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<mask> (born <mask>; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served in the Imperial German Army, initially as an  infantry company commander on the Eastern Front. Murnau later transferred to the German Army's Flying Corps, as an observer/gunner, and survived several crashes without any severe injuries. One of Murnau's acclaimed works is the film Nosferatu (1922), an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Although not a commercial success, owing to copyright issues with Stoker's estate, the film is considered a masterpiece of German Expressionist cinema. He later directed the film The Last Laugh (1924), as well as a 1926 interpretation of Goethe's Faust.He emigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined the Fox Studio and made three films: Sunrise (1927), 4 Devils (1928) and City Girl (1930). Sunrise has been regarded by critics and film directors as among the best films ever made. Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu (1931) with documentary film pioneer Robert J<mask>. <mask> left after artistic disputes with Murnau, who had to finish the film on his own. A week before the opening of Tabu, Murnau died in a Santa Barbara hospital from injuries he sustained in an automobile accident that occurred along the Pacific Coast Highway near Rincon Beach, southeast of Santa Barbara. Of the 21 films Murnau directed, eight are considered to be completely lost. One reel of his feature Marizza, genannt die Schmuggler-Madonna survives.This leaves only 12 films surviving in their entirety. Early years
<mask> Plumpe was born in Bielefeld. By the age of seven, he was living in Kassel. He had two brothers, Bernhard and Robert, and two stepsisters, Ida and Anna. His mother, Otilie Volbracht, was the second wife of his father, Heinrich Plumpe (1847–1914), an owner of a cloth factory in the northwest part of Germany. Their villa was often turned into a stage for little plays, directed by the young <mask>, who had already read books by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays by the age of 12. Plumpe would take the pseudonym of "Murnau" from the town of that name near Lake Staffel, south of Munich, where he lived for a time.The young Murnau was said to have an icy, imperious disposition and an obsession with film. Some reference sources list him as being almost  tall, others however list him with a more modest 193 cm (6 ft 4). Murnau studied philology at the University in Berlin and later art history and literature in Heidelberg, where director Max Reinhardt saw him at a students' performance and decided to invite him to his actor-school. He soon became a friend of <mask> (the Blue Rider artist based in Murnau), Else Lasker-Schüler and Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele. In World War I Murnau served as a company commander at the eastern front. He then joined the Imperial German Flying Corps and flew missions in northern France for two years; surviving eight crashes without severe injuries. After landing in Switzerland, he was arrested and interned for the remainder of the war.In his POW camp he was involved with a prisoner theater group and wrote a film script. Career

After World War I ended, Murnau returned to Germany, where he soon established his own film studio with actor Conrad Veidt. His first feature-length film, The Boy in Blue (1919), was a drama inspired by the Thomas Gainsborough painting. He explored the theme of dual personalities, much like Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in Der Janus-Kopf (1920) starring Veidt and featuring Bela Lugosi. Murnau's best known film is Nosferatu, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1922), starring German stage actor Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The release would be the only one by Prana Film because the company declared itself bankrupt in order to avoid paying damages to Stoker's estate (acting for the author's widow, <mask>) after the estate won a copyright infringement lawsuit. Apart from awarding damages, the court ordered also all existing prints of the film to be destroyed.However, one copy had already been distributed globally. This print, which has been duplicated time and again by a cult following over the years, has made Nosferatu an early example of a cult film. Murnau also directed The Last Laugh (German: Der letzte Mann, (The Last Man), 1924), written by Carl Mayer (a very prominent figure of the Kammerspielfilm movement) and starring Emil Jannings. The film introduced the subjective point of view camera, where the camera "sees" from the eyes of a character and uses visual style to convey a character's psychological state. It also anticipated the cinéma vérité movement in its subject matter. The film also used the "unchained camera technique", a mix of tracking shots, pans, tilts, and dolly moves. Also, unlike the majority of Murnau's other works, The Last Laugh is considered a Kammerspielfilm with Expressionist elements.Unlike expressionist films, Kammerspielfilme are categorized by their chamber play influence, involving a lack of intricate set designs and story lines / themes regarding social injustice towards the working classes. Murnau's last German film was the big budget Faust (1926) with Gösta Ekman as the title character, Emil Jannings as Mephisto and Camilla Horn as Gretchen. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of <mask> as well as on Goethe's classic version. The film is well known for a sequence in which the giant, winged figure of Mephisto hovers over a town sowing the seeds of plague. Nosferatu (music by Hans Erdmann) and <mask> (music by <mask>. Heymann) were two of the first films to feature original film scores. Hollywood

Murnau emigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined the Fox Studio and made Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), a movie often cited by scholars as one of the greatest of all time. Released in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system (music and sound effects only), Sunrise was not a financial success, but received several Oscars at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.In winning the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production it shared what is now the Best Picture award with the movie Wings. The first Academy Award for Best Actress went to Janet Gaynor for this and two other films that year; afterward, each award was limited to work in a single film. In spite of this, Murnau was financially well off, and purchased a farm in Oregon. Murnau's next two films, the (now lost) 4 Devils (1928) and City Girl (1930), were modified to adapt to the new era of sound film and were not well received. Their poor receptions disillusioned Murnau, and he quit Fox to journey for a while in the South Pacific. Together with documentary film pioneer Robert J<mask>, Murnau traveled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu in 1931. <mask>erty left after artistic disputes with Murnau, who had to finish the movie himself.The movie was censored in the United States for its images of bare-breasted Polynesian women. The film was originally shot  by cinematographer <mask> as half-talkie, half-silent, before being fully restored as a silent film — Murnau's preferred medium. Personal life
Murnau has been alleged to be gay. However, this has been disputed by some due to this information being first popularized in Hollywood Babylon, a book containing numerous claims that have since been debunked. Either way evidence showed that he remained a bachelor. Death

On March 10, 1931, a week prior to the opening of the film Tabu, Murnau drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles, California in a hired Packard touring car. Murnau's valet, Eliazar Garcia Stevenson (September 2, 1900 - October 4, 1985), swerved to avoid a truck that unexpectedly veered into the northbound lane.The car overturned after striking an embankment, throwing all occupants out of the vehicle. Murnau suffered a head injury and died the next day at the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, before the premiere of his last film. A service was held for Murnau at the Hollywood Lutheran Church on March 19, 1931. His body was transported to Germany, where he was entombed in Southwest Cemetery in Stahnsdorf (Südwest-Kirchhof Stahnsdorf), near Berlin, on April 13. Among the attendees of his second funeral were Robert J<mask>, Emil Jannings, and <mask>, who delivered the eulogy. Greta Garbo had a death mask of Murnau commissioned, which she kept on her desk during her years in Hollywood. In July 2015, Murnau's grave was broken into, the remains disturbed and the skull removed by persons unknown.Wax residue was reportedly found at the site, leading some to speculate that candles had been lit, perhaps with an occult or ceremonial significance. As this disturbance was not an isolated incident, the cemetery managers are considering sealing the grave. Legacy
American author Jim Shepard based his 1998 novel Nosferatu on Murnau's life and films. The book began as a short story from Shepard's 1996 collection Batting Against Castro. In 2000, director E. Elias Merhige released Shadow of the Vampire, a fictionalization of the making of Nosferatu. Murnau is portrayed by John Malkovich. In the film, Murnau is so dedicated to making the film genuine that he actually hires a real vampire (<mask>) to play Count Orlok.In the fifth season of American Horror Story, subtitled Hotel (2015), Murnau is a mentioned character who, sometime in the early 1920s, travels to the Carpathian Mountains while doing research for the film Nosferatu. There, he discovers a community of vampires, and becomes one himself. After returning to the United States, Murnau turns actor Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova into vampires to preserve their beauty. Valentino later transforms his fictional lover, Elizabeth Johnson, into a vampire, and she goes on to become The Countess, the central antagonist of the season. In the film Vampires vs. the Bronx, released in 2020, homage is paid to Murnau by making reference to him in the film via a company named "Murnau Properties", whose logo was the woodcutting view of Vlad the Impaler. Murnau Properties was the shell company owned by vampires, whose plan was to take over the Bronx via property acquisitions and blood acquisitions. Filmography

See also

Bibliography

 Manuel Lamarca Rosales, "<mask> Wilhelm Murnau", Madrid, Ediciones Cátedra, 2022.References

External links

 F. W. Murnau Foundation

 F. W. Murnau at filmportal.de
 Extensive Murnau bibliography, compiled in 2011 at Medienwissenschaft: Berichte und Papiere (Media Studies: Reports and Papers)

1888 births
1931 deaths
Burials in Germany
Film people from North Rhine-Westphalia
German film directors
German artists
Gay artists
German emigrants to the United States
German military personnel of World War I
Horror film directors
LGBT film directors
Luftstreitkräfte personnel
Mass media people from Bielefeld
People from the Province of Westphalia
Road incident deaths in California

masks:
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe
. Flaherty
Flaherty
Friedrich Wilhelm
Friedrich
Franz Marc
Florence Stoker
Faust
Faust
Werner R
. Flaherty
Flah
Floyd Crosby
. Ferty
Fritz Lang
Willem Dafoe
Friedrich


