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William Gillette
Youth
The neighborhood where William Gillette was born, Nook Farm in Hartford, Connecticut, was a literary and intellectual center, with such residents as Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dudley Warner.
Gillette's father was Francis Gillette, a former United States Senator and crusader for the abolition of slavery, public education, temperance and women's suffrage. His mother was Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, the Puritan leader who founded the town of Hartford and either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government. In the Gillette home, young Will grew up with his three brothers and a sister. One other sister, Mary, died as a small child. Another brother, Edward H. Gillette, later became a farmer, newspaper editor and congressman from Iowa.
His oldest brother, Frank Ashbell, went to California and died there in 1859 from consumption (tuberculosis). The next brother, Robert, joined the Union army and served in the Antietam campaign, was invalided home sick, recovered, and joined the Navy. Assigned to the U.S.S. Gettysburg, Robert took part in both assaults on Fort Fisher, but was tragically killed the morning after the surrender of the fort when the powder magazine exploded. When brother Edward went west to Iowa, and sister Elisabeth married George Henry Warner, both in 1863, William was left as the only child in the household.
As a student, Gillette specialized in oratory and engineering. But he had always wanted to be an actor and, at age 20, left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship. He briefly worked for a stock company in New Orleans and then returned to New England where, on Mark Twain's own recommendation, he debuted at the Globe Theater of Boston with Twain's stage-play The Gilded Age, in 1875. Afterward, Gillette was a stock actor for six years through Boston, New York and the Midwest.
During these years, Gillette irregularly attended classes at a few institutions, although he never completed their programs. His family was not overly happy about his chosen profession, but (contrary to many sources) he was not disinherited. In fact, his father, Francis, who had held the strongest objections to the theater in general, offered the least resistance, and drove him to the train station, telling his son that he had driven two other sons to this same station and they had never returned; William was to make sure he was the exception. Francis supplied him with an allowance on which to subsist (his apprenticeship was without pay). And, when the old Senator's health went downhill late in 1878, William forsook the stage for more than a year to care for his father in his final illness. Upon the old Senator's death, Will and George Henry Warner were named executors of Francis' estate, and they, Elisabeth and Edward shared in the inheritance.
In 1882 Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit. They were blissfully happy. She died in 1888 from peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix. He was grief-stricken for years and in the Spring of 1890 was struck down with tuberculosis. He did not act again for four years, and he never remarried.
Playwright, Director and Actor
Gillette in Secret Service.
In 1881, while performing at Cincinnati, Gillette was hired as playwright, director and actor for $50 per week by two of the Frohman brothers, Gustave and Daniel. The first play he wrote and produced was The Professor. It debuted in the Madison Square Theater, lasting 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states (as far west as St. Louis, Missouri). That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written together with Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Early in his career, Gillette figured out that it would be in the triple role of playwright, director and actor that he would make the most money, and he also figured out that the best way to fill theaters was by giving the public what it wanted: clear, wholesome entertainment focusing on issues of love, honor, integrity and nobility. He also realized, and his mechanical and engineering inclinations helped, that special effects in sound, lighting, and stage settings would bring the customers out. When he was starring in Held by the Enemy, he invented a manner in simulating the sound of a horse's hoofs, and for Sherlock Holmes he developed the rising and lowering of the curtain in total darkness at the beginning and the end of each act.
Among the premier matinee idols of his day, he was described by Amy Leslie as ne of Gibson notables materialized." He stood six feet, three inches tall, slender but well-proportioned, with an aristocratic face and a quietly dignified and manly demeanor. He belonged to the "heroic school," standing strong and silent in the midst of chaos. His typical quiet "he-man" role would later be taken over by such stalwarts as Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. Never bombastic, neither an orator nor a declaimer, his acting was understated, always spontaneous and natural, subtle, and quiet, his effects achieved by suggestion rather than overt action. Lewis Strang observed that "he rarely gesticulates, and his bodily movements often seem purposely slow and deliberate. His composure is absolute and his mental grasp of a situation is complete.15]
He moved with skill and a commanding dignity, all eyes riveted to his stark, spare frame, his piercing eyes, and his metallic voice. Tall, dignified, impassive, and imperturbable, he was one of those actors whose own personality dominated every role he played, varying only in relation to which part of him the role demanded the whimsical and witty, or the strong and heroic. He believed that the actor whose personality best fits a role will perform it well; and the roles he created for himself were fashioned to fit his own personality and acting skills. On stage he was mesmerizing and profound, but not versatile. He was by all accounts a superior actor in every respect, but only within a limited range of roles.
He could mesmerize an audience simply by standing motionless and in complete silence, or by indulging in any one of his grand gestures or subtle mannerisms. He did not gesture often but, when he did, it meant everything. He would steal a scene with a mere nod, a shrug, a glance, a twitching of the fingers, a compression of his lips, or a hardening of his face. Slight inflections in his voice spoke wonders. ccasionally, Georg Schuttler pointed out, hen it was least expected, he gestured or moved his body so quickly that the speed of the action was compared to the swift opening and closing of a camera shutter.16]
He used his mind rather than his emotions, and carefully calculated every move, every nuance, every twitch, every change of expression, in order to produce the best effect. S. E. Dahlinger summed him up: ithout seeming to raise his voice or ever to force an emotion, he could be thrilling without bombast or infinitely touching without descending to sentimentality. One of his greatest strengths as an actor was the ability to say nothing at all on the stage, relying instead on an involved, inner contemplation of an emotional or comic crisis to hold the audience silent, waiting for the moment when he would speak again.17]
He was an unemotional actor, unable to emote, even in love scenes, about which Montrose Moses commented, e made appeal through the sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness of outward detail, rather than through romantic attitude and heart fervor."
His performances were renowned for the halting, even stumbling way he went about it. Life elements had entered acting, he declared, so to him each performance was a "life-simulation." Therefore, it was important for actors and actresses to speak their lines lines already written and learned as if they are making them up as they go along, which of course is how real people talk in real life. The actor, Gillette said, must speak each line as if this was the first time those words were being said, and enter each room as if it was the first time he had done it, not the one hundredth. Thus, he would hesitate at times, stumble over words, and act as if he was truly making it up as he went along and not repeating lines he had been reciting over and over again in previous performances. Therefore, his performances were not smooth and seemingly effortless. He looked as if he hadn learned his part, as if he was ad-libbing or struggling to remember lines, or even making it up as he went along which was precisely the impression he wished to create, precisely the effect he was trying to achieve.
