David Clayton - The Curse of Sherlock Holmes: The Basil Rathbone Story

THE CURSE OF
SHERLOCK HOLMES

First published 2020

The History Press

97 St Georges Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

David Clayton, 2020

The right of David Clayton to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 5505 8

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

For Mum. My biggest fan.
And for Marcia. Basils biggest fan.

Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

The above is one of my favourite lines in all of literature. But what has it got to do with Basil Rathbone? Nothing. It does, however, have something to do with the writing of this book, which was also put together brick by brick (or word by word) with the floors (hopefully) firm and the doors (occasionally) shut.

Silence did indeed lay steadily at some points several years, in fact but at no stage did I walk alone.

In simple terms, this book would have been incredibly difficult to write but for the fantastic work of Marcia Jessen and Neve Rendell, both huge fans of Basil Rathbone and dedicated sleuths that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself would have been proud of. Marcia and Neve allowed me to mine their considerable collection of Rathbone material in the hope that I would be the biographer who would write about not only Basils life in the theatre and the movies, but his life and times away from the public eye and certainly not focus solely on his time as Sherlock Holmes.

Marcia, I have to say, has gone above and beyond. No query was too great and her permission to share the mountains of research was generous and selfless. I owe Marcia so much and Im very grateful to Neve as well I just hope both ladies are happy with the final result!

My next big thank you is to my commissioning editor at The History Press, Mark Beynon. This has been a book seven years in the making and was due in 2013! For all that time, Mark gave me gentle nudges as to my progress. Towards the end, it was more a case of, Oh well, I live in hope just before the first chapters were sent in. Thanks, Mark it would have been easy for you to wash your hands of this project, but your belief and persistence made me eventually fulfil my promise and also realise an ambition to write about Basil Rathbone.

Other people played a part in my research and I would like to express my gratitude to them: they include Kimi Ishikawa, whose father briefly worked for Basil; Alan Bennett for his help tracing ancestry of the Rathbone family; Major Ian Riley (retired) of the Liverpool Scottish Regiment; and Paul Stevens, librarian and archivist of Repton School. Id also like to point out that the Repton School of Basils time bears no relation to the highly regarded and respected school of the present day in any way, shape or form.

There have been others who have helped me enormously, and thats where Grace Clearsen comes in. Grace is the granddaughter of Basil Rathbone and she has provided a series of fascinating insights into Basils life and relationship with her late father, Rodion. While Marcia and Neve laid the foundations for my investigations, Grace confirmed that the life Basil Rathbone projected publicly was different from the one he actually lived. Dounia Rathbone, great-granddaughter of Basil, also helped me along the way and for that I am very grateful.

As ever, Id also like to thank my wife Sarah, and my three incredible kids Harry, Jaime and Chrissie. As Stephen King once said in a dedication, Promises to keep.

Sadly, many of the actors that appeared with Basil in his many pictures and plays have passed away, but there was a treasure trove of memories in existence that Ive knitted together, plus plenty of new revelations that I hope make this as fascinating to read as it was to write.

Make no mistake, Basil Rathbone is one of my favourite actors. For me, and millions of others around the world, it was his appearances as Sherlock Holmes that made me aware of his work. As a kid (and I know Im not alone), I believed him to be a real person and was desperate to visit 221B Baker Street and see for myself the place the Great Detective had once called home.

When I began this biography, I had no idea just how many fantastic movies he had made or anything about his private life. He was a wonderful actor and the consummate professional with perhaps one of the greatest voices ever to grace showbusiness. But there will be times when you wonder how he did some of the things he did. Those moments are at odds with the warm and generous man whom so many people loved, and might have had a lot to do with the experiences and horrors he suffered during the war and his complicated and long marriage to Ouida Bergere. Those are judgements left to the reader to absorb and I doubt any two opinions will be the same. But I would add that there are so many instances and recollections of a warm and generous man in the pages that follow, which duel with some of the things Basil did in his life, that lead me to believe he must have deeply regretted certain moments in his life.

His portrayal of Sherlock Holmes will, in my view, never be bettered. He was the living embodiment of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles masterful creation and Basils Holmes movies have entertained millions for more than eighty years. Yet despite the exposure and wealth the role brought him, the relationship between actor and character would become torturous and the title of this book bears testament to that.

As Holmes himself once said, How often have I said that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

Prepare to exclude the impossible. The game is, indeed, afoot.

David Clayton
Cheshire, England
September 2019

Who should play Holmes?! Basil Rathbone, of course!

Twentieth Century Fox producer/director
Gene Markeys response to who should play the lead in The Hound of the Baskervilles

The life and times of Basil Rathbone could have comfortably filled the pages of any Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic work of fiction. Intrigue, drama, tragedy, mystery, romance and a sprinkling of the macabre: Rathbone was many things to many people, but unravelling the enigma of one of the greatest British actors of his generation perhaps of all time would take the great detective Sherlock Holmes himself to solve.