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<mask> (), (born on 21 June 1970 in Lviv) is a Ukrainian musician and poet, singer and composer, leader of the Ukrainian rock band Plach Yeremiyi. Biography and personal life
<mask> was born on 21 June 1970 in the city of Lviv in the family Halyna and <mask>. He is the son of legendary 1970s underground cultural figure and poet Hryts’ko Chubai. As a child, <mask> liked the children's poems his father wrote, but he didn't understand much of his poetry. " In 1976, young <mask> went to the Opera and Ballet House for the first time. Together with his father, they attended Czeslaw Neman's concert. Although Taras was only six years old, he remembers the concert very well to this day, even what songs Czeslaw Neman performed.<mask> primarily grew up on Czeslaw's music, and thanks to him, <mask> later began singing poetry. <mask> studied at the “Lviv Krushelnytski Music School”, where he played in the orchestra. While all the boys played football, <mask> rigorously practised the violin. <mask> already knew all about what they were learning in school at that time, which is why he never showed up to classes in Grades 7 and 8." In 1982 his father died, but his poetry, library, and music library had remained which was all ground on which Taras grew. Thanks to his father, <mask> <mask> had a passion for music. He discovered his father's poetry many years after his death, around 5-7 years.<mask> realized that these must be sung so that more people can hear his father's voice in the poems. This is one of the reasons why Taras began making music in the first place. <mask>' father - a sample of high poetry, his authority does not allow Taras writing songs with random and meaningless text. His love for rock music began as a young schoolboy when he played keyboard for his band “Cyclone”, from 1984 to 1986. It was then that <mask> met Vsevolod Dyachyshyn – the band's bassist, with whom he plays to this day. They gathered at the club by the village's hospital emergency room and rehearsed. They even managed to perform their very own concert: they printed their tickets themselves and then their friends sell them for rubles.They sold around three or four hundred tickets which at that time represented a substantial sum of money." In the summer of 1987, <mask> picked up a guitar and in two days, he learned how to play it and in the following two weeks, he had about thirty or forty songs written (some of which he still uses today). <mask> played his first song “Koly do hub tvoyikh” for his mother and only after the consent of his mother, <mask> began to perform that song. After another two weeks <mask> appeared on stage, and then went on tour. Together with other figures of Lviv’s alternative culture scene (Viktor Morozov, Iurii Vynnychuk), <mask> formed the cabaret group Ne Zhurys’ (Don’t Worry), which performed for thousands in glasnost-era, and post-Soviet, Ukraine, as well as abroad. the group satirized Soviet existence and unearthed both new Ukrainian culture and proscribed past cultural achievements." In 1991, <mask> formed the rock band Plach Ieremii (Jeremiah’s Cry) which quickly became one of the most popular bands in newly independent Ukraine.Composing and performing songs to verse written by poets of a new literary generation emerging in post-Soviet Ukraine (such as Viktor Neborak, Yurii Andrukhovych, Kostiantyn Moskalets’ and Ivan Malkovych), <mask> played a central role in the advancement of post-Soviet Ukrainian literature in the 1990s. He graduated from the Lviv Conservatory (class of viola). Since 1988 to 1990, he participated in performances of the theatre-studio "Don't Worry”. In 1990, <mask> started a band with his bassist Vsevolod Dyachyshyn called "Plach Yeremiyi", which for several years has taken a leading position in the charts Ukrainian music. " In 1999, <mask> moved to Kyiv for Olha, the girl he fell in love with, after meeting her at a Plach Yeremiyi concert in Austria. They had a difficult time adapting to life in Kyiv with only two hundred dollars in their pocket, yet they managed to find friends to stay with for seven or eight months until they rented their own apartment. Shortly thereafter, <mask> and Olha got married. "In 2006, their first daughter Melanie, was born and on 5 November 2007 <mask> became a  father for the second time to another girl, Ivanka. On 28 June 2010 <mask> and Olha had a son. In March 2008 on "New Channel" project launched author Taras - music program "Live Sound". In 2008, the President of Ukraine awarded <mask> <mask> the title of "Honored Artist of Ukraine." <mask> <mask> - is not just an extraordinary figure in the modern music world, he was blessed with modesty and unnecessary uncertainty. He is one of the few who did not sell out and has preserved the kind of identity and authenticity the band Plach Yeremiyi" brings. His super hit "Vona" was a real lyrical and romantic archetype turbulent in the 1990s.Thanks to him, the same young people across the country sang a rebel song "Lenta Za Lentoyu." <mask> now lives with his family in Kyiv, near Hostomel. Sometimes <mask> and his wife organize house concerts: <mask> - viola, Olha - piano and the children, listening, dazzled. Interesting facts
Taras is a fan of music by: Miles Davis, David Bowie, folk music - in short, everything that`s real. Taras loves to perform music by his favorite composer Johann Sebastian Bach, just for fun. Taras also enjoys photography, riding on the road and loves to fish. He always works on New Years, but the real celebration for him is Christmas.<mask> <mask> founded the Plach Yeremiji rock band in February, 1990. The songs of <mask> and his band are usually serious, philosophical poems accompanied by rock. The music sounds hard, then changes to an easy ballad, and again explodes, overfilled by emotions. The musician has created more than 100 songs and one overture for an orchestra. He is also known for his active social position, taking part in democratic and pro-European movement gatherings. The old UPA song Lenta za Lentoyu performed by <mask> had become a hit at events organized by the "orange forces" and was performed at the meetings of Narodna Samooborona Movement. In 2006, the rock band Plach Yeremiji and its frontman took part in the "Concert for Angels" devoted to the memory of Kiev students killed during the Battle of Kruty.Taras has recorded several albums including  "Dveri kotri naspravdi ye" (the Doors Which really are) and "Nai bude vse iak ye" (Let all be as Is), which introduced the hits Vona (She), Hryfon (the Griffin) and Litaiucha Holova (Flying Head) to fans of Ukrainian music. Taras has also recorded three albums featuring his interpretations of traditional and popular songs—the songs of Volodymyr Ivasiuk, Ukrainian Insurgent army songs, and Ukrainian Christmas carols. Taras has performed in Eastern and Western Europe, Canada, and the U.S., as well as at over one hundred concerts in Ukraine, including a 2003 solo performance at Kyiv’s prestigious Ukraina Palace. References

External links

1970 births
Living people
Ukrainian poets
Lviv Conservatory alumni
Musicians from Lviv
Ukrainian rock musicians

masks:
Taras Hryhorovych Chubay
Taras Chubay
Hrihoriy Chubay
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Chubay
Taras
Chubay
Chubay
Taras
Taras
Chubay
Taras
Chubay
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Chubay
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Chubay
Taras
Chubay
Taras
Taras
Taras
Taras
Chubay
Chubay
Chubay


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<mask> (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 thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in 2014. <mask>'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. <mask> 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 had been a 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 English-born 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. His eldest brother Frank Ashbell <mask> went to California and died there in 1859 from consumption (tuberculosis).The third oldest brother Robert joined the Union Army and served in the Antietam campaign, was invalided home sick, recovered, and joined the Navy. <mask> was assigned to the U.S.S. Gettysburg and took part in both assaults on Fort Fisher. He was killed the morning after the surrender of the fort when the powder magazine exploded. His brother Edward moved to Iowa and his sister Elisabeth married George Henry Warner, both in 1863, after which <mask> was the only child in the household. At the age of 20, he left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. He briefly worked for a stock company in New Orleans and then returned to New England where, on Mark Twain's own recommendation, he debuted at the Globe Theater of Boston with Twain's stage-play The Gilded Age in 1875.Afterward, he was a stock actor for six years through Boston, New York, and the Midwest. He irregularly attended classes at a few institutions, although he never completed their programs. His father Francis had held the strongest objections to the theater in general, but he offered the least resistance and drove him to the train station, telling his son that he had driven two other sons to this same station and they had never returned; <mask> was to make sure that he was the exception. Francis supplied him with an allowance on which to subsist (his apprenticeship was without pay). His father's health began to fail in 1878, and <mask> forsook the stage for more than a year to care for him in his final illness. Upon his father's death, he and George Henry Warner were named executors of Francis' estate, and they, Elisabeth, and Edward shared in the inheritance. Marriage
In 1882, Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit.She died in 1888 from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix. The couple did not have any children and he never remarried. Playwright, director, actor