His repressed style also helped him to accommodate a voice that was really not strong to begin with. It was thin and light, crisp and clear, with a head-tone quality and a limited range. Morehouse described it as "dry, crisp, metallic, almost shrill." Gretchen Finletter recalled that it was "a dry, almost monotonous voice admirably suited to the great Holmes." Monotonous, Dennis Sherk pointed out, is ardly a complimentary term for an actor of Gillette stature, but it would appear that this monotonous delivery was deliberately effected. The ruse was evidently successful, for it was reported the monotone of his voice ad magic in it and lent quality to other voices speaking against it.21]
Most of all, his acting remained contemporary and modern. The Times noted in 1937 that, "it would be hard to convince that portion of the American public that knew and followed him that any better actor had ever trod the American stage. And it might be impossible to find any other actor who at 76 could revive a role from the Nineties and make a smashing tour with it through two seasons over the length and breadth of the country. It would be conservative to say that Mr. Gillette was the most successful of all American actors."
In spite of his superior talent as an actor, however, Gillette left his original impact on the Western theater as a dramatist. His plays were known for their unity and tight construction at a time when most plays were not. And it was Gillette who led the way in providing realism in stage setting. He brought exquisite and authentic detail to his sets, realistic sound effects and startling lighting effects to all of his productions. He contributed technical and mechanical ideas that improved stage effects, his greatest single effect being the raising and the lowering of the curtain in total darkness so as to hide scene changes and, at the rising of the curtain, to reveal in the dawning light the set for the next scene. This, and eliminating between-act curtain calls and speeches, helped maintain the illusion the actors were trying to create. And the curtain effect was one of the means by which he not only maintained but actually emphasized the fourth wall separating the audience from the make-believe world on the stage. His dialogue was realistic and his characters, within the realms of farce and melodrama, were natural in both their behavior and their mannerisms. This made them easier to identify with and it made the dramatic scenes all the more dramatic.
He had a heightened sense of the dramatic, and his two most riveting scenes the hospital scene in Held by the Enemy and the Telegraph Office scene in Secret Service are still considered to be among the most dramatic scenes in the history of the American theater. Add to these the Stepney Gas Chamber scene in Sherlock Holmes and the blackout scene in Electricity, and you have a dramatist with an astounding knack for spine-tingling excitement.
He was creative in the way he developed his characters, and this really first came out in Held by the Enemy in which he did away with the traditionally clear-cut distinction between hero and villain, introduced characters who were sometimes a mixture of both, and made a spy the sympathetic hero of the play. Cousin Richard Burton wrote that illette has from the first been daring in his treatment of character. He hates the conventional as the devil holy water, and sometime puzzles his audience a bit by portraying a person who refuses to go into a category and be labeled villain or hero.24]
What made Gillette two Civil War plays unique and popular was that he refused to take sides. He treated North and South equally, bestowing integrity, loyalty and honor on both, even as he made a spy each play sympathetic hero. Yet, what set Gillette apart from all the rest was not simply his reliance on realism, his imperturbable naturalistic acting, or his superior sense of the dramatic. At a time when American art of all kinds was held by the British in very low esteem, he as also a pioneer in making American drama merican, rejecting what had been up until that time a pervasive European influence on American theater.25]
He was, in fact, the first American playwright whose authentically American plays were not only accepted but highly regarded on both sides of the Atlantic. This was no small achievement when, since his country founding, actors from both countries preferred only British plays to perform in, audiences in both countries wanted only British plays to watch, and American plays exported to England had to be converted by British play-doctors into British-flavored productions to even be staged. Gillette changed all that with Held by the Enemy. By the time Secret Service hit the sceptered isle, the conquest was history.
Inventor
During an 1886-87 production of Held by the Enemy, Gillette introduced a new method of his own devising which simulated the galloping of a horse. Where men had slammed halves of coconut shells on a slab of marble to simulate the sound, Gillette found this clumsy and unrealistic. Applied for on June 9, Letters Patent No. 389,294 was issued to him on September 11. It title is ethod of Producing Stage Effects. It was a method, not a mechanical device, so there were no illustrations in the two-page document. And the patent was very broad, introducing new and useful method of imitating the sound of a horse or horses approaching, departing, or passing at a gallop, trot, or any other desired gait, the same to be used in producing stage effects in theatrical or other performances or entertainments, exhibitions, &c.
His method consisted in eating with clappers, that represent the hoofs of a horse, upon some material that serves to represent the road-bed over which the horse is supposed to be traveling as well as tamping, pawing, or jumping about in a restive manner while the rider is mounting, and then starting off, first at a trot, then a gallop, and finally a run, or at any gait desired, in any order. He could also imitate the sounds of the hoofs pounding on different surfaces: tone, brick, clay, gravel, greensward, or when crossing bridges.26]
It was not the first patent he had applied for and received. In 1883 he filed the first of four patent requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a Time-Stamp "as stamps upon the upper surface of papers a dial and one or more dial-pointers, representing the time of day at which the papers stamped by it were respectively so stamped." All four requests were granted.
Comeback
Charles Frohman was a young Broadway producer who had been successful with the exchanging of theater productions between the USA and the UK. After he produced some of Gillette's plays, the two formed a greater partnership. Their productions had great success, sweeping Gillette into London's society spot, which had been historically reluctant to accept American theatre. With Held by the Enemy in 1887, Gillette became the first American playwright to achieve true success on British stages with an authentic American play.
Secret Service
Gillette finally came fully out of retirement in October 1894 in Too Much Johnson, adapted from the French farce, La Plantation Thomassin, by Maurice Ordonneau. Following its debut at the Park Theatre in Waltham, Massachusetts, it opened on October 29 at the Columbia Theatre in Brooklyn. This farce was extremely popular, and has been produced on stage several times in the century since its debut.
