Jeremyt Brett played the foppish Freddie Eynsford-Hill opposite Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady, and he had a long career on stage and screen. But Brett is best known for his portrayal of master detective Sherlock Holmes in a series of episodes for British television filmed between 1984 and 1994. His intense and acerbic Holmes was an immediate hit with audiences and remains popular in reruns.
By coincidence, Brett played Dr. Watson in a 1980 Los Angeles production of the play The Crucifer of Blood, with Charlton Heston as Holmes... Brett played poet Robert Browning in the 1982 TV movie The Barretts of Wimpole Street.
Career Highlights: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: The Creeping Man, Merchant of Venice, Sherlock Holmes: The Master Blackmailer
First Major Screen Credit: The Very Edge (1963)
Biography
Jeremy Brett was a gifted yet ultimately underappreciated Thespian whose symbiotic relationship with the character Sherlock Holmes has earned him a permanent place in the livelihood of the fictitious legend as well as Baker Street Irregulars and the like. (His portrayal of the character is, arguably, the most authentic and revered today.) Born Jeremy Peter William Huggins in Berkswell, Warwickshire, England, in 1933, Brett was the son of Henry and Elizabeth Huggins along with his three brothers, John, Patrick, and Michael. His father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the army and did not want the family name associated with the dubious world of the theatrical, so young Brett plucked his stage name from the tag in his first suit, Brett & Co. He made his professional stage debut in Manchester, England, in the company of the Library Theatre in 1954. Brett's early work on the stage included everything from the classic to the avant-garde in nature; he was a diverse and multifaceted performer, who even worked alongside the likes of Charlton Heston (playing Dr. Watson oddly enough). He was still a fledgling at London's Central School of Speech and Drama when he made his first uncredited feature-film appearance in Svengali.
Brett's photograph in a British actors publication caught the eye of American filmmaker King Vidor, who subsequently cast him as Nicholai Rostov in his adaptation of Tolstoy's War and Peace (1956); the film marked his first encounter with future co-star Audrey Hepburn. After a stint in film, Brett returned to the London stage and joined the Old Vic theater company touring England and Canada, and it finally landed him right on Broadway in the U.S. Brett made his first U.S. television appearance on March 4, 1957, as Paris in an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He continued to act in London plays and sing in musicals into his late twenties, including an important role as Hamlet in 1961. He married fellow Thespian Anna Massey in 1958; however, the marriage was short-lived. The couple had one son, David, for whom they continued to care for adequately in the aftermath of their divorce.
The early '60s found Brett collaborating with renowned British actor/director Laurence Olivier, who offered him supporting roles in his productions of Othello and Hamlet. Brett would have been more inclined to focus on these stage roles if he hadn't been distracted by the filming of My Fair Lady, in which he sang alongside Audrey Hepburn as Freddy Eynesford-Hill. Olivier did his best to get Brett to stay in London, but Hollywood and the West Coast were too alluring for the adventurous young man, who was always up for an adventure. After the filming of My Fair Lady finally ended, Brett partook in a number of theatrical pieces including Rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy and Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Taking a nod from director Olivier and other patrons of London's National Theatre, Brett finally made his debut with the prestigious company in 1967 as Orlando in Shakespeare's As You Like It, which premiered with mixed reviews. He also appeared with the company in MacRune's Guevara (as Che Guavara, reportedly spending time hitchhiking around South America to fully understand his character), The Merchant of Venice, and Hedda Gabler, directed by Ingmar Bergman. The '70s attracted Brett more to television and radio with a few small intermissions on the stage; he was a player in the 1976 Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada. Television, however, brought him together with his second wife, producer Joan Sullivan (aka Joan Wilson), on the set of Rebecca. The two claim it was love at first sight, and they were married in November of 1977 until her untimely death from cancer in 1985. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes had begun filming that year, thanks to producer and Brett-enthusiast Michael Cox; Brett continued to work through his period of grief, performing in Aren't We All through the end of July and then showed up to start filming The Return of Sherlock Holmes in August of that same year. As he fought to belie his inward grief through continuous working, his emotions finally caught up with him, and he had a breakdown of sorts after finishing the first few episodes of the Return series in 1986. It was at this point that Brett was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a sickness which had gone mostly undocumented throughout his life and was played off as indiosyncracies of an impulsive actor amongst his friends and associates.
