Sherlock Holmes - who was the greatest?

The character of Sherlock Holmes first appeared in printed form in 1887, soon after the arrival of cinematography. He has existed for the entire length of time that people have been watching moving images.

Alongside Conan Doyle’s vivid descriptions of Holmes, the original serialised stories were illustrated, so there was a distinct visual form to the character, which almost all Sherlock actors have tried to portray: tall, elegant, and lithe, with chiseled, refined looks.

More than eighty actors have played the part in over two hundred films, television series, theatre shows and comic sketches. It would take an extensive treatise to review all the actors who have taken on the role, so we shall focus on the most significant and memorable of these.

The first to play Sherlock was William Gillette, an American from Connecticut, who brought the character to life on stage. It was a daring endeavour, as the character was already widely loved, and it is always difficult to match the imagination of an avid readership. But the debut in Buffallo in 1899 was an instant success and the show was taken on tour immediately. Gillette dared to add new facets to the character, including the particular type of pipe that Sherlock smoked. In fact, the infamous line “Elementary, my dear Watson!” was an invention of Gillette’s.

In 1916 he was also the star of a silent film adaptation, but which has unfortunately since been lost. Gillette’s mannerisms have been adopted by almost all subsequent actors, and he became a kind of blueprint for the way to play Holmes.

Next in line was Eille Norwood, who starred in the first, still existing, Sherlock film, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” (1921), in a contemporary, real life setting of the 1920s. He was utterly committed to the role and even shaved his head up to his temples to look more intellectual.

Between 1921 and 1923 Norwood starred as Holmes in forty-seven silent, black and white films. All were successful. He played out the character in almost every Holmes story that was written. His real name was Anthony Brett, but he changed it to Eille after his devotion to a lady named Eilleen, providing him with a kind of ready connection with Holmes, who was only ever drawn to one woman; Irene Adler. Conan Doyle was quoted as saying of Norwood that “his wonderful impersonation of Holmes has amazed me.” Norwood was considered a master of makeup and disguise, and an inveterate practical joker. On more than one occasion he fooled directors and colleagues with his disguises.

Basil Rathbone then took up the mantle in 1939, playing the role in fourteen Hollywood films produced over a seven-year stretch. A South African-born brit and a Shakespearean actor, he was elegant and smooth, portraying the cool, calm, ascetic mind of Holmes. He was adept at conveying the lack of feeling that makes the character so compelling. His lean physique and sharp profile were true to the original illustrations and his clipped English accent combined neatly with the arrogant air of Holmes. In the first of Holmes films, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, he became famous for the very last line he delivered “Watson… the needle!” It was the first screen reference to Holmes’s drug addiction.

Alongside him was Nigel Bruce as Watson in a portrayal that was for the first time on equal billing with Holmes - paired in a kind of comedy double act. It was also the advent of sexual tension for Homes with the arrival of the femme fatale, in the form of Irene Adler.

Although he had great success as Holmes, Rathbone felt burdened by the character for the rest of his life, saying “the only mystery I couldn’t solve, was the same one Conan Doyle had - how to get rid of the damn man.”

Peter Cushing had just one outing as Holmes in the 1959 film of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, alongside the marvellous Christopher Lee as Sir Henry. Cushing was more forthright than his predecessors, both as an actor and as the character, even adding and changing lines that he thought were incorrect. He absolutely engrossed himself in the role, as evidenced by his scripts, which were full of annotations and drawings.

With incredible enunciation and his regular use of “the finger” (raising his index finger to make a point), he was marvellous at displaying the forensic side of the character. Unfortunately the film was not a success, partly because the producers wanted it to have an “X” rating, but it only achieved an “A”. It simply was not frightening enough.

In 1963 the BBC commissioned a series starring Douglas Wilmer. A clever choice as the actor had a lot in common with Holmes; untidy, detailed, obsessional, and depressed. He played a grumpy, moodier and more introverted Holmes, a brooding, gothic anti-hero, which was possibly too ahead of its time for the audiences of the day and did not receive the critical acclaim it might have deserved.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), directed by Billy Wilder, starred Robert Stephens as a florid, Oscar Wild-like Holmes. But he was actually adept at playing it straight and thus making it funny. It was another first for the screen version of Holmes in that there was a glimpse of his attitude towards women with the line “I don’t dislike women, I merely distrust them.” However, his emotional and loving side also appears, even showing that he is capable of romantic agony. The brilliant casting of Christopher Lee as Mycroft stirred up stormy sibling rivalry.