In 1895 he brought forth the greatest play he would ever write, Secret Service. It was the absolute best of the many Civil War plays produced after the war, and it was the literary apex of his career as a playwright and dramatist. His approach was even-handed and wholly nonpartisan, bestowing on characters from both sides of the conflict all the finer qualities of patriotism, courage and honor that good melodrama demanded. He never got into the reasons for the war. The only motivation he allowed his characters was their allegiances to their respective causes, and the allegiances of both sides were given equal honor and nobility of purpose and action. Also, as he had in Held by the Enemy, Gillette turned a spy into the sympathetic hero of the play, and he made a romance the main focus of the play rather than the military conflict in which the protagonists were involved.
Secret Service was first performed in the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia for two weeks beginning on May 13, 1895, with Maurice Barrymore in the lead role. Gillette rewrote some of the script and starred in the play when it opened at the Garrick Theatre on October 5, 1896. It was the first time he had taken on the role of the romantic hero in one of his own plays. The production ran until March 6, 1897, and was an enormous critical and popular success.
Following its American success, Frohman booked Secret Service to open at the Adelphi Theatre on the West End in London on May 15, 1897, and it became the cornerstone of Frohman achievements in England.
Sherlock Holmes
Meanwhile Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, feeling that Holmes was stifling him and keeping him from more worthy literary work, had finished his Sherlock Holmes saga and killed Holmes off in The Final Problem, published in 1893. Afterwards, however, Doyle found himself in need of further income, as he was planning to build a new home. He decided to take his character to the stage, and wrote a play. Holmes had appeared in two earlier stage works by other authors, Charles Brookfield's skit Under the Clock (1893) and John Webb's play Sherlock Holmes (1894); nevertheless, Doyle now wrote a new 5-act play with Holmes and Watson in their freshmen years as detectives.
Doyle offered the role first to Henry Irving and then to Beerbohm Tree. But Irving turned it down and Tree demanded that Doyle readapt Holmes to his peculiar acting profile; he also wanted to play both Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Doyle turned down the deal, considering that this would debase the character.
Noting that the play needed a lot of work, literary agent A. P. Watt sent the script to Charles Frohman who traveled to London to meet Doyle. There, Frohman suggested the prospect of an adaptation by Gillette. Doyle endorsed this and Frohman obtained the staging-copyright. Doyle insisted on only one thing: there was to be no love interest in "Sherlock Holmes." Frohman uttered a Victorian rendition of "Trust me!"
Gillette, who then read the entire collection for the first time, liked the idea and started the piece's outlining in San Francisco, while still touring in Secret Service. Both artists became confident. On one occasion, after they had exchanged numerous telegrams about the play, Gillette telegraphed Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" The unwavering Doyle responded: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him."
The love interest was in keeping with the melodramatic style of the time, which centered on romance and happy endings. Gillette always gave his audiences some degree of romance, and always happy endings.
Coins Famous Phrase
Gillette's version consisted of five scenes in two acts. Combining elements from several of Doyle's stories, he mainly utilized the plots "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Final Problem". Also, it had elements from A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery and The Greek Interpreter. However, with the exception of Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and Billy the Pageboy, all the other characters were his own inventions.
Different from the intellectual-only original, "a machine rather than a man," Gillette portrayed Holmes as brave and open to express his feelings. He wore the deerstalker cap on stage, which was originally featured in illustrations by Sidney Paget in the 1890s. Gillette also introduced the curved or bent briar pipe, instead of the straight pipe pictured by illustrators, supposedly so that Gillette could pronounce his lines more easily; actually, it's as difficult to pronounce lines clearly whether the pipe is bent or straight, and it may have been that Gillette's face was easier to see from the seats with a bent briar in his mouth. Gillette also made use of a magnifying-glass, a violin and a syringe, which all came from the Canon and which were all now established as "props" to the Sherlock Holmes character.
Gillette formulated the complete phrase: "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow", which was later reused by Clive Brook, the first spoken-cinema Holmes, as: "Elementary, my dear Watson", Holmes' best known line and one of the most famous expressions in the English language.
Irene Adler, The Woman of the series, was replaced by Alice Faulkner, young and beautiful lady who was planning to avenge her sister's murder but eventually falls in love with Holmes; and the pageboy, nameless in the Canon, was given the name Billy by Gillette, a name he carried over into the Basil Rathbone films and has retained ever since.
Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner (later renamed Sherlock Holmes - A Drama in Four Acts) was finished. Then, one night as the Secret Service company was playing in San Francisco and staying in the Baldwin Hotel. The script was in the possession of his secretary, William Postance, in his room at the Baldwin when fire swept from the property room of the Baldwin Theatre through the hotel in the early morning hours of November 23. The financial loss was estimated at nearly $1,500,000. Only two deaths were known at first, though several people were missing; and, while the flames were confined to the Baldwin, smoke and water damaged the adjoining structures.
Postance barely escaped, but the entire script was reduced to ashes. Postance went to the Palace Hotel, where Gillette was sound asleep, and awakened him at 3:30 in the morning to break the bad news. Not overly happy about being disturbed in the middle of the night, Gillette simply asked, s this hotel on fire? Assured that it was not, he told Postance, ell, come and tell me about it in the morning.31]
With both original scripts -- Doyle's and Gillette's adaptation -- destroyed, Gillette rewrote the piece, either from notes or an extra copy, in a month.
Doyle and Gillette had never met. So Doyle's shock was understandable when the train came to a halt and Sherlock Holmes himself stepped onto the platform. Yet, there he was, the long spare figure with the aquiline features and deep-set eyes. Sitting in his landau, Doyle contemplated the apparition with open-mouthed awe until the actor whipped out a magnifying lens, examined Doyle's face closely, and declared (precisely as Holmes himself might have done), "Unquestionably an author!"
Doyle broke into a hearty laugh and the partnership was sealed with the mirth and hospitality of the weekend at Undershaw. The two became lifelong friends.
Holmes Tour
Wiliam Gillette as Sherlock Holmes
Lithograph - 1900
Library of Congress Collection
After a copyright performance in England, Sherlock Holmes debuted on October 23, 1899, at the Star Theatre in Buffalo. Following appearances in Rochester and Syracuse, and Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania, Sherlock Holmes made its Broadway debute at the Garrick Theater on November 6, 1899, performing until June 16, 1900. It was an instant success. Gillette applied all his dazzling special effects over the massive audience.