Aside from his loss and psychological demons at bay, Brett's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the Granada series was to be his most poignant work, partly due to the emotive energy he channeled into it from his personal standpoint. He approached the role with utter seriousness and respect for the detective; Brett was a staunch critic in keeping true to the historical and literary keynotes from the stories, which resulted in a stylish, witty, and sophisticated interpretation of the singular friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. At the same time, Brett articulated facets of Holmes that went beyond the stories, creating a fresh and more vibrant (and sometimes more comical) Holmes than had been seen before. The Granada anthology includes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes; four feature films were also produced from the short novels -- A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Master Blackmailer (adapted from Doyle's The Valley of Fear).
Brett was not only manic depressive, but he also had a continually failing heart; his condition was further compromised by heavy smoking, a grueling work schedule, and an already weakened heart from a spout with rheumatic fever as a child. He had become compulsive and brooding like the Holmes he portrayed in The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, a centennial commemorative play written by his good friend, Jeremy Paul, the man who also wrote a number of Holmes episodes for Granada. The Secret ran a rigorous year in the U.K. and finally came to a close in late 1989. By then, Brett's health was waning; his last appearances were on the set of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street. He passed away on September 12, 1995, in his sleep at his home in Clapham Common. His career legacy is still treasured to many, and his portraiture of the famous detective hero will always remain in the hearts of Sherlockians everywhere. ~ All Movie Guide
Anna Massey (1958 - 1962) (divorced)
Joan Wilson (1976 - 1985) (her death)
Jeremy Brett (3 November 1933 – 12 September 1995), born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an Englishactor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.
Peter Jeremy William Huggins was born at Berkswell Grange in Berkswell on 3 November 1933,[1] the son of a Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire and an heir of the Cadbury chocolate family. Educated at Eton, he claimed to have been an "academic disaster", attributing his learning difficulties to dyslexia. However, he excelled at singing and was a member of the college choir. He became a drama student but his father demanded that he change his name for the sake of the family honour.[2]
Theatre
Brett trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.[3] He made his professional acting debut at the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1954, and made his London stage debut with the Old Vic company in Troilus and Cressida 1956.[4] In the same year he appeared on Broadway as the Duke of Aumerle in Richard II.[5] He went on to play many classical roles on stage, including numerous Shakespearean parts in his early career with the Old Vic and later with the Royal National Theatre.
Television
From the early 1960s, Brett was rarely absent from British television screens. He starred in many serials, notably as D'Artagnan in the 1966 adaptation of The Three Musketeers. A few of his appearances were in comedic roles, but usually with a classic edge, such as Captain Absolute in The Rivals. In 1973, Brett portrayed Bassanio in a televised production of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, in which Laurence Olivier portrayed Shylock and Joan Plowright Portia. (Brett, Olivier and Plowright had previously played the same roles in a Royal National Theatre production of the play.) Brett joked that, as an actor, he was rarely allowed into the 20th century and never into the present day. In reality, several of his early television appearances, in ITC series such as The Baron and The Champions saw him cast as swarthy, smooth villains very much in the present.
Film
Although Brett's feature film appearances were relatively few, he did play Freddie Eynsford-Hill in the 1964 blockbuster film version of My Fair Lady. His singing voice was dubbed in the film, but Brett could still sing, as he later proved when he played Danilo in The Merry Widow on British television in 1968.
Jeremy Brett's final, posthumous on-screen appearance was an uncredited bit part as "Artist's Father" in Moll Flanders, a 1996 Hollywood feature film starring Robin Wright Penn in the title role. The film (not to be confused with the 1996 ITV adaption starring Alex Kingston) was released nearly a year after Brett's death.
Notable in all of Jeremy Brett's roles is his precisely honed diction. Brett was born with a speech impediment, "rhotacism", that kept him from pronouncing the "R" sound correctly. Corrective surgery as a teenager, followed by years of practising, gave Brett an enviable pronunciation and enunciation. He later claimed that he practised all of his speech exercises daily, whether he was working or not.
Brett had been approached in February 1982 by Granada TV to play Holmes. The idea was to make a totally authentic and faithful adaption of the character's best cases. Eventually Brett accepted the role. He wanted to be the best Sherlock Holmes the world had ever seen[6] He conducted extensive research on the great detective and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, and was very attentive to discrepancies between the scripts he had been given and Conan Doyle's original stories.[7] One of Brett's dearest possessions on the set was his 77-page "Baker Street File" on everything from Holmes' mannerisms to his eating and drinking habits. Brett once explained that "some actors are becomers - they try to become their characters. When it works, the actor is like a sponge, squeezing himself dry to remove his own personality then absorbing the characters like a liquid".[8]
Brett was obsessed with bringing more passion to the role of Holmes. He introduced Holmes' rather eccentric hand gestures and short violent laughter. He would hurl himself on the ground just to look for a footprint, he would leap over furniture or jump on the parapet of a bridge with no regard for his own personal safety.