By the mid-1970s Holmes was played and parodied by many men including Gene Wilder, Roger Moore, Christopher Plumber, John Cleese, and Peter Cooke. However it was a serious novel adaptation that became the next heavyweight Holmes film entitled “The 7 Per-Cent Solution” (1976), by American author Nicholas Meyer. It was a protest against all the Holmes films and pastiches, which he felt had missed the mark. Holmes is placed onto the psychiatrist’s couch in the office of none other than Sigmund Freud himself.

Williamson seemed to relish the difficulties of the playing this particular part, and through the role was working out his own deep-seated issues. He threw himself so entirely into the role that he said “if you don’t like my Holmes, you don’t like me.” During a session of Freudian hypnotherapy Holmes has a total loss of self-control and reveals a repressed memory of his father shooting his mother. This upset people who thought it was not the real Holmes, possibly because audiences did not want their hero to have the same neuroses as themselves.

For my own generation, the Holmes who we first came to know and love was played by Jeremy Brett for over a decade in the Granada TV series (1984-1994). Brett’s Holmes was mannered, Victorian, impeccably presented, and hawk-like features, but with a slightly uneven intonation, there was an element of unpredictability, occasionally manifested in bursts of manic energy that were quite theatrical. Brett was a splendid Holmes, but felt he never quite portrayed the morose, apathetic side of Holmes, where he would slide into a stupor for days.

He was the only actor to play all the Holmes stories, and in this sense, he was the complete Sherlock Holmes. H described playing Holmes like revealing a character “only through cracks in the marble… in mirrors”; glimpses of a dark, reclusive character. In common with his predecessor Nicol Williamson, Brett was playing out his own demons through the role. As the series progressed the actor and the character became more sullen and ill-looking, and Brett actually died only a year after his final Holmes’ performance.

Contemporary television versions are currently played by Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC) and Jonny Lee Miller (CBS), who were also cast together as creator and monster in the National Theatre stage production of Frankenstein.

Playing with the masterful writing of Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Steve Thompson in the BBC series, Cumberbatch is superbly adept at portraying the temperature and speed of thought of Holmes, amid bouts of melancholy frustration and teenage petulance. He is in fact a reluctant hero. He is the finest of all the Holme’s actors at uncovering the character's Asperger’s traits: astonishing attention to detail, memory recall and a remoteness from human communication and relationships. He is constantly fighting his total disdain for the feeble-mindedness others. But he has an intense and mutually respectful relationship with Watson, played wonderfully by Martin Freeman. Both characters are on the edge, and need each other for survival.

Jonny Lee Miller is the standard British Holmes but housed in New York, where he has recently left a rehabilitation centre and is constantly fighting drug addiction. Watson, this time a female, played by Lucy Liu, is introduced as his chaperone or “sober companion”. Although the series does not have the scale, speed and production value of the BBC version, Miller is an adept Holmes and his relationship with Watson is the focus of the piece, with an ever-bubbling sexual tension between the two.

Finally, we have the swashbuckling Holmes created by Guy Ritchie and played by Robert Downey Jr in the recent Warner Bros. feature films. Set in the original Victorian era, but with a heavy dose of mischief, comedy and action. Indeed, this time Holmes is a man of action, but simultaneously quirky and street-wise.

Ritchie invented what he calls “Holmes vision”: the ability to visualise exactly a fight sequence before enacting it in precise detail. He is much more of the classic superhero than previous versions, but with boredom and drug-addiction always lurking round the corner.

Holmes is not an immutable character, but has been adapted and shaped by actors, writers and directors to fit the mood of the times. He has many faces and can take on contemporary traits. It is highly likely that the character will reappear again on our screens in some other form. But people’s favourite Sherlock tends to be the one with whom they grew up.