Basil Rathbone Biography

Basil Rathbone(Full name: Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC) was an English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films.

He frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

His most famous role, however, was heroic—that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. His later career included roles on Broadway, as well as self-ironic film and television work. He received a Tony Award in 1948 as Best Actor in a Play. He was also nominated for two Academy Awards and was honored with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In October 1912, he went to the United States with Benson’s company, playing such parts as Paris in Romeo and Juliet, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Silvius in As You Like It. Returning to Britain, he made his first appearance in London at the Savoy Theatre on 9 July 1914, as Finch in The Sin of David. That December, he appeared at the Shaftesbury Theatre as the Dauphin in Henry V.

During 1915, he toured with Benson and appeared with him at London’s Court Theatre in December as Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Drea.

Basil Rathbone Death | Basil Rathbone Age | What Did Basil Rathbone Die Of  | Find A Grave

Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC was an English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films.

He was born on June 13. 1892 in Johannesburg, South African Republic. Basil Rathbone Died on July 21.1967 in New York City, U.S. at an age of 75 years old. He died suddenly of a heart attack in New York City. His body was interred in a crypt in the Shrine of Memories Mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

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Basil Rathbone Family

He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to British parents. His mother, Anna Barbara “née George”, was a violinist, and his father, Edgar Philip Rathbone, was a mining engineer and scion of the Liverpool Rathbone family. He had two older half-brothers, Harold and Horace, as well as two younger siblings, Beatrice and John.

Basil was the great-grandson of the noted Victorian philanthropist, William Rathbone V, and thus a descendant of William Rathbone II. The Rathbones fled to Britain when Basil was three years old after his father was accused by the Boers of being a spy after the Jameson Raid. He was a distant cousin of Brevet Colonel Henry Rathbone, who was present at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and was seriously wounded trying to stop John Wilkes Booth.

Basil Rathbone Education

Rathbone attended Repton School in Derbyshire from 1906 to 1910, where he particularly excelled at sports and given the nickname “Ratters” by schoolmates. Thereafter, he was briefly employed by the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies, to appease his father’s wish for him to have a conventional career. On April 22. 1911, Rathbone made his first appearance on stage at the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, Suffolk, as Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, with his cousin Sir Frank Benson’s No. 2 Company, under the direction of Henry Herbert.

Basil Rathbone Wife

Rathbone married Ethel Marion Foreman(actress) 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. In 1924 he was involved in a brief relationship with Eva Le Gallienne. In 1926, he married writer Ouida Bergère; the couple adopted a daughter, Cynthia Rathbone (1939–1969).

Their own baby had died some 11 years previously. The American actor Jackson Rathbone is a distant relation “a fifth cousin, several times removed”. Basil Rathbone was a first cousin-once-removed of the British campaigning independent MP Eleanor Rathbone. He was the cousin of the eminent actor Frank Benson, to whom he bore a strong resemblance.

During his’s Hollywood career, Ouida Rathbone, who was also her husband’s business manager, developed a reputation for hosting elaborate and 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 film 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”. Actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell described Rathbone as “two profiles pasted together”. As cited in the same autobiography, Mrs. Campbell would later refer to him as “a folded umbrella taking elocution lessons.”
He was a devout Episcopalian and a member of the Episcopal Actors Guild.

Basil Rathbone image

Basil Rathbone Net Worth

Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC was an English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films. Basil Rathbone has an estimated Net Worth of $70 Million dollars as of 2019.

Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes

Basil most famous role, however, was heroic—that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Referring to himself as a “consulting detective” in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard.

The many Holmes sequels typecast Rathbone, and he was unable to shake himself completely free from the shadow of the Great Detective despite appearing in other film roles. Resenting the typecasting, Rathbone refused to renew his contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and returned to Broadway.

In later years, however, 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 1960s, dressed as Holmes, he appeared in a series of TV commercials for Getz Exterminators (“Getz gets ’em, since 1888!’”).