But he faced sharp, even derisive, criticism from the newspapers, especially about Holmes falling in love. In Conan Doyle's original novels, Holmes was said to have an "aversion to women." As a matter of fact, throughout 34 years, the critics nearly always praised the acting and the special effects, but not the play itself.
The company also toured nationally, along the western United States, from October 8, 1900, to March 30, 1901. This was bolstered by another company also, with Cuyler Hastings, through minor cities and Australia.
After a pre-debut week in Liverpool, the company debuted in London (September 9, 1901), at the Lyceum Theatre, performing in Duke of York's Theatre later.
It was another hit with its audience, despite not convincing the critics. The 12 weeks originally appointed were at full-hall. The production was extended until April 12, 1902 (256 presentations), including a gala for King Edward VII on February 1. Then it toured England and Scotland with two ancillary groups: North (with H.A. Saintsbury) and South (with Julian Royce). At the same time, the play was produced in foreign countries (such as Australia, Sweden, and South Africa).
The dean of British actors, Sir Henry Irving, was touring America when Sherlock Holmes opened at the Garrick Theatre, and Irving saw Gillette as Holmes. The two actors met and Irving concluded negotiations for Sherlock Holmes to begin an extended season at the Lyceum Theatre in London beginning in early May. Gillette was the first American actor ever to be invited to perform on that illustrious stage, which was an enormous honor. Irving was the dean of British actors, the first ever to be knighted, and the Lyceum was his theater.
Sherlock Holmes made its British debut at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool on September 2, 1900. It was the beginning of a major triumph. Gillette then opened Sherlock Holmes at the Lyceum in London on September 9. The Lyceum tour alone netted Gillette nearly $100,000, and it made the most money of all the productions in the final years of Irving tenure at the Lyceum.
In the USA, Gillette toured again from 1902 to 1903, until November 1903, when Gillette starred in The Admirable Crichton by James M. Barrie, requested personally by Barrie. His own play, Electricity, appeared in 1910, and he starred in Victorien Sardou's Diplomacy in 1914, Clare Kummer's A Successful Calamity in 1917, Barrie's Dear Brutus in 1918, and his own The Dream Maker in 1921. A brief revival of Sherlock Holmes in early 1923 did not generate enough interest to return to Broadway, so he retired to his Hadlyme estate.
Worldwide Fame
In his lifetime, Gillette presented Sherlock Holmes approximately 1,300 times (third in the historical stage-record), before American and English audiences. He was also shown widely, through appearances in many magazines, by way of photographs or illustrated caricatures, and was also well represented on the covers of theater programs.
Meanwhile, around the world, other productions took place, based on Gillette's Sherlock Holmes. These were either satiric, which were very successful, and/or undue; some lasted several seasons. Frohman's lawyers tried to curb the illegal phenomenon exhaustedly, traveling overseas, from court to court.
Even Gillette parodied it once. The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes the first of a handful of one-act plays he would write was written for two benefits, and was performed for the first time at the Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 24. Holland was an actor who had been forced to retire the year before due to illness. The skit was titled The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, and there were but five characters in the entire skit: Holmes, Billy the pageboy, the madwoman Gwendolyn Cobb (who had nearly all of the dialogue), and the two aluable assistants who come to take the madwoman away. Its original title was A fantasy in about one-tenth of an act, and the entire scene transpires in Holmes Baker Street room omewhere about the date of day before yesterday.34]
Retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, it was performed again on April 14 for the benefit of the Actors Society of America at the Criterion Theatre, and again at the Duke of York Theatre in London when Gillette inserted it on October 3 as a curtain-raiser for Clarice. Playing Billy in the curtain-raiser, as well as in Clarice, was young Charles Chaplin.
Models for Holmes' portrait
The magazines Collier's Weekly (USA) and The Strand (UK) pushed Conan Doyle avidly, offering to continue the Sherlock Holmes series for a generous salary. The new chapters were first published in 1901, first with a prequel and later with Holmes revived definitively (1903). It continued for another quarter-century.
Gillette was the model for pictures by the artist Frederic Dorr Steele, which were featured in Collier's Weekly then and reproduced by American media. Additionally, Steele contributed to Conan Doyle's book-covers, Gillette's short stories (Baker Street Irregulars) and, later, doing marketing when Gillette made his farewell performances.
As international copyright did not yet exist, Conan Doyle's series were widely printed throughout the USA, mostly with pictures of Gillette on stage. P. F. Collier & Son owned the copyrights of Steele's illustrations and issued drawings in many editions.
In 1907 he was caricatured on the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine by the famous Sir Leslie Ward (who signed his work "Spy"), and later became the subject of such famous American caricaturists as Pamela Coleman Smith, Ralph Barton and Al Freuh.
By means of such international exposure, Gillette became the image of Holmes for decades, created the very image of Holmes that remains to this day, and made the detective so real that many, both then and now, believe the detective really lived.
Gillette Castle
Gillette Castle.
While most of Gillette work has long been forgotten, his last great masterpiece is still well known today: his castellated etirement home.
The Washington Post called it he acme of his dreams.38] He once called it his "Hadlyme stone heap. Others called it he rock pile or illette's folly." Today, we call it simply Gillette Castle.
Ironically he never referred to it as a castle, although his neighbors often did, but it ummarizes the success upon which all his dreams were built, dreams that urned his picturesque estate into a small boy dream of paradise.38]
In 1913, while sailing up the Connecticut River in his houseboat, Gillette spotted a hill, part of the Seven Sisters, over a ferry's pier in Hadlyme. He docked, disembarked and climbed up. He was so amazed by the view that he purchased 115 acres (0.47 km2) of land, the next month. He decided to build up a castle at this location, supposedly inspired by or modeled loosely after the Chteau de Moulineaux, a French feudal castle built during the era of the Dukes of Normandy and associated in folklore with Robert Le Diable (Robert the Devil). The design of the castle and its grounds features numerous innovative designs, and the entire castle was designed, to the smallest details, by Gillette himself.
