Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1892, but 3 years later, his family was forced to flee South Africa because his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy at a time when Dutch-British conflicts were leading to the Boer War. The Rathbones escaped to England, where Basil and his two younger siblings, Beatrice and John, were raised by their mother Anna Barbara, a violinist, and their father Edgar Philip, a mining engineer. From 1906 to 1910, Rathbone attended Repton School, where he was more interested in sports than studies, but discovered his interest in the theater. After graduation, he wished to pursue acting as a profession, but his father disapproved and suggested that his son try working in business for a year, hoping his son would forget about acting. Rathbone accepted his father's suggestion and worked as a clerk for an insurance company--for exactly one year. Then he contacted his cousin Frank Benson, an actor managing a Shakespearean troupe in Stratford-on-Avon.

Rathbone was hired as an actor on the condition that he work his way through the ranks, which he did quite rapidly. Starting in bit parts in 1911, he was playing juvenile leads within two years. In 1915 his career was interrupted by the First World War. During his military service, Rathbone became a second lieutenant in the Liverpool Scottish, 2nd Battalion, working in intelligence, and received the Military Cross for bravery. In 1919, released from military service, he returned to Stratford-on-Avon and continued with Shakespeare but after a year moved onto the London stage. The year after that he made his first appearance on Broadway and his film debut in the silent film Innocent.

For the remainder of the decade, Rathbone alternated between the London and New York stage and occasional appearances in films. In 1929 he co-wrote and starred as the title character in a short-running Broadway play called "Judas". Soon afterwards, Rathbone abandoned his first love, the theater, for a film career. During the 1920s, his roles had evolved from the romantic lead to the suave lady-killer to the sinister villain (usually wielding a sword), and Hollywood put him to good use during the 1930s in numerous costume romps, including Captain Blood, The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield, the Younger, A Tale of Two Cities, Anna Karenina, and The Last Days of Pompeii, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Tower of London, The Mark of Zorro, and others. Rathbone earned two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and as King Louis XI in If I Were King.

However, it was in 1939 that Rathbone played his best-known and most popular character, Sherlock Holmes, with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, first in The Hound of the Baskervilles and then in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which were followed by 12 more films and numerous radio broadcasts over the next seen years.

Feeling that his identification with the character was killing his film career, Rathbone went back to New York and the stage in 1946. The next year he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Dr. Sloper in the Broadway play "The Heiress," but afterwards found little rewarding stage work. Nevertheless, during the last two decades of his life, Rathbone was a very busy actor, appearing on numerous television shows, primarily drama, variety, and game shows; in occasional films, such as Mr. Casanova, The Court Jester, Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror, and The Comedy of Terrors; and in his own one-man show, "An Evening with Basil Rathbone", with which he toured the U.S.


Captain Blood (1935): $5,000/week

Was best known for playing suave villains in period swashbuckler films, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Captain Blood (1935). He is credited with creating the definitive screen interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, his only rival generally conceded to be Jeremy Brett's interpretation of the fictional detective. Interred at Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York, USA. Distant cousin of Maj. Henry Rathbone, who was part of President Abraham Lincoln's theater party the night Lincoln was assassinated. Maj. Rathbone himself was stabbed by John Wilkes Booth as the latter was escaping, but the wound was not fatal. Maj. Rathbone later married Clara Harris, who was also in the Lincoln party, but he murdered her in a jealous rage in 1875 and spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum. Tony Award winner as Best Actor for his performance as Dr. Sloper in the original Broadway production of "The Heiress". Cousin of actor/manager Sir Frank R. Benson. Was so frequently typecast as a villain, he literally jumped at the first few opportunities he ever got to play Sherlock Holmes because "for once, I got to beat the bad guy instead of play him." Indeed, he played the legendary, heroic detective more than any other character in his career. By 1946, he had become so sick of the role that he quit his Sherlock Holmes film series and temporarily returned to the Broadway stage. In his career, he had played the super sleuth in sixteen films and over two hundred radio plays. Fought in the British army during World War I, and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire. He is considered the greatest swordsman in Hollywood history, superior even to on-screen foes Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power. However, because he was so frequently cast as the villain, he won only one on-screen duel in his career - as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936) - for which he earned an Oscar nomination. His last, filmed when the actor was 63, was with _Danny Kaye_ in The Court Jester (1955). It is considered by some the best sword fight ever filmed. Although earlier in his career he had quit playing Sherlock Holmes out of disgust at what he thought was typecasting, later in life he had a change of heart and openly embraced the role. He began appearing as Holmes on television and in several movies, and even wrote (along with his wife), a play about Holmes, in which he played the character on stage. He never renounced his British citizenship and was a lifelong member of the Conservative party. British Army Fencing Champion.