<mask> was hired as playwright, director, and actor for $50 per week in 1881, while performing at Cincinnati, by two of the Frohman brothers, Gustave and Daniel. The first play that he wrote and produced was The Professor. It debuted in the Madison Square Theatre, lasting 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states (as far west as St. Louis, Missouri). That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written together with Frances Hodgson Burnett. Early in his career, <mask> realised that it would be in the triple role of playwright, director, and actor that he could make the most money.He was among the premier matinee idols of his day, and was described by actress/drama critic Amy Leslie as "one of Gibson's notables materialized". Lewis Clinton Strang observed that "he rarely gesticulates, and his bodily movements often seem purposely slow and deliberate. His composure is absolute and his mental grasp of a situation is complete." He could mesmerize an audience simply by standing motionless and in complete silence, or by indulging in any one of his grand gestures or subtle mannerisms. He did not gesture often but, when he did, it meant everything. He would steal a scene with a mere nod, a shrug, a glance, a twitching of the fingers, a compression of his lips, or a hardening of his face. Slight inflections in his voice spoke wonders."Occasionally", Georg Schuttler pointed out, "when it was least expected, he gestured or moved his body so quickly that the speed of the action was compared to the swift opening and closing of a camera's shutter." S. E. Dahlinger, leading expert on the play Sherlock Holmes, summed him up: "Without seeming to raise his voice or ever to force an emotion, he could be thrilling without bombast or infinitely touching without descending to sentimentality. One of his greatest strengths as an actor was the ability to say nothing at all on the stage, relying instead on an involved, inner contemplation of an emotional or comic crisis to hold the audience silent, waiting for the moment when he would speak again." He was an unemotional actor, unable to emote, even in love scenes, about which Montrose Moses commented, "he made appeal through the sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness of outward detail, rather than through romantic attitude and heart fervor." Ward Morehouse described <mask>'s style as "dry, crisp, metallic, almost shrill." Gretchen Finletter recalled that it was "a dry, almost monotonous voice admirably suited to the great Holmes". The New York Times noted in 1937 that "it would be hard to convince that portion of the American public that knew and followed him that any better actor had ever trod the American stage ...It would be conservative to say that Mr. <mask> was the most successful of all American actors." He had a heightened sense of the dramatic, and his two most riveting scenes are still considered to be among the most dramatic scenes in the history of the American theater: the hospital scene in Held by the Enemy and the Telegraph Office scene in Secret Service. <mask> treated both sides of the American Civil War equally, bestowing integrity, loyalty, and honor on both North and South, even as he made a spy each play's sympathetic hero. Yet, what set <mask> apart from all the rest was not simply his reliance on realism, his imperturbable naturalistic acting, or his superior sense of the dramatic. He "was also a pioneer in making American drama 'American', rejecting what had been up until that time a pervasive European influence on American theater" at a time when American art of all kinds was held in very low esteem by the British. Inventor

During an 1886–87 production of Held by the Enemy, <mask> introduced a new method of simulating the galloping of a horse. Men formerly had slammed halves of coconut shells on a slab of marble to simulate the sound, but <mask> found this clumsy and unrealistic.Patent No. 389,294 was applied for on June 9 and issued to him on September 11, entitled "Method of Producing Stage Effects". It was a method, not a mechanical device, so there were no illustrations in the two-page document. And the patent was very broad, introducing "a new and useful method of imitating the sound of a horse or horses approaching, departing, or passing at a gallop, trot, or any other desired gait, the same to be used in producing stage effects in theatrical or other performances or entertainments, exhibitions, &c."

His method consisted in "beating with clappers, that represent the hoofs of a horse, upon some material that serves to represent the road-bed over which the horse is supposed to be traveling" as well as "stamping, pawing, or jumping about in a restive manner while the rider is mounting, and then starting off, first at a trot, then a gallop, and finally a run, or at any gait desired, in any order". He could also imitate the sounds of the hoofs pounding on different surfaces: "stone, brick, clay, gravel, greensward, or when crossing bridges." It was not the first patent which he had applied for and received. In 1883, he filed the first of four patent requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a Time-Stamp "as stamps upon the upper surface of papers a dial and one or more dial-pointers, representing the time of day at which the papers stamped by it were respectively so stamped."All four requests were granted. Comeback
Charles Frohman was a young Broadway producer who had been successful exchanging theater productions between the U.S. and the UK. After he produced some of <mask>'s plays, the two formed a greater partnership. Their productions had great success, sweeping <mask> into London's society spot, which had been historically reluctant to accept American theatre. With Held by the Enemy in 1887, <mask> became the first American playwright to achieve true success on British stages with an authentic American play. <mask> finally came fully out of retirement in October 1894 in Too Much Johnson, adapted from the French farce La Plantation Thomassin by Maurice Ordonneau. Its debut was at the Park Theatre in Waltham, Massachusetts, then it opened on October 29 at the Columbia Theatre in Brooklyn.This farce was extremely popular, and has been produced on stage several times in the century since its debut. In 1895, he wrote Secret Service, which was first performed in the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia for two weeks beginning on May 13, 1895, with Maurice Barrymore in the lead role. <mask> rewrote some of the script and starred in the play when it opened at the Garrick Theatre on October 5, 1896. It was the first time that he had taken on the role of the romantic hero in one of his own plays. The production ran until March 6, 1897, and was an enormous critical and popular success. Following its American success, Frohman booked Secret Service to open at the Adelphi Theatre on the West End in London on May 15, 1897, and it became the cornerstone of Frohman's achievements in England. It became <mask>’s best known work outside of the Holmes adaptations, being adapted through the decades for silent and sound film, and television, as well as Broadway revivals.The well-known gun-switching scene is referenced in the 1920s hard-boiled detective story “Devil Cat”, by Carroll John Daly. Sherlock Holmes

Meanwhile, Arthur Conan Doyle felt that the character of Sherlock Holmes was stifling him and keeping him from more worthy literary work. He had finished his Holmes saga and killed him off in The Final Problem published in 1893. Afterwards, however, Conan Doyle found himself in need of further income, as he was planning to build a new home called "Undershaw". He decided to take his character to the stage and wrote a play. Holmes had appeared in two earlier stage works by other authors in Charles Brookfield's skit Under the Clock (1893) and John Webb's play Sherlock Holmes (1894); nevertheless, Doyle now wrote a new five-act play with Holmes and Watson in their freshmen years as detectives. Doyle offered the role first to Herbert Beerbohm Tree and then to Henry Irving.Irving turned it down and Tree demanded that Doyle readapt Holmes to his peculiar acting profile; he also wanted to play both Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Doyle turned down the deal, considering that this would debase the character. Literary agent A. P. Watt noted that the play needed a lot of work and sent the script to Charles Frohman, who traveled to London to meet Conan Doyle. There Frohman suggested the prospect of an adaptation by <mask>. Doyle endorsed this and Frohman obtained the staging-copyright. Doyle insisted on only one thing: there was to be no love interest in Sherlock Holmes. Frohman uttered a Victorian rendition of "Trust me!"<mask> then read the entire collection for the first time, outlining the piece in San Francisco while still touring in Secret Service. On one occasion, after they had exchanged numerous telegrams about the play, <mask> telegraphed Conan Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" Doyle responded: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him." Milestones

New Holmes play
<mask>'s Sherlock Holmes consisted of four acts combining elements from several of Doyle's stories. He mainly utilized the plots "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Final Problem". Also, it had elements from A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, and The Greek Interpreter. However, all the characters in the play were <mask>'s own creations with the exception of Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty.His creation of Billy the Buttons (Pageboy) was later used by Doyle for "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone". <mask> portrayed Holmes as brave and open to express his feelings, which was substantially different from the intellectual-only original, "a machine rather than a man". He wore the Deerstalker cap on stage, which was originally featured in illustrations by Sidney Paget. Props and famous phrase
<mask> introduced the curved or bent briar pipe instead of the straight pipe pictured by Strand Magazine's illustrator Sidney Paget, most likely so that <mask> could pronounce his lines more easily;

masks:
William Hooker Gillette
Gillette
Youth Gillette
Gillette
Robert Gillette
William
William
William
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette
Gillette


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 a straight pipe can wiggle or fall when speaking, or cause problems with declaring lines while it is clenched between the teeth. It is less difficult to pronounce lines clearly with a curved pipe. Some have lately theorized that a straight pipe may have obscured <mask>'s face. This could not happen with a curved briar in his mouth.<mask> also made use of a magnifying-glass, a violin, and a syringe, which all came from the Canon and which were all now established as "props" to the Sherlock Holmes character. <mask> formulated the complete phrase: "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow", which was later reused by Clive Brook, the first spoken-cinema Holmes, as: "Elementary, my dear Watson", Holmes's best known line and one of the most famous expressions in the English language. Characters
Irene Adler was "The Woman" of the Holmes canon, but she was replaced by Alice Faulkner, a young and beautiful lady who was planning to avenge her sister's murder but eventually fell in love with Holmes; and the pageboy, nameless in the Canon, was given the name Billy by <mask>, a name that carried over into the Basil Rathbone films and that has been retained ever since. Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner (later renamed Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts) was finished. Baldwin Hotel theater fire

