Jeremy Brett-the actor, mostly associated with the part of
Sherlock Holmes, made by Granada
Television.
THE EARLY YEARS
Brett was born Peter Jeremy
William Huggins on the 3rd of
November 1933, in Berkswell near
Coventry. His father was Henry
William Huggins, Lord Lieutenant
of Warwickshire and his mother was Elizabeth Edith Cadbury, a member of the Cadbury family,
famous for their Chocolate.
Jeremy Brett was the couple's
fourth son, born after John,
Michael and Patrick.
Jeremy was an animal lover, and among his pets were donkeys, ponys and dogs.
Jeremy's first experience of education was at home, and it was here that his dyslexia was
discovered-a condition that was almost unheard of at that time.
Jeremy was interested in many sports, but his favourite was Archery-a sport he always remained interested in.
Jeremy's prep school was called
Abberley Hall, and he attended
this school before going to Eton, as his brothers had before
him.
After he left Eton, determined
not to get stuck in an office job, the young man enrolled in
the Central School of Speech and
Drama. It was here, in line with
his father's wishes, he changed
his name to Brett-a name derived
from the tailor of his first
suit.
THE YOUNG ACTOR
One of Brett's tutors at Drama
School had made a comment that
the young man had a speech impediment, and on his advise,
Jeremy had an operation to remove part of his tongue, to help him pronounce R's and S's
better!
In 1954 Jeremy landed the part
of Cassio in Othello on the stage in Manchester, and in the
year and a half after that his stage roles included Mark Antony
in Julius Caesar and The Duke of
Aumerle in Richard II.
In 1955, Jeremy got his big break-Film director King Vidor
spotted his photograph in
Spotlight and wanted him to
appear in the Napoleonic wars epic War and Peace-starring
Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda.
A few years passed, with various
roles on stage, including acting
with Laurence Oliver, and Jeremy
met Anna Massey-daughter of actor Raymond Massey. The couple
married on the 24th of May 1958,
and in 1959 they had a baby boy,
David.
Jeremy had another chance to break into the film world, in a
movie called The Very Edge-where
he played the part of a vicious
sex-manic! He also auditioned
for the part of James Bond after
Sean Connery left-but was turned
down. This was the year he was
voted Most promising actor by the Daily Mirror.
The next break for Brett came when he was chosen to appear in
the hit Hollywood musical
My Fair Lady, with a cast that
included Rex Harrison, Stanley
Holloway and Audrey Hepburn, the
actress he had worked with in
War and Peace.
After filming for My Fair Lady
finished, Brett played Father
Riccardo Fontana in the stage play The Deputy-a play with the
story of Jews trapped in Nazi Germany, a play which caused
outrage and demonstrations were
held outside the theatres by
Germans, Jews and Catholics.
Many years passed, with Jeremy
working on the stage, in television and in films, and Jeremy was married again,to an
American lady Joan Sullivan.
In 1981, he had his first brush with Sherlock Holmes, playing Dr
Watson to Charlton Heston's Holmes in the play The Crucifer
of Blood.
THE HOLMES YEARS
In February 1982-against the advise of his great friend,
fellow actor Robert Stephenson
who himself had played Holmes
in the film The Private Life of
Sherlock Holmes, Jeremy took the
part of the Great Detective in
the Granada studios series The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Brett launched himself into the
part of Holmes-studying every
tiny detail, to be as accurate as possible, and he always carried a copy of the complete
Sherlock Holmes with him while
filming. He did everything to be
like Holmes-losing weight, growing his hair longer than he
would normally have grown it,
learning how to smoke a pipe-
even using his right hand for actions-although he was left-handed.
Work began on the show, and the first episode filmed was The Solitary Cyclist, followed by
The Speckled Band, The Naval
Treaty, A Scandal in Bohemia (the first episode screened)
The Dancing Men, The Crooked Man
and The Blue Carbuncle.
The first episode went out on the 24th of April 1984, after an
introduction to the two lead characters and actors Brett and
David Burke who played Watson in
the TVTimes magazine.
After completing the work on The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Brett flew to America to play roles in the TV movie Florence
Nightingale and a TV mini-series
Deceptions, where he played the
part of a foppish criminal-a
drug dealer called Bryan Foxworth, a lighter, more glamorous role than Holmes.