He 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 slated to portray Dr. Watson once more but became too ill and the part was played by character actor Jack Raine. Bruce’s absence depressed Rathbone, particularly after Bruce died on 8 October 1953, while the play was in rehearsals. The play ran for only three performances.

Basil Rathbone Movies | Best Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes Movies

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 1939, Dressed to Kill 1946, Terror by Night 1946, The Hound of the Baskervilles 1939, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror 1942, The Woman in Green 1945, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon 1942, The Scarlet Claw 1944, Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear 1945, The Pearl of Death 1944.

The Spider-Woman 1943, Sherlock Holmes Faces Death 1943, Sherlock Holmes in Washington 1943 Pursuit to Algiers 1945, The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938, Son of Frankenstein 1939, The Mark of Zorro 1940, The Dawn Patrol 1938, The Great Mouse Detective 1986, Captain Blood 1935, David Copperfield 1935, A Tale of Two Cities 1935, The Court Jester 1955, Love from a Stranger 1937, Tower of London 1939, The Last Hurrah 1958, Sin Takes a Holiday 1930, The Bishop Murder Case 1930 ,Anna Karenina 1935.

The Magic Sword 1962, We’re No Angels 1955, If I Were King 1938, The Comedy of Terrors 1963, The Black Sleep 1956, Casanova’s Big Night 1954, The Garden of Allah 1936, Tales of Terror 1962, The Last Days of Pompeii 1935, Queen of Blood 1966, Frenchman’s Creek 1944, The Black Cat 1941, Tovarich 1937, Romeo and Juliet 1936, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad 1949, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet 1965, Hillbillys in a Haunted House 1967, Above Suspicion 1943, A Notorious Affair 1930, A Lady Surrenders 1930, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney 1929, and The Mad Doctor 1941

Basil Rathbone Height

In a 1937 news article it mentioned Rathbone “Stoods at height of 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 170 pounds”. On 22nd April 1911, he made his first appearance on stage at the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, Suffolk, as Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, with his cousin Sir Frank Benson’s No. 2 Company, under the direction of Henry Herbert.

Basil Rathbone Military service

During the First World War, Rathbone was called up in 1915 via the Derby Scheme into the British Army as a private with the London Scottish Regiment, joining a regiment that also counted in its ranks his future professional acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall, and Ronald Colman at different points through the conflict.

After basic training with the London Scots in early 1916, he received a commission as a lieutenant in the 2/10th Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Scottish), where he served as an intelligence officer and attained the rank of captain.

Rathbone’s younger brother John was killed in action on 4 June 1918. In 2012 two letters Rathbone wrote to his family while serving on the Western Front were published. One reveals the anguish and anger he felt following the death of his brother, John:

I want to tell him to mind his place. I think of his ridiculous belief that everything would always be well, his ever-hopeful smile, and I want to cuff him for a little fool. He had no business to let it happen and it maddens me that I shall never be able to tell him so, or change it or bring him back. I can’t think of him without being consumed with anger at him for being dead and beyond anything I can do to him.

Following his brother’s death, he appears to have become unconcerned about the dangers of serving at the front. Author Richard Van Emden in Famous 1914–18 speculates that his extreme bravery may have been a form of guilt or need for vengeance. He persuaded his superiors to allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight rather than at night, as was the usual practice to minimise the chance of detection.

Rathbone wore a special camouflage suit that resembled a tree with a wreath of freshly plucked foliage on his head with burnt cork applied to his hands and face. As a result of these highly dangerous daylight reconnaissance missions in September 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous daring and resource on patrol”.

Basil Rathbone Radio Shows

Sherlock Holmes OTR – Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce

52 shows from the Mutual Broadcasting System radio program starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. The show was sponsored in 1939-40 by Grove’s Bromo Quinine and later enjoyed an extended run as The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes under the sponsorship of Petri Wines.

These recordings are of varying quality with most in the good to the very good sound range. The files have been tagged with the most accurate information available and each file name begins with the original broadcast air date.