The Secret Service company was playing in San Francisco and staying in the Baldwin Hotel when a fire swept from the property room of the Baldwin Theatre through the hotel in the early morning hours of November 23. The play's script was in the possession of <mask>'s secretary <mask>, in his room at the Baldwin Hotel. The financial loss was estimated at nearly $1,500,000.Only two deaths were known at first, though several people were missing. The flames were confined to the Baldwin, though smoke and water damaged the adjoining structures. <mask>'s secretary barely escaped, but the entire script was reduced to ashes. Postance went to the Palace Hotel where <mask> was sound asleep, and awakened him at 3:30 in the morning to break the bad news. <mask> was not overly happy about being disturbed in the middle of the night and simply asked, "Is this hotel on fire?" Assured that it was not, he told Postance, "Well, come and tell me about it in the morning." Both manuscripts were destroyed – Conan Doyle's original and <mask>'s adaptation – but <mask> rewrote the piece in a month, either from notes or an extra copy.Conan Doyle and <mask> had never met, so Conan Doyle's shock was understandable, once the two finally arranged a meeting, when the train carrying Gillette came to a halt and Sherlock Holmes himself stepped onto the platform instead of the actor, complete with deerstalker cap and gray ulster. Sitting in his landau, Conan Doyle contemplated the apparition with open-mouthed awe until the actor whipped out a magnifying lens, examined Doyle's face closely, and declared (precisely as Holmes himself might have done), "Unquestionably an author!" Conan Doyle broke into a hearty laugh and the partnership was sealed with the mirth and hospitality of a weekend at Undershaw. The two men became lifelong friends. Holmes tour

After a copyright performance in England, Sherlock Holmes debuted on October 23, 1899, at the Star Theatre in Buffalo, followed by appearances in Rochester and Syracuse, New York and in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Sherlock Holmes made its Broadway debut at the Garrick Theater on November 6, 1899, performing until June 16, 1900. It was an instant success.<mask> applied all his dazzling special effects over the massive audience. The company also toured nationally along the western United States from October 8, 1900, until March 30, 1901. This was bolstered by another company with Cuyler Hastings touring through minor cities and Australia. After a pre-debut week in Liverpool, the company debuted in London (September 9, 1901) at the Lyceum Theatre, performing in the Duke of York's Theatre later. It was another hit with its audience, despite not convincing the critics. The 12 weeks originally appointed were at full-hall. The production was extended until April 12, 1902 (256 presentations), including a gala for King Edward VII on February 1.Then it toured England and Scotland with two ancillary groups: North (with H. A. Saintsbury) and South (with Julian Royce). At the same time, the play was produced in foreign countries (such as Australia, Sweden, and South Africa). Sir Henry Irving was touring America when Sherlock Holmes opened at the Garrick Theatre, and Irving saw <mask> as Holmes. The two actors met and Irving concluded negotiations for Sherlock Holmes to begin an extended season at the Lyceum Theatre in London beginning in early May. <mask> was the first American actor ever to be invited to perform on that illustrious stage, which was an enormous honor. Irving was the dean of British actors, the first ever to be knighted, and the Lyceum was his theater. Sherlock Holmes made its British debut at the Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool on September 2, 1901.It was the beginning of a major triumph. <mask> then opened Sherlock Holmes at the Lyceum in London on September 9. The Lyceum tour alone netted <mask> nearly $100,000, and it made the most money of all the productions in the final years of Irving's tenure at the Lyceum. In the United States, <mask> again toured from 1902 until November 1903, starring in The Admirable Crichton by James M. Barrie. <mask>'s own play Electricity appeared in 1910, and he starred in Victorien Sardou's Diplomacy in 1914, Clare Kummer's A Successful Calamity in 1917, Barrie's Dear Brutus in 1918, and <mask>'s The Dream Maker in 1921. A brief revival of Sherlock Holmes in early 1923 did not generate enough interest to return to Broadway, so he retired to his Hadlyme estate. Worldwide fame

In his lifetime, <mask> presented Sherlock Holmes approximately 1,300 times (third in the historical stage-record), before American and English audiences.He was also shown widely, through appearances in many editions of the Sherlock Holmes canon and in magazines by way of photographs or illustrations, and was also well represented on the covers of theater programs. Around the world, other productions took place, based on <mask>'s Sherlock Holmes. These were often satirical or parodical, which were sometimes successful enough to last several seasons. Frohman's lawyers tried to curb the illegal phenomenon exhaustedly, traveling overseas, from court to court. Legitimate productions were also produced throughout Europe and Australia for many years. Even <mask> parodied it once. The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes – the first of a handful of one-act plays he would write – was written for two benefits, and was performed for the first time at the Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 24.Holland was an actor who had been forced to retire the year before due to illness. The skit featured five characters: Holmes, Billy the page boy (played by Henry McArdle), the madwoman Gwendolyn Cobb (who had nearly all of the dialogue and was played by Ethel Barrymore), and the two "valuable assistants" who come to take the madwoman away. Its original title was A fantasy in about one-tenth of an act, and the entire scene transpires in Holmes' Baker Street room "somewhere about the date of day before yesterday." Retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, it was performed again on April 14 for the benefit of the Actors Society of America at the Criterion Theatre (with Jessie Busley as Gwendolyn Cobb and McArdle again as Billy), and again at the Duke of York's Theatre in London when Gillette inserted it on October 3 as a curtain-raiser for Clarice. Playing Billy in the curtain-raiser was young Charlie Chaplin. When Clarice was replaced with Sherlock Holmes, Chaplin continued as Billy. Models for Holmes' portrait
The magazines Collier's Weekly (USA) and The Strand (UK) pushed Conan Doyle avidly, offering to continue the Sherlock Holmes series for a generous salary.The new stories were resumed in 1901, first with a prequel (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and then with Holmes actually revived in 1903 (in The Empty House). The Holmes series continued for another quarter-century, culminating with the bound edition of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes in 1927. Gillette was the model for pictures by the artist Frederic Dorr Steele, which were featured in Collier's Weekly then and reproduced by American media. Steele contributed to Conan Doyle's book-covers, later doing marketing when <mask> made his farewell performances. Conan Doyle's series were widely printed throughout the USA, with either Steele's illustrations or photographs of <mask> on stage. In 1907 <mask> was caricatured in Vanity Fair by Sir Leslie Ward (who signed his work "Spy") (see above), and later became the subject of such famous American caricaturists as Pamela Colman Smith, Ralph Barton and Al Freuh. Gillette Castle

While most of <mask>'s work has long been forgotten, his last great masterpiece is still well known today: Gillette Castle in Hadlyme, Connecticut.The castle sits atop a hill, part of the Seven Sisters chain, over the Chester–Hadlyme ferry's pier. The design of the castle and its grounds features numerous innovative features, and the entire castle was designed, to the smallest detail, by <mask>. The material for the castle was carried up by a tramway designed by him. During the five years of construction from 1914 to 1919, he lived aboard his houseboat, the Aunt Polly, named after a woman who allegedly tended to him when he was sick, or at a home he had purchased in Greenport, Long Island. The mansion was finished in 1919, at a cost of US$1.1 million. <mask> called it "Seventh Sister". His miniature railroad was his personal pride.The train's layout was  long, and it traveled all around the property, crossing several bridges and going through one tunnel designed by <mask>. The train was relocated after his death to an amusement park, Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut, from 1943 through the mid-90s. Since then, both locomotives have been returned to the castle, where one has been restored and is on display in the Visitors Center. <mask> had no children and, after he died, his will  stated

In 1943, the Connecticut state government bought the property, renaming it Gillette's Castle and Gillette Castle State Park. Located at 67 River Road, East Haddam, Connecticut, it was reopened in 2002. After a four-year restoration costing $11 million, it now includes a museum, park, and many theatrical celebrations. It receives 100,000 annual visitors.The castle is No. 86002103 on the National Register of Historic Places. It remains one of the top three tourist attractions in the state. In 1972, a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap and other memorabilia related to <mask> were donated to the State of Connecticut by Doreen Carlos-Perkins, daughter of Louise Rutter, an actress who worked with <mask> on Broadway. Last years and farewell tour

