William Gillette
| William Gillette | |
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| Born |
William Hooker Gillette July 24, 1853 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | April 29, 1937 (aged 83) Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor, playwright, inventor, stage manager, |
William Hooker Gillette (July 24, 1853 – April 29, 1937) was an American actor-manager, playwright, and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 silent film long thought lost.
Gillette's most significant contributions to the theater were in devising realistic stage settings and special sound and lighting effects, and as an actor in putting forth what he called the "Illusion of the First Time". His portrayal of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective. His use of the deerstalker cap (which first appeared in some Strand illustrations by Sidney Paget) and the curved pipe became enduring symbols of the character. He assumed the role on stage more than 1,300 times over thirty years, starred in the silent motion picture based on his Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio.
His first Civil War drama Held by the Enemy (1886) was a major step toward modern theater, in that it abandoned many of the crude devices of 19th century melodrama and introduced realism into the sets, costumes, props, and sound effects. It was produced at a time when the British had a very low opinion of American art in any form, and it was the first wholly American play with a wholly American theme to be a critical and commercial success on British stages.
William Gillette was born in Nook Farm,Hartford, Connecticut, a literary and intellectual center with residents such as Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles Dudley Warner.
Gillette's father Francis was a former United States Senator and a crusader for public education, temperance, the abolition of slavery, and women's suffrage. His mother Elisabeth Daggett Hooker was a descendant of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, the Puritan leader who founded the town of Hartford and either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government. Gillette had three brothers and a sister. Another sister named Mary died as a small child.
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