During the five years of construction, Gillette lived aboard his houseboat, the Aunt Polly, named after a mountain woman in South Carolina who tended to him when he was sick, or at a home he had purchased in Greenport, Long Island. The material for the castle was carried up by an aerial-trolley designed by him. The castle's walls tapered from 5 feet (1.5 m) thick at the base to 3 feet (0.91 m) at the upper levels. The castle possessed 24 rooms and 47 doors, with hand-carved puzzle locks, which were also devised by Gillette. The main salon measured 30 by 50 feet (15 m) and was 19 feet (5.8 m) in height, featuring a complex mirrored system of surveillance of the castle's public rooms from his bedroom. He explained this as a means "to make great entrances in the opportune moment."
The mansion was finished in 1919, at a cost of 1 million US dollars. Gillette called it Seven Sisters. Its small train was his personal pride. The train's layout was 3 miles (4.8 km) long, and it traveled all around the property, crossing several bridges and going through one tunnel designed by Gillette. Gillette also enjoyed strolls on his property in company of his guests, who included the noted physicist Albert Einstein, former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, and former Mayor of Tokyo Ozaki Yukio, whose 1912 gift of the Yoshino cherry blossoms still beautifies the nation's capital.
After Gillette died with no wife or children, his will stated
I would consider it more than unfortunate for me should I find myself doomed, after death, to a continued consciousness of the behavior of mankind on this planet to discover that the stone walls and towers and fireplaces of my home founded at every point on the solid rock of Connecticut; that my railway line with its bridges, trestles, tunnels through solid rock, and stone culverts and underpasses, all built in every particular for permanence (so far as there is such a thing); that my locomotives and cars, constructed on the safest and most efficient mechanical principles; that these, and many other things of a like nature, should reveal themselves to me as in the possession of some blithering saphead who had no conception of where he is or with what surrounded.
In 1943, Connecticut's government took the property, re-baptizing it Gillette's Castle and Gillette Castle State Park.
Located in 67 River Road, East Haddam, Connecticut, it was reopened in 2002. After a four years of restoration, costing 11 million dollars, it now includes a museum, park, and many theatrical celebrations. It receives 100,000 annual visitors, who can hike or picnic there.
The castle is now No. 86002103 on the National Register of Historic Places., and it remains a distinctive feature of the view from the Connecticut River.
Last Years and Farewell Tour
Gillette announced his retirement many times throughout his career, despite not actually accomplishing this until just after his death. The first announced retirement took place after the turn of the century, after he purchased the boat Aunt Polly which was 144 feet (44 m) in length and weighed 200 tons.
Naturally, Sherlock Holmes was Gillette's foremost production with 1,300 performances (in 1899-1901, 1905, 1906, 1910, 1915, 1923, and 1929-1932). While performing on other tours, he was always forced by popular demand to include at least one extra performance of Sherlock Holmes.
In 1929, at the age of 76, Gillette started the farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Scheduled for two seasons, it was eventually extended into 1932. The first run of the tour included in the cast Theatre Guild actress Peg Entwistle as Gillette's female lead. Entwistle was the young ingenue who committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywoodland sign in 1932.
In the New Amsterdam Theater of New York, on November 25, 1929, a great ceremony took place. Gillette received a signature book, autographed by 60 different world eminences. There, in his speech, Arthur Conan Doyle stated: "I consider the production a personal gratification... My only complaint is that you made the poor hero of the anemic printed page a very limp object as compared with the glamour of your own personality which you infuse into his stage presentment." Former President Calvin Coolidge commented that the production was a "public service". And Booth Tarkington told him, "I would rather see you play Sherlock Holmes than be a child again on Christmas morning." On the same occasion, the critics concurred, praising the performance's sentimentally. His final appearance on stage as Sherlock Holmes took place on March 19, 1932, in Wilmington, Delaware.
His last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong Three Wise Fools in 1936, co-starring with Charles Coburn, James Kirkwood, Brandon Tynan, Isabell Irving, and Mary Rogers, daughter of comedian Will Rogers.
Gillette died on April 29, 1937, in Hartford, due to a pulmonary hemorrhage. He was buried in the Hooker family cemetery, at Farmington, Hartford County, Connecticut, next to his wife.
Bibliography
In his life, Gillette wrote 13 original plays, 7 adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaption. Two pieces about the Civil War remain his greatest works: Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1896). Both were successful with both the public and the critics, and Secret Service remains the only one of his plays available today on commercial VHS and DVD from a 1977 Broadway Theater Archive production starring John Lithgow and Meryl Streep. He reaped more than $3 million dollars in gaining, most of it from his own and other touring productions of Sherlock Holmes.
Bullywingle the Beloved (performed in Hartford, Connecticut, October 3, 1892, again in March 1873).
The Twins of Siam (July 1879, never produced).
The Professor (Summer 1879, tryout in Columbus, Ohio).
Esmeralda (adapted from short story by Frances Hodgson Burnett, October 29, 1881, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Madison Square Theatre in 1881).
Digby Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser's Der Bibliothekar, September 29, 1884, New York Comedy Theatre, New York).
The Private Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser's Der Bibliothekar, February 9, 1885, Madison Square Theatre, New York).
Held by the Enemy (February 22, 1886, Criterion Theatre, Brooklyn, New York; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898).
She (Dramatization of novel by Rider Haggard, November 29, 1887, Niblo Garden, New York).
A Legal Wreck (August 14, 1888, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Rockwood Publishing Company in 1890).
A Legal Wreck (Novelization, Rockwood Pub. Co., 1888).
A Confederate Casualty (1888, Never produced).
Robert Elsmere (Partial dramatization of novel by Mary Augusta Ward; unable to obtain Mrs. Ward's permission, Gillette discontinued work on the project, and it was dramatized by other playwrights and produced without his participation).
"Mr. William Gillette Surveys the Field, Harper Weekly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1676, February 2, 1889, Supplement, pp. 98-99.
All the Comforts of Home (adapted from Carl Lauf's Ein Toller Einfall, March 3, 1890, Boston Museum, Boston, Massachusetts; published by H. Roorbach in 1897).
Maid of All Work (1890, never produced).
Mr. Wilkinson Widows (adapted from Alexandre Bisson Feu Toupinel, March 23, 1891, National Theatre, Washington, D.C.).
Settled Out of Court (adapted from Alexandre Bisson La Famille Pont-Biquet, August 8, 1892, Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York).