Sadly, Brett's obsession with Holmes was telling on his health, and he seemed to be slipping into a dark depression.
The stress of learning the lines
and coping with his Dyslexia was
an enormous strain-but he battled on.
The next series of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
was made-this time the stories used were The Copper Beeches,
The Greek Interpreter, The Norwood Builder, the Resident
Patient, The Red Headed League
and probably one f the most famous stories The Final Problem
which sees Holmes battle his arch-enemy Moriarty.
It was around this time that Brett's wife had become ill-she had developed Cancer-and sadly
on the 4th of July 1985, the love of Jeremy's life died in
Massachussetts General Hospital.
Brett was devestated.
In September 1985 work began on the third series of Holmes
stories-but without its original
Watson. David Burke had dropped
the role due to family and work
commitments. The new Watson was
to be played by Edward Hardwicke, son of the film actor Cedric Hardwicke. Edward had previously appeared in the TV series Colditz and an episode of
Some Mothers do 'ave 'em, among
other things.
This series consisted of Holmes'
return from the brink in The
Empty House where he shocks Watson who believed him to be
dead! also featured were the
stories The Abbey Grange, The
Musgrave Ritual, The Second
Stain, The Man with the twisted lip, The Priory School and The Six Napoleons.The Next series
included The Devil's Foot, Silver Blaze, Wisteria Lodge and The Bruce Partington plans
Meanwhile Jeremy's mental health
was worsening. Family and close
friends feared that the man may
have to be 'sectioned' and
treated for his problems-wether
he wanted to be treated or not.
He was being treated at the
Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital,
and then Greyshott Health farm,
and finally his ex-wife Anna
recommended he see a psychiatrist at London's Chelsea
and Westminster Hospital.
Brett was found to be suffering with manic depression, and was
prescribed Lithium to control his feelings.
On leaving Hospital he was confronted by reporters, asking wether he had AIDS or not-a
incident that did him no good at
all.
When he was eventually discharged from Hospital Edward
Hardwicke picked him up to drive
him home. Two months later the
pair were working together on
The Sign of Four-this time a two
hour Holmes special, shown over
the Christmas Holidays.
The next Holmes story filmed was
The Hound of the Baskervilles,
but sadly this story did not get
much praise from the TV critics.
Unfortunatly Granada still made these two hour specials-even though they were increasingly
unpopular-characters being changed from Doyle's books,
mistakes although minor were being found. The Sussex Vampire
was filmed as The Last Vampyre,
and Charles Augustus Milverton
as The Master Blackmailer,
but the most hurtful to Jeremy,
were those from Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's daughter Dame Jean Conan
Doyle over the treatment Granada
had given to The Elligible Bachelor-she hated it. Jeremy
was crestfallen.
Jeremy had put on weight-due to his medical treatment-but fans and critics were unaware at the
time, and were unhappy with his appearance. The Casebook of
Sherlock Holmes was shown in 1991, starting with The Disappearance of Lady Frances
Carfax, and followed by The Problem of Thor Bridge, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The
Illustrious Client, Shoscombe Old Place and The Creeping Man.
In 1993 work started on Granada's Casebook of Sherlock Holmes with The three Gables and
the last story to be filmed was
The Cardboard Box-Bretts health
was beginning to fail. He was
suffering from Manic depression
and Emphysema. When he was shown
the X-ray of his lungs he became
very frightened. The current
series of Holmes had to be changed to allow other actors to
take over the work-including
Charles Grey as Mycroft Holmes,
Sherlock's brother appearing in
The Gold Pince-Nez.
After his 58th birthday Brett's
health sufferd again, and it was
reported that he had heart failure-traced back to a childhood illness.
Jeremy announced there would be no more Sherlock Holmes-and he seemed to know that the role had
been too much for him.
In 1995 Brett did a radio show,
called This Week's good cause,
were he spoke on the problems he
had.
Jeremy Brett's health continued to worsen, and after the hot summer of 1995, He was having
more difficulty breathing.
And on the night of September
the 11th, Jeremy Brett died in his sleep of Heart-failure.
His battle was over.
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