Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone, MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967), was a South African-born British 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.
On 22 April 1911, Rathbone made his first appearance on stage at the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, as Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, with Sir 
Frank Benson’s No. 2 Company, under the direction of Henry Herbert.
Rathbone is most widely recognized for his starring role as Sherlock Holmes in fourteen movies between 1939 and 1946, all of which co-starred Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. 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. In the 1960’s, in his Sherlock Holmes costume, 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 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.
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.
