So it was a magical first episode. But it actually wasn’t the first film that they made. They made other films before that because they thought this was such a special episode they wanted Jeremy to work on the role before he did that particularly key episode where he talks about a woman who was THE woman.
Q: That must have been hard to have to wait for each episode. Now you can buy the whole series at once but to have to wait year by year and only get five or six stories in a year would have been hard.
Yeah that was the thing in those days. Now you can get boxed sets on various channels and you can spend evenings watching the whole thing. But I suppose in many ways that was kind of sweet because the anticipation was sort of pleasing.
Q: So as a Sherlock scholar how did you bridge that gap to get to meet the popular Sherlock actor? Did he know about you?
He didn’t but the producer Michael Cox did.
When I was at the university in the 70’s I wanted to do my final dissertation on Conan Doyle. I was told by tutors that Conan Doyle was not important enough of an author for me to write about so I wrote a compendium of authors in my dissertation. But to entertain myself I wrote about Doyle and about the films of Sherlock Holmes. There were dramatic presentations of Sherlock right from the early days of film. I sent the manuscript off to a publisher. Holmes of the Movies is the title of my original book and it was remarkable as a writer to get an acceptance straight away. But this book was known by Michael Cox, the producer of the Granada series.
So after I had seen the shows I contacted Michael and said “Oh I love the series. Is there any chance for me to do some interviews with Jeremy?” About that time I was also writing for an American magazine called Scarlet Street which was in print from 1991 to 2006.
Michael arranged for me to meet Jeremy. My first meeting with him was in a Winnebago in Liverpool while they were filming the Hound of the Baskervilles in 1988. It was a lovely movement because as an actor of a top-rated TV show he was getting journalists coming in and out all the time And so I was taken in to meet him in his Winnebago with a PR lady and she said “You’ve got five minutes with Jeremy.” He was used to seeing newspaper people who knew nothing about him or Holmes and I knew about Sherlock. When the lady came back and said, “Your time is up” he said, “No we are fine. Let him stay. We are chatting nicely.” So we talked about Sherlock Holmes for nearly an hour. Because he was deep into the subject, he’d read all the stories, picked up all the nuances of Holmes’ character. And that established a relationship between us right through until he died.
But let me tell you a story about this first meeting. He seemed to have warmed to me and we exchanged phone numbers. About a week later the phone rang just as I was about to have my evening meal. I picked up the phone and I heard a voice saying “Hello, David, it is Jeremy here.” And I thought, “Jeremy who?” Thank God I had enough to realize it was Jeremy Brett. He said, “I just want to correct a point I made about something the other day.” And I thought, “That was a week ago; I interviewed you a week ago!” That was so sweet of him.
Q: Did you see him many times?
Yes, I was frequently with him on set. I was just there to do interviews. I was writing for various publications including The Scarlet Street which was a film and TV magazine published in America. And I also wrote for Sherlock Holmes journals here in England. I have been on other sets and met other Sherlock actors as well.
So I was frequently doing interviews with him. He never ever ever said anything unpleasant to me in all the time I knew him. He rang me up, I went to his flat at Clapham three times, and obviously I met him on the set a lot. He was happy to talk about that Sherlock Holmes and the series and his presentation because he knew I wasn’t looking for gossip like some others.
And as a result I also met David Burke and Edward Hardwick. Edward in particular became very friendly and I went to his house on one occasion. He was so strongly supportive of Jeremy in his illness and an absolutely lovely man. I feel privileged to have been in their company.
Q: Did Jeremy ever discuss his decision to accept the role of Sherlock?
I do know that when he was offered Sherlock he also had been offered a Shakespeare play - I cant remember which one now. He was just one the verge of going on a holiday and he went away with these two prospects in mind. When he came back he said, “I think I’ll do Sherlock.” Sherlock was something a bit different for him. He had done Shakespeare before but he had never done anything so challenging as this character.
The last time Sherlock Holmes had been seen on television in Britain was when Peter Cushing played him in the 60's. Those were a bit creaky now. This was going to be wonderfully mounted filmed versions with a full Baker Street set. He obviously thought this would be good.
I don’t know that we ever did discuss this but I think it was a career move as well. As an actor he wasn’t known to the general public then. He was a sound professional person but a man in the street would likely say “I don’t know who Jeremy Brett is.” But as soon as the series took off everyone knew the name of Jeremy Brett. He was on talk shows and breakfast television. So it was a good career move. But I don’t think he necessarily knew that was going to happen.
Q: Was Jeremy a Sherlock Holmes fan before he was asked to be the actor? Did he know those stories?
No I don’t think he did. I think he approached all parts with a fresh eye. He was particularly interested in Shakespeare and was in Shakespeare plays. Michael Cox contacted him. And Brett was not at all like Sherlock Holmes in personality. He was a very outgoing jolly fellow; a lovely lovely cheerful fellow. So he was not like the dark shadow as he thought of Holmes.