<mask> announced his retirement many times throughout his career, despite not actually accomplishing this until his death. The first announced retirement took place after the start of the 20th century, after he purchased the boat Aunt Polly which was  in length and weighed 200 tons. Sherlock Holmes was Gillette's foremost production with 1,300 performances (in 1899–1901, 1905, 1906, 1910, 1915, 1923, and 1929–1932).While performing on other tours, he was always forced by popular demand to include at least one extra performance of Sherlock Holmes. In 1929, at the age of 76, <mask> started the farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Scheduled for two seasons, it was eventually extended into 1932. The first run of the tour included in the cast Theatre Guild actress Peg Entwistle as <mask>'s female lead. Entwistle was the tragic young actress who committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywoodland sign in 1932. In the New Amsterdam Theatre of New York, on November 25, 1929, a great ceremony took place. <mask> received a Signature book, autographed by 60 different world eminences.In a letter to <mask>, Arthur Conan Doyle stated: "I consider the production a personal gratification ... My only complaint is that you made the poor hero of the anemic printed page a very limp object as compared with the power of your own personality which you infuse into his stage presentment". President Calvin Coolidge commented that the production was a "public service". Booth Tarkington told him, "I would rather see you play Sherlock Holmes than be a child again on Christmas morning." <mask>'s last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong's Three Wise Fools in 1936. <mask> died on April 29, 1937, aged 83, in Hartford, due to a pulmonary hemorrhage. He was buried in the Hooker family plot at Riverside Cemetery, Farmington, Connecticut, next to his wife. Bibliography
<mask> wrote 13 original plays, 7 adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaption.Two pieces based on the Civil War remain his greatest works: Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1896). Both were successful with both the public and the critics, and Secret Service remains the only one of his plays available today on commercial VHS and DVD from a 1977 Broadway Theater Archive production starring John Lithgow and Meryl Streep. His own bibliography follows:
 Bullywingle the Beloved (performed in Hartford, Connecticut, October 3, 1872, again in March 1873)
 The Twins of Siam (July 1879; never produced)
 The Professor (Summer 1879 tryout in Columbus, Ohio)
 Esmeralda (adapted from short story by Frances Hodgson Burnett, October 29, 1881, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Madison Square Theatre in 1881)
 Digby's Secretary, also known as The Private Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser's Der Bibliothekar, September 29, 1884, New York Comedy Theatre, New York). Der Bibliothekar, (February 9, 1885, Madison Square Theatre, New York)
 Held by the Enemy (February 22, 1886, Criterion Theatre, Brooklyn, New York; published by Samuel French Ltd.

masks:
Gillette
Gillette
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William Postance
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 in 1898)
 She (Dramatization of novel by Rider Haggard, November 29, 1887, Niblo's Garden, New York)
 A Legal Wreck (August 14, 1888, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Rockwood Publishing Company in 1890)
 A Legal Wreck (Novelization, Rockwood Pub. Co., 1888)
 A Confederate Casualty (1888; never produced)
 Robert Elsmere (Partial dramatization of novel by Mary Augusta Ward; unable to obtain Mrs. Ward's permission, <mask> discontinued work on the project, and it was dramatized by other playwrights and produced without his participation)
 "Mr. William Gillette Surveys the Field", Harper's Weekly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1676, February 2, 1889, Supplement, pp.30
 Because She Loved Him So (October 28, 1898, Hyperion Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut)
 Sherlock Holmes (with Arthur Conan Doyle, October 23, 1899, Star Theatre, Buffalo, New York; published by Samuel French, Ltd., in 1922, by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., in 1935, and by Doubleday in 1976 and 1977)
 "The House-Boat in America," The Outlook Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 5, June 2, 1900
 The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes (March 24, 1905, Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit, Metropolitan Opera House; later retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes and finally The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, published by Ben Abramson of The Argus Book Shop in Chicago in 1955)
 Clarice (September 4, 1905, Liverpool, England)
 Ticey, or That Little Affair of Boyd's (June 15, 1908, originally retitled A Private Theatrical, then retitled A Maid-of-All Work, later retitled That Little Affair of Boyd's, Columbia Theatre, Washington, D.C.)
 Samson (adapted from Henri Bernstein's Samson, October 19, 1908, Criterion Theatre, New York)
 The Red Owl, originally titled The Robber (One-Act Play, August 9, 1909, London Coliseum; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pp. 47–80)
 Among Thieves (One-Act Play, September 6, 1909, Palace Theatre, London; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pp. 246–267)
 Electricity (September 26, 1910, Park Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1924)
 Theatrical managers exposed; A few words from Mr. William Gillette at the annual dinner of the Theatrical Managers' Association of Greater New York, at the Knickerbocker Hotel, January 10, 1910 (New York, 1910). Secret Service: Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865 (Novelization, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and Kessinger Publishing in the United Kingdom, 1912)
 Butterfly on the Wheel (1914; never produced)
 Diplomacy (adapted from Victorien Sardou's Dora, October 20, 1914, Empire Theatre, New York)
 William Hooker Gillette: The Illusion of the First Time in Acting (The Dramatic Museum of Columbia University in Papers on Acting, Second Series, Number 1, 1915)
 "When a Play Is Not a Play", Vanity Fair, Vol. 5, Nos.5–7 – vol. 6, Nos. 2–4, January–June 1916, pg. 53
 Introduction to How to Write a Play, edited by Miles Dudley, Papers on Playmaking II (Dramatic Museum of Columbia University, 1916), pp. 1–8
 How Well George Does It (1919, never produced; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1936)
 "America's Great Opportunity", The World War: Utterances Concerning Its Issues and Conduct by Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Printed for Its Archives and For Free
 The Dream Maker (November 21, 1921, Empire Theatre, New York)
 Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Samuel French, Ltd., 1922). Winnie and the Wolves (dramatized from Bertram Atkey's stories in the Saturday Evening Post, May 14, 1923, Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia, PA)
 The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road (Harper & Brothers, 1927)
 The Crown Prince of the Incas (1932–36; never completed)
 Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935); Introduction by Vincent Starrett; Preface by <mask>; Reminiscent notes and drawings by Frederic Dorr Steele
 Secret Service: Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865, Novelization with Cyrus Townsend Brady (Grosset & Dunlap in New York, 1936)
 Sherlock Holmes a Play: Wherein is Set Forth the Strange Case of Miss Alice Faulkner (Helan Halbach, Publisher, Santa Barbara, California, 1974), reprint of the 1935 edition; Introduction by Vincent Starrett; Preface by <mask>; Reminiscent notes and drawings by Frederic Dorr Steele
 Sherlock Holmes: A Play (Doubleday & Company, 1976; hardcover). Sherlock Holmes: A Play (Samuel French, 1976; softcover)
 Sherlock Holmes: A Play (Doubleday & Company, 1977; hardcover)

Patents issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office
	Time-Stamp
Letters patent No.289,404, filed April 25, 1883, granted December 4, 1883.
Letters Patent No. 300,966, filed May 2, 1883, granted June 24, 1884.
Letters Patent No. 302,559, filed on May 14, 1883, and granted July 29, 1884.
Letters Patent No. 309,537, filed December 5, 1883, and granted December 23, 1884. Method of Producing Stage Effects
Letters Patent No. 389,294, filed June 9, 1887, granted September 11, 1887. Audio/Visual
 Fox Movietone News: "Sherlock Holmes" Turns Engineer [Newsclip of <mask>], featuring <mask> (Fox, 1927, two minutes, sound, b&w, 35mm).Also heard in <mask>: A Connecticut Yankee and the American Stage, Connecticut Heritage Productions, Peter Loffredo, Producer, SDF-V7, debuted on Connecticut Public Television on July 11, 1994. Sherlock Holmes (1934), recorded by G. Robert Vincent for his private collection; <mask> reads excerpts from Sherlock Holmes; Dr. F.C. Packard from Harvard University takes the part of Dr. Watson. Running Time: 9.8 min; from An Inventory of Spoken Word Audio Recordings in the Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University (DB7455).3; also in the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut. <mask>, Voice of: Selections from Sherlock Holmes and The Celebrated Jumping Frog (1934), addressing Professor F. C. Packard's class at Harvard University, imitates his old friend and neighbor Mark Twain in a reading of the early sentences of The Celebrated Frog of Calaveras County, Harvard Vocarium. Filmography
1915 – Esmeralda, directed by James Kirkwood and starring Mary Pickford, released on September 6, 1915, and re-released July 27, 1919
1916 – Sherlock Holmes, starring <mask> in the first cinema-adaptation of his Sherlock Holmes, albeit not the first film about Holmes. It was a seven-reel silent film by Essanay Film Manufacturing Co. directed by Arthur Berthelet.Marjorie Kay played Alice Faulkner and Ernest Maupain was Moriarty. After years of being thought a lost film, a copy of the film was found in October 2014 at the Cinémathèque Française and was restored. It was shown on Turner Classic Movies in 2015. It is believed to be the only record of <mask> playing the role on camera. 1919 – Secret Service, Paramount Pictures, directed by Hugh Ford with Robert Warwick in <mask>'s role of Captain Thorne and Shirley Mason as the female lead. 1919 – Too Much Johnson, Paramount Pictures – Director: Donald Crisp; Writers: <mask> and Thomas J. Geraghty; Release Date: December 1919; Starring Bryant Washburn as Augustus Billings, Lois Wilson as Mrs. Billings, and Adele Farrington as Mrs. Batterson; 5 reels, 4,431 feet
1920 – Held by the Enemy, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, Paramount Pictures – Director: Donald Crisp; Writers: <mask> and Beulah Marie Dix; Release date: October 24, 1920; Starring Agnes Ayres as Rachel Hayne, Wanda Hawley as Emmy McCreery, Lewis Stone as Capt. Gordon Haine, Jack Holt as Colonel Charles Prescott, and Robert Cain as Brigade Surgeon Fielding; 6 reels
1922 – Sherlock Holmes, Goldwyn Pictures, based on <mask>'s play, directed by Albert Parker.John Barrymore played Holmes. <mask> made his screen debut as Foreman Wells in this film, restored by the George Eastman House
1931 – Secret Service, Radio Pictures, directed by J. Walter Ruben with Richard Dix as Captain Thorne
1937 – Too Much Johnson, Mercury Theatre, directed by Orson Welles. Writers: <mask> and Orson Welles. Starring Joseph Cotten as Augustus Billings and Ruth Ford as Mrs. Billings. It was to be inserted into a stage production of the play but was never shown in public. Though Welles's print was destroyed in 1970, another one was discovered in 2013 and became available online the next year. 1977 – Secret Service, Broadway Theatre Archive, starring John Lithgow as Captain Thorne and Meryl Streep as Edith Varney.This was the first time Streep was seen on film, and it is the only play by <mask> still available on commercial VHS or DVD
1981 – Sherlock Holmes, Home Box Office in collaboration with the Williamstown Theatre Festival and artistic director Nikos Psacharopoulos, and was broadcast on November 19, 1981, with repeats on November 23, 27, 29, and December 1 and 5. This production starred Frank Langella as Holmes, Stephen Collins as James Larrabee, Susan Clark as Madge Larrabee, Richard Woods as Dr. Watson, and 12-year-old Christian Slater in his film debut as Billy the Pageboy. This production is not available on commercial VHS or DVD. 1982 – Sherlock Holmes, Guy Dumur translated <mask>'s play into French for the 1982 filming of Sherlock Holmes, starring fifty-four-year-old Paul Guers as Holmes. Directed by Jean Hennin, it was broadcast on October 5, 1982

