Basil Rathbone, Master of Stage and Screen: Biography
Basil Rathbone | British Actor & Sherlock Holmes Star | Britannica
Basil Rathbone, born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1892, was an actor with a long standing career in a variety of roles and mediums.
He began acting in 1911, starting with a production of Taming of the Shrew. His first silent film appearance would be in 1921’s Innocent. In 1923 he traveled to the US to star in the The Czarina and The Swan, launching a successful broadway debut. From there his career took off to new heights with the talkies, giving him a number of iconic roles both original and based in literature.
When 1939 came around, he procured the so well known role of Sherlock Holmes, starring in 14 films and performing over 200 radio plays. In his autobiography In and Out of Character (1956), he laments that his other roles and achievements “…were slowly but surely sinking into oblivion,” when talking about the legacy of his time with Holmes.
For the rest of his career Holmes did follow him, too closely, and he was never able to recapture his dramatic spark. He mainly apeared in spoofs and low budget horror movies. In my personal opinion I’d liken this to Buster Keaton’s career once the talkies took over silent film, and his later work consisted of mainly gimicks and cameos.
<aside>
Additional Information about accessing the internet archive in a note on sources (On main Library page)
Sign up for Print Disability Access (To check out any book in the archive)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScSBbT17HSQywTm-fQawOK7G4dN-QPbDWNstdfvysoKTXCjKA/viewform
</aside>