Holmes' obsessive and depressive personality fascinated and frightened Brett. In many ways Holmes' personality resembled Brett's own, with outbursts of passionate energy followed by periods of lethargy. It became difficult for Brett to let go of Holmes after work. He had always been told that the only way for an actor to stay sane was for him to leave his part behind at the end of the day, but Jeremy started dreaming about Holmes, and the dreams turned into nightmares.[9] Brett began to refer to Sherlock Holmes as "You Know Who" or simply "HIM": "Watson describes You Know Who as a mind without a heart, which is hard to play. Hard to become. So what I have done is invent an inner life".[10] Brett invented an imaginary life of Holmes to fill the hollowness of Holmes' "missing heart", his empty emotional life. He imagined :"...what You Know Who's nanny looked like. She was covered in starch. I don't think he saw his mother until he was about eight years old..." etc..[11]
Eventually it began to go wrong. His workload was pushing him to the limit. While the other actors disappeared to the canteen for lunch Jeremy would sit alone on the set reading the script, looking at every nuance.[12] He would read Holmes in the weekends and on his holidays. "Some actors fear if they play Sherlock Holmes for a very long run the character will steal their soul, leave no corner for the original inhabitant", he once said.[13] It never occurred to him that he was ill.
Illnesses and death
Jeremy Brett's second wife, Joan Sullivan Wilson, died of cancer on 4 July 1985 [14] shortly after Brett finished filming Holmes’ "death" in "The Final Problem". Brett would struggle on filming the third Granada series, The Return of Sherlock Holmes throughout late 1985. On the set it was noticed that his manic episodes, his excessive changes of mood, were getting worse and eventually grief and workload became too much; he had a breakdown, was hospitalised and diagnosed manic-depressive.
Jeremy Brett was given lithium tablets to fight his manic depression. He knew that he would never be cured; he had to live with his condition, look for the signs of his disorder and then deal with it.[15] He wanted to go back to work, to play Holmes again. The first episode to be produced after his discharge was a two-hour adaption of The Sign of the Four. From then on the difference in Brett's appearance slowly became more noticeable as the series developed. One of the side effects of the lithium tablets was fluid retention. Brett began to look and act differently. The drugs were slowing him down and he was putting on weight. He was retaining pints and pints of water. One day on location a doctor was sent for and drained thirteen pints from his thorax.[16] Brett also had heart troubles. His heart was twice the normal size[17], he would have difficulties breathing and would need an oxygen mask on the set. "But, darlings, the show must go on", was his only comment.[18]
During the last decade of his life, Brett was treated in hospital several times for his mental illness, and his health and appearance visibly deteriorated by the time he completed the later episodes of the Sherlock Holmes series. During his later years, he discussed the illness candidly, encouraging people to recognise its symptoms and seek help.
Mel Gussow wrote in a New York Times obituary "Mr. Brett was regarded as the quintessential Holmes: breathtakingly analytical, given to outrageous disguises and the blackest moods and relentless in his enthusiasm for solving the most intricate crimes."[20]
Personal life
On 24 May 1958, Brett married the actressAnna Massey (daughter of Raymond Massey), but they divorced in 22 November 1962 . Their son, David Huggins]], born in 1959, is a British cartoonist, illustrator and novelist.
Years later, Brett and Massey appeared together in the BBC's dramatization of Rebecca (1978), with Brett playing the haunted hero, Max de Winter, and Massey playing the sinister housekeeper, Mrs Danvers. (David Huggins also played an uncredited bit part in the film.). In 1991 Brett and Anna Massey's brother Daniel Massey appeared in an episode of the Sherlock Holmes series ("The Problem of Thor Bridge").
In 1977 Brett married American PBS producer Joan Sullivan, and the pair shared, as Brett described it, "...an amazing love." They were considered by many to be soulmates, sharing a birthday (3rd November) and frequently finishing each other's sentences. Joan died of cancer in 4 July 1985, leaving Brett devastated.[citation needed]
"I remember the last time we danced together...She was wearing silver, and looking absolutely supreme - delicate, fragile - But we danced for the last time there, and I lost her...Her light will not come again, believe you me." (Jeremy Brett, Desert Island interview)
Quotations
"Holmes is the hardest part I have ever played - harder than Hamlet or Macbeth. Holmes has become the dark side of the moon for me. He is moody and solitary and underneath I am really sociable and gregarious. It has all got too dangerous".[21]