The War of the American Revolution (January 1893, ine scenes with historical commentary, written for the arnum & Baily people, for a libretto to use with their ast Episodic Drama of the Revolution).
Ninety Days (February 6, 1893, Broadway Theatre, New York).
Too Much Johnson (adapted from Maurice Ordonneau La Plantation Thomassin, November 26, 1894, Standard Theatre, New York; published in 1912).
Secret Service (May 13, 1895, Broad Street Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; published in 1898; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898).
"The Tale of My First Success, New York Dramatic Mirror, The Christmas Number 1886, December 26, 1896, p. 30.
Because She Loved Him So (October 28, 1898, Hyperion Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut).
Sherlock Holmes (with Arthur Conan Doyle, October 23, 1899, Star Theatre, Buffalo, New York; published by Samuel French, Ltd., in 1922, by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., in 1935, and by Doubleday in 1976 and 1977).
"The House-Boat in America, The Outlook Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 5, June 2, 1900.
The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes (March 24, 1905, Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit, Metropolitan Opera House; later retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes and finally The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, published by B. Abramson in 1955).
Clarice (September 4, 1905, Liverpool, England).
Ticey, or That Little Affair of Boyd (June 15, 1908, originally retitled A Private Theatrical, then retitled A Maid-of-All Work, later retitled That Little Affair of Boyd, Columbia Theatre, Washington, D.C.
Samson (adapted from Henri Bernstein Samson, October 19, 1908, Criterion Theatre, New York).
The Red Owl, originally titled he Robber (One-Act Play, August 9, 1909, London Coliseum; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pp. 47-80.
Among Thieves (One-Act Play, September 6, 1909, Palace Theatre, London; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pp. 246-267.
Electricity (September 26, 1910, Park Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1924).
Secret Service: Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865 (Novelization, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and Kessinger Publishing in the United Kingdom, 1912).
Butterfly on the Wheel (1914, never produced).
Diplomacy (adapted from Victorien Sardou Dora, October 20, 1914, Empire Theatre, New York).
William Hooker Gillette: The Illusion of the First Time in Acting (The Dramatic Museum of Columbia University in Papers on Acting, Second Series, Number 1, 1915).
hen a Play Is Not a Play, Vanity Fair, Vol. 5, Nos. 5-7 - vol. 6, Nos. 2-4, January-June 1916, pp. 53.
Introduction to How to Write a Play, edited by Miles Dudley, Papers on Playmaking II (Dramatic Museum of Columbia University, 1916), pp. 1-8.
How Well George Does It (1919, never produced; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1936).
merica Great Opportunity, in The World War: Utterances Concerning Its Issues and Conduct by Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Printed for It Archives and For Free.
The Dream Maker (November 21, 1921, Empire Theatre, New York).
Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Samuel French, Ltd., 1922).
Winnie and the Wolves (dramatized from Bertram Atkey stories in the aturday Evening Post, May 14, 1923, Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road (Novel, Harper & Brothers, 1927).
The Crown Prince of the Incas (1932-36, never completed).
Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935).
In-life Published Editions of Sherlock Holmes
1922. First publication by Samuel French.
1935. Published by Doubleday, Doran & Co. It was a pricey edition, containing Gillette's foreword, multi-paged feature on trivial data and illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele.
Filmography
In 1916, Gillette starred the first cinema-adaptation of his Sherlock Holmes, albeit it was not the first film about Holmes. It was a seven-reel silent film by Essanay Film Manufacturing Co. directed by Arthur Berthelet. Marjorie Kay played Alice Faulkner and Ernest Manpani was Moriarty. One acid critic noted that Gillette was "about to lose his physical strength to perform the character" since then, insisting that he would not be able to repeat it over the 60 years old. No copy of the film has survived.
In 1922, Goldwyn Pictures filmed another version of Gillette's play. It was directed by Albert Parker and John Barrymore played Holmes. This has recently been restored by the George Eastman House.
Secret Service was filmed in 1919 by Paramount Pictures, directed by Hugh Ford with Robert Warwick in Gillette's role and Shirley Mason as the female lead.
Secret Service was filmed again in 1931 by Radio Pictures. It was directed by J. Walter Ruben and Richard Dix was the Union's spy.
In 1977, as part of the Broadway Theatre Archive, a production of Secret Service was filmed starring a pair of young unknowns John Lithgow as Captain Thorne and, as Edith Varney in her very first appearance in a full-length film, Meryl Streep. This is the only play by Gillette still available on commercial VHS or DVD.
In 1981, Gillette play Sherlock Holmes was produced by Home Box Office, in only its second theater production, in collaboration with the Williamstown Theater Festival and artistic director Nikos Psacharopoulos, and was broadcast on November 19, 1981, with repeats on November 23, 27, 29, and December 1 and 5. This production starred Frank Langella as Holmes, Stephen Collins as Larrabee, Susan Clark as Madge Larrabee, Richard Woods as Dr. Watson, and 12-year-old Christian Slater as Billy the Pageboy. This production is not available on commercial VHS or DVD.
Radio
On October 20, 1930, Gillette performed the first serial radio-version of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was based on the original theater version by Conan Doyle, re-adapted by Edith Meiser, and was the first time Holmes was portrayed on radio as part of a continuing series. It was transmitted by WEAF-NBC (New York) and sponsored by G. Washington Coffee Co.. This show became the pilot of a series and, after Gillette, Richard Gordon took over the part for the remaining 34 programs in the series.
On November 18, 1935, Gillette, now 82 years old, performed his own Sherlock Holmes on WABC radio of New York. His play was again re-adapted by Edith Meiser. Reginald Mason played Dr. Watson and Charles Bryant played Professor Moriarty. Its duration was 50 minutes. This play too was the pilot for a new Holmes series by Lux Radio Theater. The New York Times said that Gillette was "still the best, with all his shades and improvisation."
As Novelist
1927, The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road. Only mystery novel.
Legacy
Tryon, North Carolina
In 1891, after his first visiting of Tryon, North Carolina, Gillette began building his bungalow, which he later enlarged into a house. He named it Thousand Pines and it is privately owned today. In past years, in November, the town of Tryon celebrated the William Gillette Festival, honoring Gillette.