Radio

On October 20, 1930, <mask> performed the first serial radio-version of Sherlock Holmes in the premiere episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band". It was based on the original theater version by Conan Doyle, re-adapted by Edith Meiser, and was the first time Holmes was portrayed on radio as part of a continuing series. It was transmitted by WEAF-NBC (New York) and sponsored by G. Washington Coffee Co..This show became the pilot of a series and, after <mask>, Richard Gordon took over the part for the remaining 34 programs in the series. On November 18, 1935, <mask>, now 82 years old, performed his own Sherlock Holmes on WABC radio of New York. His play was again re-adapted by Meiser. Reginald Mason played Dr. Watson and Charles Bryant played Professor Moriarty. Its duration was 50 minutes. This play was the pilot for a new Holmes series by Lux Radio Theater. The New York Times said that <mask> was "still the best, with all his shades and improvisation".As novelist
1927, The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road—his only mystery novel. Tryon, North Carolina
In 1891, after first visiting Tryon, North Carolina, <mask> began building his bungalow, which he later enlarged into a house. He named it Thousand Pines and it is privately owned today. In past years, in November, the town of Tryon celebrated the William Gillette Festival, honoring <mask>. The Polk County Historical Museum there displays Gillete's pipe and slippers from his farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes, as well as china, some letters and other items left behind at the actor's North Carolina home. New York City
On December 7, 1934, <mask> attended the first dinner meeting of The Baker Street Irregulars in New York. As of 2011, the BSI continues its <mask>ette Memorial Luncheon on the Friday afternoon of their annual January meeting in New York City (Baker Street Irregulars Weekend, The Annual Gathering of the oldest Literary Society dedicated to Sherlock Holmes).Famous namesake
Among <mask>'s friends was actress Gertrude Berkeley. Gertrude had a son whom she apparently named after two of her friends, actress Amy Busby and <mask>, after Busby and <mask> agreed to be the boy's godparents. The son's name was Busby <mask> Enos who, as Busby Berkeley, became one of Hollywood's greatest directors and choreographers. Quotations
 "Elementary, my dear fellow! Elementary!" "There isn't any reason in the world why we can't do as well in this farewell business as any other country on the face of the globe. We have the farewellers and the people to say farewell to.If I can only keep it up I will be even with my competitors by the Spring of 1922, and by the Winter of 1937 I will be well in the lead." "It just seems, somehow, that every five years finds me back again, so you can expect me back at it again once more in 1941. Probably in 1976, when they are celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, or what ever it is, 40 years from now, I'll still be farewelling. I should apologize for being here, but I am a man among Yankees, and they take promises with a grain of salt – in fact they usually take them home and pickle them in brine, so they probably knew I'd be back. Besides I have several good excuses – but they really don't count. And besides – and you men who follow horse racing will know what I mean – I'm not running against anyone, they're merely letting me trot around the track." "Farewell, Good Luck, and Merry Christmas."See also

References

Sources
 Cook, Doris E., Sherlock Holmes & Much More (The Connecticut Historical Society, 1970). Doyle, Arthur Conan, & Jack Tracy, editor, Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha (Houghton Mifflin; 1st ed., 1980). Haining, Peter, The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Apocryphile Press, 2005). Zecher, Henry, <mask>, America's Sherlock Holmes (Xlibris Press, 2011). External links

 <mask> Introduction
 The Baker Street Journal – writings about Sherlock Holmes
 Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, Connecticut

 Portrait of <mask>; University of Washington, Sayre collection
 <mask>ette Portrait gallery; NY Public Library, Billy Rose collection
 <mask>ette; PeriodPaper.com about 1910
 Website for biographer Henry Zecher. Theatre posters from performances of Held by the Enemy'' at Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh in 1887

1853 births
1937 deaths
American dramatists and playwrights
American inventors
American male stage actors
American male voice actors
American people of English descent
Actor-managers
Deaths from pulmonary hemorrhage
Male actors from Hartford, Connecticut
People from Greenport, Suffolk County, New York
Writers from Hartford, Connecticut
People from Tryon, North Carolina
Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan

masks:
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William Gillette
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William Powell
William Gillette
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William Gill
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Berkeley William
William Gillette
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William Gill
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<mask> (17 May 1964 – 14 May 1983) was an aspiring Polish poet from Warsaw, who was murdered by members of the Communist police force, the Milicja Obywatelska (Citizens' Militia). His killing was one of many such politically motivated murders perpetrated against democratic opposition by the Communist regime of Poland during the martial law period. Beating and death
<mask>'s mother, Barbara Sadowska, a poet and a member of Workers' Defence Committee, was frequently arrested and questioned by the Polish Secret Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, SB) for her activities in opposition movement. On several occasions officers questioning her made various threats, including suggestions that her only son, <mask>, may be hurt in an accident. The last time she was questioned before the incident was at the end of April 1983. 12 May 1983 was the day of <mask> graduation from a high school, as well as the anniversary of death of Józef Piłsudski, a statesman and leader of Second Polish Republic, considered by communist authorities as a class enemy. Celebration of this date was illegal in Poland and always a cause for concern by the police and the SB.Around 3pm, <mask> <mask> and friends, Cezary Filozof, :pl:Piotr Kadlčik, Igor Bieliński, and Kuba Kotański, left together to celebrate their graduation at the Castle Square in Warsaw Old Town. There at around 5pm, Filozof and Przemyk were stopped by policeman Ireneusz Kościuk, who demanded their identity documents. As they dined, Kościuk called for a police car and forced them inside while beating them with a rubber baton. Kuba and Piotr, who witnessed the events from distance, separated. Piotr ran home to notify Przemyk's mother, while Kotański followed the car to a nearby police station. Standing outside, he heard <mask> howling in pain as he was being beaten. Filozof was with Przemyk the whole time and witnessed two policemen, Kościuk and Krzysztof Dalmata, beating him with a baton.Arkadiusz Denkiewicz, who was the duty officer at the time, came to the room and complained about the noise, instructing them to beat <mask> more quietly, preferably in the stomach. Dalmata then held <mask>'s arms behind his back, while Bogusław Bielec struck him in the stomach with his elbow until Przemyk fell unconscious. The policemen called an ambulance, reporting a "drug-addict" required treatment at psychiatric hospital. The driver, Michał Wysocki, could see that Przemyk was not drugged, but crouched, holding his stomach and unable to walk. Together with paramedic Jacek Szyzdek, they moved him into the ambulance and transported him to a hospital at Hoża street. By that time, Filozof had arrived at the hospital on foot from the police station. Psychiatrist Paweł Willmann then referred the barely conscious Przemyk to a psychiatric hospital for further investigation, explaining a gastric lavage would be performed and he would "soon get better".<mask>'s mother arrived and insisted on taking him home, fearing abuse known to be typical at the psychiatric facilities at that time. At home, <mask>, feeling better, relayed how he was beaten by the policemen, while an officer advised to "beat in the stomach to leave no traces". On 13 May, <mask> again started feeling poorly and was seen by two doctors. The second one suspected liver injury and called for immediate transport to Solec hospital for surgery. By 11pm, <mask> was still conscious and explained to the surgeon he was "beaten in the stomach until he lost consciousness" and that it happened at a police station. He was operated on during the night, only to confirm severe and irreversible gastrointestinal perforation. <mask> died in an intensive care unit at 1pm on 14 May.The news about his death quickly spread, and by the evening, Sadowska's house was already guarded by a number of policemen, preventing friends arriving with condolences from entering. On 15 May, the information reached underground and international media (BBC, RFE, Voice of America), but was not reported in the Polish media. An opposition writer and poet Wiktor Woroszylski wrote an open letter to the prime minister Mieczysław Rakowski calling for a fair and transparent investigation. Rakowski noted in his private diary that, taking into account the activities of Sadowska, the security service might have "taught her son a lesson". The opinion that the incident was SB's revenge on Sadowska was also widespread in opposition circles at that time. On 17 May, a state newspaper, Życie Warszawy, published a short note about "two drunk and aggressive men" met by police officers at the Square who required an ambulance as they "had injuries". The note did not mention their arrest and detention at the police station.Cezary Filozof went into hiding, as it became obvious the investigation would be manipulated and he was the most important witness to the beating. <mask>'s funeral on 19 May, which took place at the Powązki Cemetery, and which was celebrated by Jerzy Popiełuszko, turned into a spontaneous demonstration against the Communist regime, attended by 20,000-60,000 people marching in silence. Cover-up operation
On 20 May, at Ministry of Internal Affairs, the minister Czesław Kiszczak held a closed meeting to plan the government's response to the scandal. One of the officers, Romuald Zajkowski, presented results of an internal investigation concluding that this is "a purely criminal case rather than a political one", which may lead to "conviction of a few sadists in the police force" at worst, suggesting a regular investigation by law enforcement institutions. This was however fiercely protested by general Józef Beim, head of the police, who did not agree to "sacrifice his men". Shortly after, Kiszczak decided that the investigation must be controlled and lead to conviction of the paramedics, while policemen should not even appear as suspects. Prosecutor general Franciszek Rusak, however, published a note in Życie Warszawy mentioning the start of an investigation to "determine the mechanism of injuries" <mask> suffered.This caused a very aggressive reaction from Kiszczak and his deputy Władysław Ciastoń, who threatened Rusak and requested that their version be presented from the very beginning. Having read the note, Cezary Filozof reported himself to the prosecutor's office on 23 May and produced a detailed witness statement, which was fully consistent with the forensic pathology reports already received by Rusak. On 24 May a meeting was held at the Polish United Workers' Party central with the prime minister, ministers and other key figures where a strategy of dealing with the upcoming scandal was discussed. Jerzy Urban advised the case needed to be carefully handled to avoid turning <mask> into a "martyr". He suggested covering it up with publication of possibly compromising wiretaps of Lech Wałęsa thus weakening the strong opinions about police brutality, and by promoting the doctors' possible culpability. He also suggested suspending the two policemen responsible, so as to calm the situation. This was again met with a very aggressive response from Kiszczak.Eventually, the Party issued a statement "fully supporting" the Interior Ministry in the rise of "opposition's unprecedented attacks". Wojciech Jaruzelski explained to Rakowski that <mask> was a drug-addict. Over the coming months the Citizens' Militia and the SB Service rolled out a full-scale operation involving pressuring witnesses as well as prosecutors, collecting and publishing compromising information about <mask>, his family and friends, using wiretaps, active measures, harassment, silent calls, confidential informers etc. These steps were suggested by two professors, Włodzimierz Szewczuk and Józef Borgosz, who consulted for the security service. They also invented a karate fight between <mask> and Filozof, which was promoted for a while to compromise the statement of Kuba Kotański, implying the agonized screams of Przemyk where really "karate screams". On 30 June, the prosecution, after completing most medical analyses and witness interviews, planned to reveal indictments against the two policemen, Ireneusz Kościuk and Arkadiusz Denkiewicz (beating to death) and two doctors Bronisław Jasicki and Paweł Willmann (medical negligence). Paramedics Michał Wysocki and Jacek Szyzdek were also suspected of possibly beating <mask> in the ambulance or lift, but on 4 July these versions were determined to be impossible after an investigation.In none of the locations was there sufficient space to apply sufficient force to cause the injuries suffered by Przemyk, and there were no witnesses of any misconduct by the paramedics. On 6 July, the SB succeeded in transferring the investigation from the district prosecutor's office to the regional office, where  prosecutor Anna Jackowska was assigned and supervised by :pl:Wiesława Bardonowa, well known for her compliance with SB needs in political trials and anti-opposition bias. Deputy prosecutor general Henryk Pracki, however, still wanted to include witness statement by Cezary Filozof as it considered it to be logical and consistent with other evidence. Pressure from Kiszczak on Pracki continued during numerous other high-level meetings with the Party leadership. Selecting the paramedics' misconduct as primary cover-up version, SB launched a country-wide campaign against general ambulance personnel and paramedics, highlighting real and invented cases of negligence or petty theft against patients. This prepared the ground for arrest of Wysocki and Szyzdek. At the same time SB intensified pressure on the family of Cezary Filozof, threatening his parents and relatives with tax-evasion investigations, termination of employment and closing their small businesses.As part of the pressure, :pl:Maciej Bednarkiewicz, the lawyer representing Sadowska, was arrested in unrelated and fabricated case. SB also forced early retirement of another lawyer involved, :pl:Władysław Siła-Nowicki, as well as the prosecutor Henryk Pracki. SB also cooperated with Ministry of Defence to force conscription of Cezary Filozof with the intent to isolate him from the investigation and possibly silence him with an accident during military training. Filozof was under permanent surveillance with over 240 officers involved in discrediting him. The group operated on the orders of chief of police general Józef Beim, coordinated by captain Zdzisław Chwaszcz. 12 friends and relatives of Filozof were recruited as informants. Similar measures were applied to Barbara Sadowska.Both, however, held to their witness statements. Paramedics Wysocki and Szyzdek were eventually arrested for fabricated crimes and SB continued to pressure them into confession while in detention. SB officer Jacek Ziółkowski, personally Wysocki's friend, manipulated him into confession, threatening his children. In November, another forensic pathology opinion is produced by professor Zdzisław Marek which confirmed, in spite of pressure from SB, that <mask> could have been beaten only at the police station, which further weakened the version of events promoted by the authorities. Their witness statements also barely confirmed any use of force by paramedics or doctors and Wysocki's behavior while interviewed by the prosecutor gave reason to believe the confession was extorted, as it is completely inconsistent with forensic evidence. Trial
In December, the indictment was ready to be passed to the court for trial. SB, however, disputed it and managed to soften some of the claims, criticising the prosecution for "still believing that <mask> was beaten at the police station".In April 1984, prosecutor Rusek was replaced by Józef Żyta, who vigorously proceeded to remove traces of Kościuk and Denkiewicz from the indictment. To that end, officer Stanisław Wyciszczak was assigned to devise every possible argument to present the most damning witness statements of Filozof and Kotański as unreliable. The forensic evidence, however, was still there, as the experts refused to modify it to suit the police's version. Kiszczak made one more attempt to pressure prosecutor Gonciarz to remove the policemen from the indictment, which he refused to do and resigned from his position in protest. As result, the indictment was left unsigned, and thus formally incomplete. As a workaround, an unrelated prosecutor Anna Jackowska signed it after changing the qualification of policemen's actions to simple "beating" while the paramedics were indicted of the much more serious "fatal beating". The two doctors were previously indicted for "negligence".The trial started on 31 May and attracted broad attention of international media, but was only briefly reported on Polish TV. On the first day Barbara Sadowska resigned from her role of subsidiary prosecutor in protest of the biased indictment. Wysocki withdrew his previous confession during the trial, but Szyzdek maintained it. Kościuk and Denkiewicz pleaded not guilty and refused any further explanations. Witnesses Filozof and Kotański held their statements of the beating they had witnessed at the police station. Forensic expert Zdzisław Marek also held his opinion that <mask> acquired his fatal injuries at the police station. A number of witnesses, including doctors, paramedics, and <mask>'s friends independently confirmed that immediately after the incident <mask> said he was beaten by policemen.Each of these was however "balanced" by statements of large number of policemen, both related and unrelated to the case, repeating identical statements about "karate screams" and "suspect behavior" of <mask>'s group at the Square. Two unrelated prison doctors, Józef Mielczarek and Stanisław Krzak, were called to testify as medical experts and presented fantastic theories about mental disorders <mask> must have suffered which, as they claimed, were proven by the fact that he initially denied giving his documents to policemen when ordered. As noted by many witnesses, during the whole trial prosecutor Bardonowa behaved in a way that has been described as "being the most dedicated defender of the suspected policemen, while taking any attempt to prosecute the victims". On 9 July, Szyzdek unexpectedly withdrew his confession about Wysocki beating <mask>. Nevertheless, on 10 July, prosecutor Bardonowa delivered her final speech, repeating all the statements supporting official versions, withdrawn or otherwise, and ignoring witness statements by Filozof, Kotański and the forensic experts. On 16 July, Judges Janusz Jankowski, Andrzej Lewandowski and Ewa Gutowska-Sawczuk acquitted Kościuk and Denkiewicz. The doctors Jasicki and Willman were considered guilty of non-intentional negligence, and remitted.The paramedics were the only ones convicted to 2 years in prison for the "brutal treatment of the patient". But after about a month, they were silently amnestied and released. They lost their jobs, however, and suffered from depression in the aftermath. Their convictions were rendered invalid in 1989 after the fall of communist regime