But once Jeremy had taken on a role he investigated it; he researched it; he looked at it closely. He imbued himself into that role in a dramatic way. He was an actor of the old school if you like. He became the role that he took on.
Q: Jeremy was the first actor that saw the full-side of Holmes. So in spite of the fact that Jeremy thought he was a dark character, he was the first that portrayed the warmth in him.
Yes. Despite the criticisms he had of Watson, you see the warmth he feels toward Watson. There is one particularly lovely moment in The Six Napoleans. Lestrade is in the Baker Street rooms waiting for Watson and Holmes to arrive. He’s becoming a bit nosy about one of the files on Holmes’ desk. Holmes and Watson arrive just at the doorway and spot Lestrade trying to look at this file and they exchange glances. They smile at each other and there’s a wonderful camaraderie between them. You think these are two men who love each other’s company. These are two men who are attuned to each other. And I think that has not been captured very often if at all by other performances of Holmes and Watson.
It’s wonderful and I think probably because Edward Hardwick was so affectionate towards Jeremy in real life. He looked after him when he was very ill. That sort of closeness comes across on the screen.
Q: You mentioned he thought Sherlock was hard to play. But he was a Shakespeare actor and its hard to imagine that Sherlock is harder to play than Shakespeare.
Yes, he said he was more difficult than Hamlet. And he is because he must come across as an interesting character you can feel attracted to. At the same time he has to remain this cold person. “Give me work, I’m just a mere brain,” he says at one point. Those complex elements within the character have to merge into a performance which remains true to the original but also is attractive to the viewing public. Because in the end Jeremy is an actor and he had to give a performance.
Q: And Jeremy was known for putting a lot into his performances.
I wrote a book about Jeremy’s career as Sherlock called “Bending the Willow.” The title sums up Jeremy’s performance because when we were talking about Sherlock he said, “I want to do the good Conan Doyle Holmes but I am actually bending the willow. I’m just doing a little bit more.”
As a writer that has written three Holmes play and eight novels, I understood what he meant. I’ve always wanted to go a little bit beyond Conan Doyle because if you just do the basics that Doyle did originally you aren’t adding anything. So Jeremy just touched up the presentation of Holmes a little bit in a way to make it more interesting to his modern audience of the 80s. And it still rings true with modern viewers because it captures the essence of what Holmes is all about.
Q: Did he enjoy playing this part?
It really took over his life. It was a love hate relationship with the character. He loved playing it and hated the character because the character itself was so far away from his own character. So he was really having to quash all the jolliness and bona vie that he had in himself.
Here’s one example. He would have a polaroid camera and would take photographs of the people on the set. Not just the stars but he would photograph the lady who did the makeup and all the others. Then he put a whole range of photographs on a board at the end of the week saying, “Here they are.”
He was very a very jolly friendly person and he loved the camaraderie that you get on a film set. Then suddenly in the midst of that camaraderie someone would say, “Jeremy, it’s time to film.” Suddenly Jeremy changed characters and would bark, “Watson, we must go and investigate this murder.” It was a dramatic change of attitude and that began to tell on him towards the end of his career. But, of course, he had obviously health problems which didn’t help.
Q: And he kept the role of Sherlock Holmes for ten years, compared to most films which might take only a few months.
Absolutely, and affected his health to some extent. He saw Holmes as a very dark person which he is in many ways. He is a man who has no warmth; he has no feelings for ladies; and he was concentrated in the scientific pursuit as a detective. And to become that role you become somewhat isolated from your fellow man.
Q: As his health deteriorated, did this role become harder for him?
One of the closest persons to him at this time was Edward Hardwick and there is an incident told in Bending the Willow about them. They did a two-man stage play together and at that time they had a falling out. More precisely, Jeremy fell out with Hardwick because at one point he just went off on a tangent on-stage, a non-scripted tangent, and Edward complained about this. Jeremy because he was not well mentally, blew up at him. It upset Hardwick very much. Hardwick wondered about the future of this play and the future of their relationship. So Edward, who was the loveliest of men, stayed up all night and wrote this long, multi paged letter. And the next day at the theatre Edward went into the dressing room and put the letter on Jeremy’s make up table and left. Jeremy came into Edward’s room a few minutes later, he hadn’t even had time to read the whole letter, and said, “Oh my dear boy, I am so sorry.” He hugged him and everything was all right again. That was the fragile nature of Jeremy’s mind at that time.
I visited on set numerous times and he was incredibly kind to me. I never saw any nastiness towards me. But I did see him snap at other people. And I always thought, “That is not Jeremy.”
I saw him in September on the set filming and he looked ill. This was towards the end of the series. And as always he was very kind and generous to me. The next day I read that he had been taken to the hospital for failing health. It was a very sad thing because he had bipolar disease and a weakened heart and was a comparatively young man. It was terrible. But I have fantastic memories of him.