With his long slender features visible under a deerstalker hat and a smoking pipe in hand, actor Basil Rathbone is as synonymous with Sherlock Holmes as Baker street. One of Britain’s first ...

In 1947, Rathbone made his 14th and final Sherlock Holmes film. The restlessness that was such a part of his personality was in evidence here; he had grown tired of Holmes, found him cold and joyless.

No, all 14 Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone were made in Hollywood. Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) was born in Johannesburg, South Africa , to British parents.

Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) rightly appears at the top of most “best Sherlock Holmes” lists, in spite of the fact that only one of his portrayals, the first, was canonical, that is, a close ...

Rathbone made the first of 14 screen appearances as Sherlock Holmes in 1939’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. (Left to right) Basil Rathbone visits with his son and new daughter-in-law, Rodion Rathbone ...

The Curse of Sherlock Holmes: The Basil Rathbone Story by David Clayton, published by The History Press, out 3 August, £20. Story Saved. You can find this story in My Bookmarks.