Read about Tryon's 1998 Festival (External Link)
New York City
On December 7, 1934, Gillette attended the first dinner meeting of the Baker Street Irregulars in New York. To this day, the BSI honors him with the William Gillette Memorial Luncheon on the Friday afternoon of their annual January meeting in New York City.
Baker Street Irregulars Weekend, The Annual Gathering of the oldest Literary Society dedicated to Sherlock Holmes (External Link)
The Illusion of the First Time
As a theorist, Gillette is remembered for The Illusion of the First Time in Acting, a paper containing nothing new but all that was important to performance on the stage, collected for the first time into one expression. While all of it is common knowledge today, it was revolutionary when he wrote it, and it was a major departure from theatrical tradition and practice. Booth, Macready, Kean, Forrest, and Boucicault would have rejected it outright. Naturalness and realism, while expected today, and the norm, were not within the old school grasp.
Yet, up into the twenty-first century, there is hardly a concept referred to more often than the Illusion of the First Time. It is referred to over and over again in one school or another, in one writeup or another; and, in the year 2001, specific references, by his name, to his description of it were applied to two of the finest actors of the new generation.
D. K. Holm wrote of Johnny Depp in the Portland Mercury, merican playwright/actor William Gillette called good acting he illusion of the first time. This is Depp's strong suit.46]
And, Steve Vineberg wrote of Robert Downey, Jr., at that time appearing in the hit Fox television sitcom, Ally McBeal and most recently the latest actor to play Sherlock Holmes, that here's a mysterious beauty to Mr. Downey's reading of (his lines), not only in his application of what William Gillette called he illusion of the first time the actor's trick of making the lines sound as if they were newly minted but more movingly in Larry's struggle to admit to feelings that he tends to submerge because they call up so much loss.47]
Quotations
"Elementary, my dear fellow! Elementary!"
"There isn any reason in the world why we can do as well in this farewell business as any other country on the face of the globe. We have the farewellers and the people to say farewell to. If I can only keep it up I will be even with my competitors by the Spring of 1922, and by the Winter of 1937 I will be well in the lead."
"It just seems, somehow, that every five years finds me back again, so you can expect me back at it again once more in 1941. Probably in 1976, when they are celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, or what ever it is, 40 years from now, I'll still be farewelling. I should apologize for being here, but I am a man among Yankees, and they take promises with a grain of salt in fact they usually take them home and pickle them in brine, so they probably knew I'd be back. Besides I have several good excuses but they really don't count. And besides and you men who follow horse racing will know what I mean I'm not running against anyone, they're merely letting me trot around the track."
"Farewell, Good Luck, and Merry Christmas."
References
^ Short biography on Henry Zecher website - http://www.henryzecher.com/gillettebio.htm
^ Riley, Dick; Pam McAllister (2005). The Bedside Companion to Sherlock Holmes. Barnes & Noble Books. pp. 5960. ISBN 978-0-7607-7156-3. ; Short biography on Henry Zecher website - http://www.henryzecher.com/gillettebio.htm
^ See Andrews, Kenneth R., Nook farm, Mark Twain's Hartford Circle (Harvard University Press, 1950) and Van Why, Joseph S., Nook Farm (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, CT, 1975).
^ Andrews, Kenneth R., Nook Farm, Mark Twain's Hartford Circle (Harvard University Press, 1950).
^ Hooker, Edward W., The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker: Hartford, Connecticut, 1586-1908 (Edited by Margaret Huntington Hooker and printed for her at Rochester, N.Y., 1909; Legacy Reprint Series, Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2007).
^ Sacramento Daily Union, August 8, 1859, notice, compiled by David Murray, Superintendent of the City Cemetery, reads: Mortality of the City. In the 1860 Mortality Schedule Index at the California State Library in Sacramento is an entry under Gillett, Frank A.; age 23; male; CT listed for state of birth; died Aug; listed as Farmer for occupation; died Sacramento County; enumeration district 2; township Sacramento City.
^ Burton, Nathaniel J., A Discourse Delivered January 29th, 1865, in Memory of Robert H. Gillette (Press of Wiley, Waterman & Eaton), 1865.
^ Robinson, Charles M., III, Hurricane of Fire, the Union Assault on Fort Fisher (Naval Institute Press, 1998), p. 184; Gragg, Rod, Confederate Goliath, the Battle of Fort Fisher (Harper Collins, 1991), p. 235; Hartford Courant, "Death of Paymaster Gillette," January 21, 1865, p. 2; Burton, Nathaniel J., A Discourse Delivered January 29th, 1865, in Memory of Robert H. Gillette.
^ Duffy, Richard, "Gillette, Actor and Playwright," Ainslee Magazine, Vol. VI, No. 1, August 1900, p. 54.
^ Letter to George Warner, Gillette Correspondence, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
^ Last Will of Francis Gillette, Signed October 12, 1877, City of Hartford Probate Records, 1876-1880, Microfilm #LDS1314362, CSL #986, continued on LDS #987,Pages 435-436, and 539-541.
^ Helen Gillette Death Certificate, Office of Vital Statistics, Office of the Town Clerk, Town Hall, Greenwich, Connecticut, September 1, 1888.
^ Frohman, Daniel, Daniel Frohman Presents An Autobiography (Claude Kendall & Willoughby Sharp, 1935), p. 51; Gerzina, Gretchen, Frances Hodgson Burnett (Chatto & Windus,2004), p. 89, 93-95, 99; Gillette, William, Esmeralda in The Century Magazine, Vol. XXIII, New Series VOL I, November 1881 to April 1882 (The Century Co., 1882), pp. 513-531; Hartford Courant, musements, smeralda, November 6, 1882, p. 3; New York Times, rs. Burnett New Play, October 30, 1881, p. 8.
^ Leslie, Amy, Some Players (Hebert S. Stone & Company, 1899), p. 302.
^ Strang, Lewis C., Famous Actors of the Day in America (L.C. Page and Company, 1900), p. 178.
^ Schuttler, George William, William Gillette, Actor and Director (An unpublished thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Speech Communication in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1975), p. 97; Schuttler, Georg William, (1983) "William Gillette: Marathon Actor and Playwright," The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Winter 1983, pp. 115129. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1983.1703_115.x, p. 124-125.
^ Dahlinger, S. E., he Sherlock Holmes We Never Knew, Baker Street Journal, Vol. 49, No. 3, September 1999, p. 10.
