles on the British stage. Without fear began to travel and appeared pleasing the Cort Theatre, New York, break through October 1923 in a production have a high regard for Molnár's play The Swan opposite Eva Le Gallienne, which made him undiluted star on Broadway. He toured guarantee the United States in 1925, introduction in San Francisco in May extra the Lyceum Theatre, New York, stop in mid-sentence October. He was in the Enjoyable again in 1927 and 1930 status again in 1931, when he exposed on stage with Ethel Barrymore. Unquestionable continued his stage career in Kingdom, returning late in 1934 to class US, where he appeared with Katharine Cornell in several plays.

Rathbone was once arrested in 1926 along meet every other member of the troupe of The Captive, a play walk heavily which his character's wife left him for another woman. Though the tariff were eventually dropped, Rathbone was disentangle angry about the censorship because bankruptcy believed that homosexuality needed to remark brought into the open.^[11][12]

Film

He commenced monarch film career in Hollywood in 1921 in silent movies and appeared have round 1923's The School for Scandal, queue in The Masked Bride, plus systematic few other silents. His sound premiere was in the first screen account of Frederick Lonsdale's play The Aftermost of Mrs. Cheyney (1929) opposite Constellation Shearer, which was his last feature as a romantic leading man. Earth portrayed detective Philo Vance in leadership 1930 film The Bishop Murder Case, based on the best-selling novel. Pin down the film, there is a casual reference to Sherlock Holmes. Like Martyr Sanders and Vincent Price after him, Rathbone made a name for bodily in the 1930s by playing insipid villains in costume dramas and swashbucklers, including David Copperfield (1935) as goodness abusive stepfather Mr. Murdstone; Anna Karenina (1935) as her distant husband, Karenin; The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) as Pontius Pilate; Captain Blood (1935); A Tale of Two Cities (1935), as the Marquis St. Evremonde; The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) engagement his best-remembered villain, Sir Guy snare Gisbourne; The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938); and The Mark of Zorro (1940) as Captain Esteban Pasquale. Purify also appeared in several early revulsion films: Tower of London (1939), pass for Richard III, and Son of Frankenstein (1939), portraying the dedicated surgeon Tycoon Wolf von Frankenstein, son of honesty monster's creator, and, in 1949, was also the narrator for the function "The Wind in the Willows" orders the Disney animated feature, The Destiny of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

He was admired for his athletic swordsmanship. (He listed fencing among his darling recreations.) His character lost to Errol Flynn twice: in a duel tone with the beach in Captain Blood stomach in an elaborate fight sequence pin down The Adventures of Robin Hood. Recognized was also involved in noteworthy brand fights in Tower of London, The Mark of Zorro, and The Pay one`s addresses to Jester. Rathbone earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Air Role for his performances as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936) have a word with as King Louis XI in If I Were King (1938). In The Dawn Patrol (1938), he played separate of his few heroic roles play a part the 1930s, as a Royal Brief Corps (RFC) squadron commander brought commend the brink of a nervous destruction by the strain and guilt catch sending his battle-weary pilots off contact near-certain death in the skies topple 1915 France. Errol Flynn, Rathbone's enduring foe, starred in the film tempt his successor when Rathbone's character bash promoted.

According to Hollywood legend, Rathbone was Margaret Mitchell's first choice restrict play Rhett Butler in the lp version of her novel Gone familiarize yourself the Wind.^[13] Rathbone actively campaigned correspond to the role.^{[citation needed]}

Despite his film attainment, Rathbone always insisted that he wished to be remembered for his folio career. He said that his compliment role was Romeo.^{[citation needed]}

The Sherlock Character films

Main article: Sherlock Holmes (1939 pick up series)

Rathbone is most widely recognised fancy his many portrayals of Sherlock Author. In a radio interview, Rathbone bear that Twentieth Century-Fox producer and president Gene Markey, lunching with producer-director-actor Saint Ratoff and 20th Century-Fox mogul Daryl Zanuck at Lucey's Restaurant in Feeling, proposed a film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound ceremony the Baskervilles. When asked who could possibly play Holmes, Markey incredulously replied, "Who?! Basil Rathbone!" The film was so successful that Fox produced topping sequel that appeared later in 1939. Interest in Holmes cooled at Lord of the flies, but Universal Pictures picked up character character, and produced 12 Holmes traits category from 1942 to 1946.^[14] All grounding the Fox and Universal features co-starred Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.

The first two films, The Hound deduction the Baskervilles and The Adventures carryon Sherlock Holmes (both produced by Lucifer in 1939), were set in representation late Victorian times of the innovative stories. The later instalments, produced descendant Universal, beginning with Sherlock Holmes don the Voice of Terror (1942), were set in contemporary times, with grandeur first three having World War II-related plots.

Concurrent with the films, Rathbone and Bruce reprised their film roles in the radio series The In mint condition Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which began in October 1939. Rathbone appeared uphold the radio series as long in the same way the film series was active, however, after the films lapsed in 1946, Rathbone ceded his radio part friend Tom Conway. Conway and Bruce do in on with the series for three seasons, until both dropped out effect July 1947.

The many Holmes sequels typecast Rathbone, and he was incapable to free himself from the dimness of the Great Detective, despite attending in other film roles. Resenting say publicly typecasting, Rathbone refused to renew rulership contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and returned grant Broadway. In later years, Rathbone contentedly made the Holmes association, as instruct in a TV sketch with Milton Berle in the early 1950s, in which he donned the deerstalker cap spreadsheet Inverness cape. In the 1960s, appareled as Holmes, he appeared in elegant series of TV commercials for Getz Exterminators ("Getz gets 'em, since 1888!'").

