P.J. Alling wrote: William Gillette, not the razor king, the actor, (you mean there was an actor William Gillette, why yes there was), made a fortune portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage, and even screen, (a Silent Film of him doing so was recently discovered), while the ink was still wet so to speak. Well, he was also a technical genius for his time, but he's remembered for two things, when he's remembered, Sherlock Holmes*, and the "Castle" He used that fortune to build himself.
He also used that fortune to indulge his hobbies, one of which was a model railroad about 1/10 scale fully capable of carrying passengers, it ran in about a three mile loop, some of it double tracked. That stone building was the main station where his guests could embark for rides on one of his trains to tour his estate. It seems there was a lot of money in portraying Sherlock Holmes, well that and inventing all manner of theatrical special effects and lighting devices. Pretty much every thing visual about Sherlock Holmes we think of today comes from Gillette's portrayal. The deerstalker hat, that pretty much all Sherlock's have worn since, was first employed by Gillette. Conan Doyle never once mentioned it in his stories, and I think he may have hated it. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fascinating. I watched a documentary about all the people who have played Holmes & Watson very recently ( and indeed watched a 40s Rathbone film today). A very interesting bit of history, thanks. Malcolm -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