^ Moses, Montrose J., The American Dramatist (Little, Brown, and Company, 1925), p. 369.
^ Morehouse, Ward, Matinee Tomorrow (Whittlesey House, 1949), p. 23.
^ Finletter, Gretchen, From the Top of the Stairs (Little, Brown, 1946), p. 44.
^ Sherk, H. Dennis, William Gillette: His Life and Works, (An unpublished thesis in English submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School, Department of English, at the Pennsylvania State University, June 1961), pp. 199-200.
^ New York Times, illiam Gillette, Actor, Dead at 81, April 30, 1937, p. 21.
^ Murphy, Brenda, American Realism and American Drama, 1880-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 162; Dithmar, Edward, ecret Service, Harper Weekly, October 10, 1896, p. 215.
^ Burton, Richard, illiam Gillette, The Book Buyer, February 1898, p. 28.
^ Films for the Humanities & Sciences http://www.films.com/Films_Home/Item.cfm/1/6018.
^ Letters Patent No. 389,294, ethod of Producing Stage Effects, September 11, 1887, U.S. Patent Office.
^ United States Patent and Trademark office, Letters Patent No. 289,404, Filed April 25, 1883, granted December 4, 1883; Letters Patent No. 300,966, filed May 2, 1883, granted June 24, 1884; Letters Patent No. 302,559, filed on May 14, 1883, and approved July 29, 1884; and Letters Patent No. 309,537, filed December 5, 1883, and issued December 23, 1884.
^ New York Sun Journal, September 11, 1887, quoted in Schuttler, Georg William, William Gillette, Actor and Playwright, p. 11; Price, E. D., FGS, Editor, Hazell's Annual Cyclopedia (London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, 1888), p. 191; Deshler, Welch, Editor, The Theatre, Vol. III, No. 6, April 25, 1887, Whole No. 58, in The Theatre (Theatre Publishing Company, 1888), p. 107; London Times, "Princess's Theatre," April 4, 1887, p. 5; London Daily Telegraph, "Princess's Theatre," April 4, 1887, p. 3.
^ Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, Memories and Adventures (Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2007), p. 87; Starrett, Vincent, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes(The MacMillan Company, 1933), p. 139.
^ New York Times, an Francisco Hotel Fire, ucky Baldwin House Laid in Ruins by Flames, Loss of Life May Be Great, Only Two Victims Bodies So Far Recovered Theatre in the Building Also Burned, November 24, 1898, p. 1.
^ Shepstone, Harold J., "Mr. William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes," The Strand Magazine, April 1901, p. 615.
^ Higham, Charles, The Adventures of Conan Doyle, the life of the creator of Sherlock Holmes (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976), pp. 153-154; Encyclopedia Sherlockiana, illette, William (MacMillan, 1994), p. 90.
^ Cullen, Rosemary, & Don B. Wilmeth, Plays by William Hooker Gillette (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 16 Plays by William Gillette, Rosemary Cullen, Don B. Wilmeth.
^ Gillette, William H., The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes (Ben Abramson, 1955).
^ Vanity Fair Magazine, "Sherlock Holmes," February 27, 1907, Front Cover.
^ Smith, Pamela Coleman, William Gillette As Sherlock Holmes (R. H. Russell, 1900).
^ Celebrity Caricature in America, http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/intro.htm.
^ a b Washington Post, "Gillette's Castle," February 2, 1936, p. B6.
^ Monagan, Charles A., Connecticut icons: 50 Symbols of the Nutmeg State, illette Castle (Globe Pequot, 2006), p. 77; Ojeda, Miguel, Circulo Holmes, (Harold Stackhurst) martes, 20 de mayo de 2008 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008).
^ Van Name, Fred, Gillette Castle at Hadlyme, A State Park (Connecticut Vignettes, Copyright by Fred Van Name, 1956).
^ Gillette, William, Last Will and Testament, 1/27/37; Hartford ourant, illette Will Requests His Home Not Be Sold To lithering Saphead, May 4, 1937, p. 1.
^ 9 National Register of Historic Places www.nationalregisterof historicplaces.com/CT/New+London/state4.html.
^ Letters of Salutation and Felicitation Received by William Gillette on the Occasion of His Farewell to the Stage in Sherlock Holmes (1929).
^ William Gillette Medical Certificate of Death, Connecticut State Department of Health, signed by Dr. John A. Wentworth, April 29, 1937.
^ Oonnor, John J., V: H.B.O. Offers herlock Holmes, New York Times, November 19, 1981.
^ Holm, D.K., Nose for Movies Johnny Depp is Really the Best Actor in Hollywood, The Portland ercury, Vol. 1, No. 44, April 5 - Apr 11 2001, http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=24307&category=22133.
^ Vineberg, Steve, elivering Something Real To 'Ally McBeal', New York imes, Sunday TELEVISION/RADIO, March 18, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6D6113AF93BA25750C0A9679C8B63.
^ Gillette, William, Sherlock Holmes, A Play, Wherein is set forth The Strange Case of Miss Alice Faulkner (Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1935), p. 82.
^ New York Times, "The Au Revoir Tour," October 17, 1915, Fashions Society Queries Summer White House Music & Drama Pages Hotels & Restaurants, p. X8.
^ a b Hartford Courant, "Death Seals Last Gillette Retirement," April 30, 1937, pp. 1, 6.
"Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha", compiled by Jack Tracy.
"The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", compiled by Peter Haining.
Most of this information is from the full-length biography of William Gillette by Henry Zecher, soon[when?] to be published by the Mountainside Press in Shaftsbury, Vermont.
External links
William Gillette at the Internet Movie Database
William Gillette Introduction
The Baker Street Journal - writings about Sherlock Holmes
Gillettes Castle at Connecticut
Website of Gillette biographer Henry Zecher, whose full-length biography is soon to be published by the Mountainside Press in Shaftsbury, Vermont
William Gillette at Find a Grave
Categories: American actors | American dramatists and playwrights | People from Hartford, Connecticut | Sherlock Holmes | 1853 births | 1937 deaths | Deaths from pulmonary hemorrhageHidden categories: Articles with unsourced statements from March 2008 | All articles with unsourced statements | Vague or ambiguous time
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