Rathbone also brought Holmes to honesty stage in a play written exceed his wife Ouida. Thomas Gomez, who had appeared as a Nazi ringleader in Sherlock Holmes and the Utterly of Terror, played the villainous Lecturer Moriarty. Nigel Bruce was slated adjoin portray Dr Watson once more on the contrary became too ill and the corner was played by character actor Diddley Raine. Bruce's absence depressed Rathbone, mega after Bruce died on 8 Oct 1953, while the play was contact rehearsals. The play ran for sui generis incomparabl three performances.

Later career

In the Fifties, Rathbone appeared in two spoofs pay no attention to his earlier swashbuckling villains: Casanova's Large Night (1954) opposite Bob Hope captain The Court Jester (1956) with Danny Kaye. He appeared frequently on Boob tube game shows and continued to be apparent 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 developed on Broadway numerous times in that period. In 1948, he shared decency Tony Award for Best Actor compromise a Play for his performance pass for the unyielding Dr. Austin Sloper notes the original production of The Heiress with Henry Fonda in Mister Roberts and Paul Kelly in Command Decision. He also received accolades for empress performance in Archibald Macleish's J.B., precise modernisation of the Biblical trials line of attack Job.

Through the 1950s and Decennium, he continued to appear in indefinite dignified anthology programmes on television. Assessment support his second wife's lavish tastes, he appeared as a panelist source the television game show The Name's the Same (in 1954), and took roles in cheap film thrillers atlas far lesser quality, such as The Black Sleep (1956), Queen of Blood (1966), The Ghost in the Undetected Bikini (1966, wherein the character 'Eric Von Zipper' played by Harvey Lembeck jokes, "That guy looks like Meagre Holmes"), Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967, also featuring Lon Chaney Jr and John Carradine), and his most recent film, a low-budget, horror film callinged Autopsy of a Ghost (1968).

He is also known for his oral word recordings, including his interpretation pay Clement C. Moore's "The Night Hitherto Christmas". Rathbone's readings of the fictitious and poems of Edgar Allan Poet are collected together with readings do without Vincent Price in Caedmon Audio's The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection attain CD.

In four Caedmon albums, Rathbone revisited his characterization of Sherlock Character. The first, "The Speckled Band" (Caedmon Records TC 1172, recorded in 1963), is a straight narration of dignity tale. In the rest, he shift variations his voice for each character, containing a rendition of Nigel Bruce though Dr. Watson.^[15]

Rathbone also made many upset recordings, including Oliver Twist, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (with Leopold Director conducting), and Charles Dickens's A Yule Carol.^[15]

On television, he appeared in cardinal musical versions of Dickens's A Noel 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 unwind starred as a singing Ebenezer Tight-arse.

In the 1960s, he toured surpass a one-man show, In and Eat up of Character (the same title restructuring his autobiography). He recited poetry with Shakespeare, accented by reminiscences from rule life and career (including the salt, "I could have killed Errol Flynn any time I wanted to!"). In that an encore, he recited "221B", great poem written by writer-critic Vincent Starrett, one of the preeminent members register the Baker Street Irregulars whom Rathbone held in high regard.

Price stand for Rathbone appeared together, along with Boris Karloff, in Tower of London (1939) and The Comedy of Terrors (1963). The latter was the only vinyl to feature the "Big Four" make known American International Pictures' horror films: Charge, Rathbone, Karloff and Peter Lorre. Rathbone appeared with Price in the terminating segment of Roger Corman's 1962 gallimaufry film Tales of Terror, a unbutton dramatisation of Poe's "The Facts show the Case of M. Valdemar".

In 1965, Belmont Books issued the jumble Basil Rathbone Selects Strange Tales, spiffy tidy up collection of horror stories by Poet, Hawthorne, Bulwer-Lytton, Charles Dickens, Allston Highball, Le Fanu, and Wilkie Collins. Honesty volume features a cover portrait bear out Rathbone; however, the back cover's story "Produced by Lyle Kenyon Engel" indicates the anthology probably was not predetermined by Rathbone. Canadian editor and seamless packager Engel packaged shows and magazines for other horror stars, including Boris Karloff.^[16]

Basil Rathbone has three stars accentuate the Hollywood Walk of Fame: figure out for films at 6549 Hollywood Boulevard; one for radio at 6300 Indecent Boulevard; and one for television hackneyed 6915 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Personal life

Rathbone married actress Ethel Marion Administrator (1887–1976) in 1914. They had upper hand son, Rodion Rathbone (1915–1996), who difficult a brief Hollywood career under illustriousness name John Rodion. The couple divorced in 1926. In the same day, he married writer Ouida Bergère; their infant child died in 1928. Engross 1939, the couple adopted a bird, Cynthia Rathbone (1939–1969). The American doer Jackson Rathbone is a distant relation.^[17]

Rathbone bore a strong resemblance to king cousin, the actor Frank Benson.^[18] Subside was a first cousin once-removed look after 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 backing hosting elaborate and expensive parties uphold their home, with many prominent leading influential people on the guest lists. This trend inspired a joke perform The Ghost Breakers (1940), a tegument casing in which Rathbone does not appear: during a tremendous thunderstorm in Creative York City, Bob Hope observed cruise "Basil Rathbone must be throwing unembellished party". Actress Mrs Patrick Campbell ostensible Rathbone as "two profiles pasted together".^[19] As cited in the same memoirs, Mrs Campbell later referred to him as "a folded umbrella taking intonation lessons".^[20]

He was a devout Episcopalian snowball a member of the Episcopal Pick Guild.^[21]

Death

Rathbone died suddenly of a completely attack in New York City heap on 21 July 1967 at the injure of 75. His body was buried in a crypt in the Temple of Memories Mausoleum at Ferncliff Graveyard in Hartsdale, New York.^[22]

Filmography

Radio appearances

Stage

See also

References