Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes

I always like Basil Rathbone.

Basil Rathbone is good but too hammy in my opinion . Brett was bipolar and bisexual, just like Holmes clearly was intended to be. And probably a drug addict too.

Agreed, R1, but the productions with Jeremy Brett follow ACD's original story lines more closely.

[quote]"Basil Rathbone is good but too hammy in my opinion."

You mean Basil HAMbone?!?

Edward Hardwicke was also great as Watson in the Granada Television production. And he aged beautifully over the course of the series.

He really gave his all in that role, I've been watching this series on Sky TV. He was the definitive Sherlock Holmes, and probably the closest to the books

Really good looking when he was young, you could still see it until he got sick in the mid 1980's

Hawt to death!

Was in a relationship with that hawt daddy from Scarface.

He had a wonderfully appointed house.

I went to see him as Sherlock Holmes in London in 1989. The audience had about 25 people in it (it was a matinee). I got his autograph at the back door, but he didn't seem very pleased to give it, like it was a bother. I don't remember much about the actual play, other than he played the character as a drug addict.

I really do enjoy Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock

So glad someone started a thread on Brett. He was the greatest of all Holmes. Benedict Cumberbatch owes him big time.

And Brett was hot.

Actor Gary Bond (who was HAWT) was his bf

Also dated actor Paul Shenar

I love watching the Brett series just for the wonderful clothes they are wearing. Dr Watson, in particular, is very handsome in his 3 piece tweed suits. And 221B Baker Street seems very cosy. The perfect TV to watch in the Fall.

Perfect Sherlock!

Jeremy Brett suffered from mental illness. He appears to have had great conflicts over his sexuality...in relationships with Gary Bond (gorgeous man) and Paul Shenar, yet married to women during his liaisons with men. Wonder how much those conflicts affected his mental health.

Gary Bond?!

Yes, R14, this series in particular has a warm, cozy feel. I miss when these shows were shot on film by talented, subtle directors. I miss steady cameras and editing that allows you to focus on something for more than 1 second instead of making the viewer feel like they've got ADHD. Most of all I miss the warm, grainy feel of film, especially in interior shots. The high-budget British shows today all look and feel cold and cheap. I assume it's because of digital cameras; whatever it is, it's not fun to watch.

Huge Jeremy Brett fan; as has already been stated, he’s the definitive Sherlock Holmes.

Very high production values.

Never liked Jeremy Brett. He would’ve made a better Dracula than Sherlock Holmes.

You know who I never realized was gay? James Shigeta, the handsome actor from Hawaii.

The definitive Sherlock. No one else comes close.

They seem to have fucked off, but he used to have these fangirls who loved him in Sherlock and would freak out if you said he was gay or bi. We used to make fun of them here.

(r20) Yes. He had an affair in the early 60's with Hollywood hairstylist, Sydney Guilaroff.

Any shirtless pics of young Jeremy Brett?

I saw him do it in the West End. He was marvellous.

Quite a far cry from Freddy Eynsford-Hill in "My Fair Lady".

He was so hot in My Fair Lady

Oh wow, he was gorgeous!

R7 Who are you talking about?

R24 Englishmen of that period had no bodies. English people were starving in the war and the following ten years of poverty.

People in Australia and Canada sent parcels of FOOD to England in that time.

[quote]Sydney Guilaroff and his former employee, later adopted “grandson” Jose. Guilaroff was MGM’s head hairstylist for 40 years. The first studio hairstylist to receive screen credit. He was also the first single man allowed to adopt another grown man. Not a common practice but something rich and famous gays were able and encouraged to do as a legal means of assuring lovers and life-partners received inheritances and had access to hospital “family only” visiting rules when courts did not recognize any form of same-sex relationship. Liberace had plans to adopt one of his lovers, as did actor Raymond St. Jacques.

R27 He obviously had some physical illness as well as this so-called 'mental illness'. He became suddenly haggard in the later 1960s.

I'm too lazy to google it right now, but there's a picture out there of Brett and Gary Bond hanging out shirtless together in the 60s. They both looked pretty hot.

Gary Bond's biggest scenes on screen were masochism scenes.

Did it ever play a normal character?

I hardly ever meet anyone who has heard of him. So nice to know that other people think of him as the perfect Holmes and, had he done it, Dracula.

He had a fake name— Peter Jeremy William Huggins.

He didn’t do sex stuff with other men. He was straight and always had women. Enough with the bullshit fanfic.

[quote]I went to see him as Sherlock Holmes in London in 1989. The audience had about 25 people in it (it was a matinee). I got his autograph at the back door, but he didn't seem very pleased to give it, like it was a bother. I don't remember much about the actual play, other than he played the character as a drug addict.

I may have been one of those 25 people, r9. He signed a tshirt for me that the show sold. Maybe you caught him on a bad night. He was at least pleasant to me. I still have the shirt, God knows why.

A great Sherlock. Not a fan of Cumberbatch, but I enjoyed Jonny Lee What'shisname from CBS' Elementary.

[quote] He was straight and always had women

You need some details to back that assertion.

Though I agree Anna Massey was rather austere. Though she does talk about being 'happy' in this clip—

Jeremy Brett was just perfection as Holmes, it is a performance that rewards with every rewatch. Didn’t he also play Dracula on the stage?

I see one of the fangirls has returned at r35

R37 How is that film of hotel du lac?,, I liked the book but didn't know they'd made a movie of it.

R40 'Hotel du lac' is a strange airless film.

The plot was stolen from a late 1950s TV show starring another English favourite. It is buried somewhere on Youtube and which will require some researching to retrieve.

Jeremy and Gary Bond together

R41 thanks. So it's not based on the Anita brookner book then.

R42, and?

Nicol Williamson was a great cokehead Holmes in "The Seven-Per-Cent-Solution."

Any pictures of his well appointed home?

[R42] Go look for the website. It was VERY thorough with about 50 well-illustrated pages.

R41, R43 I haven't read Anita Bruckner's 'Hotel du lac' but I bet you £5 that she stole the setting from this episode of a US TV mystery drama series which had Hitchcock as an executive producer.

The series were cheaply-made in the studio but it features an elegantly-dressed, cold divorce lawyer played by Pamela Brown who travels to a resort hotel in Italy and tries to make sense of her surroundings.

Anna Massey's scenes in 'Hotel du lac' echo the earlier scenes with Pamela Brown.

Which webpage are you referring to, R47?