Relationship with Popiełuszko murder
Shortly after, in October 1984, a priest Jerzy Popiełuszko was murdered by <mask> Piotrowski, an officer of the SB Secret Service. Mieczysław Rakowski made a note in his personal diary on that subject that the acquittal of the policemen "might have only encouraged Piotrowski and his friends". Repeated investigations and trial at The Institute of National Remembrance
Przemyk's investigation was restarted in 1993 after the fall of communism with his father Leopold Przemyk as subsidiary prosecutor. The case against the policemen dragged on for years and in 2010, after a number of appeals, it was eventually remitted due to expiration, leaving Arkadiusz Denkiewicz as the only convict.<mask> filed a case then with European Court of Human Rights, which in 2013 decided that none of the Poland's investigations in this case were intentionally delayed. In 1998, another investigation against Czesław Kiszczak was started by the Institute of National Remembrance for interfering with the original investigation from 1983. This prosecution collected a large amount of evidence, but the case was also eventually remitted in 2012 after years of legal battles. On 3 May 2008 <mask> was posthumously awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, by the late President of Poland Lech Kaczyński. The song "Over My Dead Body" from the 1984 album "Meltdown" from Christian recording artist Steve Taylor was dedicated to the memory of <mask> <mask>. References

Sources
 Gazeta.pl, <mask>, Grzegorz (1964-1983)
 Polskie Radio, 25 years after the death of 19-year-old <mask> Przemyk
 IPN, Archive photographs from the funeral of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko at the Institute of National Remembrance website

1964 births
1983 deaths
Writers from Warsaw
Assassinated Polish people
Burials at Powązki Cemetery
Deaths by beating in Europe
People murdered in Poland
Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta
20th-century Polish poets

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<mask>  (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806. Early life
<mask> was born on 3 August 1746 at Weeford, near Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. Early classical career
<mask> spent six years in Italy, 1762–68, in company with Richard Bagot of Staffordshire, who was Secretary to the Earl of Northampton's embassy to the Venetian Republic. In Venice, <mask> studied with Antonio Visentini (1688–1782) as an architectural draughtsman and painter. In Rome he made measured drawings of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, "being under the necessity of lying on his back on a ladder slung horizontally, without cradle or side-rail, over a frightful void of 300 feet". Back in England, his selection as architect of the proposed Pantheon or "Winter Ranelagh" in Oxford Street, London, brought him almost unparalleled instant success.His brother Samuel was one of the principal promoters of the scheme, and it was doubtless due to him that the designs of a young and almost unknown architect were accepted by the committee. When the Pantheon was opened in 1772, their choice was at once endorsed by the fashionable public: Horace Walpole pronounced it to be "the most beautiful edifice in England". Externally it was unremarkable, but the classicising domed hall surrounded by galleried aisles and apsidal ends was something new in assembly rooms, and brought its architect immediate celebrity. The design was exhibited at the Royal Academy, private commissions followed, and at the age of 26 <mask> found himself a fashionable domestic architect and on 27 August 1770 an Associate of the Royal Academy. His polished manners secured him friends as well as patrons among the great, and when it was rumoured that he was about to leave the country to become architect to Catherine II of Russia, a group of English noblemen is said to have offered him a retaining fee of £1,200 to remain in their service. His major neoclassical country houses include Heaton Hall near Manchester (1772), Heveningham Hall in Suffolk (circa 1788–99),  and Castle Coole in Ireland, as well as Packington Hall in Staffordshire, the home of the Levett family for generations, and Dodington Park in Gloucestershire for the Codrington family. On 15 February 1785 <mask> was elected an Academician of the Royal Academy, his diploma work being a drawing of the Darnley Mausoleum.Later classical work
In later years, he carried out alterations at Frogmore for Queen Charlotte, and was made Surveyor-General of the Works. In about 1800, he was commissioned to carry out alterations to Windsor Castle which would probably have been much more considerable had it not been for the King's illness, and in 1802 he designed for the King the "strange castellated palace" at Kew which was remarkable for the extensive employment of cast iron in its construction. Between 1805 and 1808 <mask> remodelled West Dean House in West Dean, West Sussex. <mask>'s work was remarkable because it is built entirely of flint, even to the door and window openings, which would normally be lined with stone. In 1776, <mask> succeeded Henry Keene as Surveyor to Westminster Abbey (in which year he was appointed Elizabeth, Countess of Home's architect on Home House, though he was sacked and replaced by Robert Adam a year later). In 1782 he became, in addition, Architect of the Ordnance. The death of Sir William Chambers brought him the post of Surveyor General and Comptroller of the Works in 1796.<mask> was now the principal architect of the day, the recipient of more commissions than he could well fulfil. His widespread practice and the duties of his official posts left him little time to give proper attention to the individual needs of his clients. As early as 1790, when he was invited to submit designs for rebuilding St Chad's Church at Shrewsbury, he broke his engagements with such frequency that the committee "became at length offended, and addressed themselves to Mr. George Stewart". In 1804, Jeffry <mask> told Farington that his uncle had lost "many great commissions" by such neglect. When approached by a new client, he would at first take the keenest interest in the commission, but when the work was about to begin he would lose interest in it and "employ himself upon trifling professional matters which others could do". His conduct of official business was no better than his treatment of his private clients, and there can be no doubt that it was <mask>'s irresponsible habits which led to the reorganization of the Board of Works after his death, as a result of which the Surveyor's office was placed in the hands of a political chief assisted by three "attached architects". <mask> was a brilliant but facile designer, whose work is not characterized by any markedly individual style.At the time he began practice the fashionable architects were the brothers Adam, whose style of interior decoration he proceeded to imitate with such success that they complained of plagiarism in the introduction to their Works in Architecture, which appeared in 1773. Many years later <mask> himself told George III that "there had been no regular architecture since Sir William Chambers – that when he came from Italy he found the public taste corrupted by the Adams, and he was obliged to comply with it". Much of <mask>'s classical work is, in fact, in a chastened Adam manner with ornaments in Coade stone and Etruscan-style medallions executed in many cases by the painter Biagio Rebecca, who was also employed by his rivals. It was not until towards the end of his life that he and his brother Samuel (with whom must be associated their nephew Lewis) developed the severe and fastidious style of domestic architecture which is characteristic of the <mask> manner at its best. But among <mask>'s earlier works there are several (e.g., the Christ Church gateway and the mausoleum at Cobham) which show a familiarity with Chambers' Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture, and so permit the belief that if his artistic integrity had been greater <mask> might have continued the Chambers tradition instead of falling in with the "corrupt taste" of the brothers Adam. Had he been given the opportunity of designing some great public building, it is possible that he would have shown himself a true disciple of Chambers; but his career as a government architect coincided with the Napoleonic wars, and his premature death deprived him of participation in the metropolitan improvements of the reign of George IV. Gothic architecture

Meanwhile, <mask>'s reputation as a rival to Robert Adam had been eclipsed by his celebrity as a Gothic architect.Every Georgian architect was called upon from time to time to produce designs in the medieval style, and <mask> was by no means the first in the field. However, whereas his predecessors had merely Gothicized their elevations by the addition of battlements and pointed windows, <mask> went further and exploited to the full the picturesque qualities of medieval architecture by irregular grouping and the addition of towers and spires to his silhouettes. Never, indeed, have the romantic possibilities of Gothic architecture been more strikingly demonstrated than they were by <mask> at Fonthill Abbey and Ashridge; and although crude in scale and often unscholarly in detail, these houses are among the landmarks of the Gothic revival in England. In his lifetime <mask> enjoyed the reputation of having "revived in this country the long forgotten beauties of Gothic architecture", but the real importance of his Gothic work lay in the manner in which it bridged the gap between the rococo Gothic of the mid 18th century and the serious medievalism of the early 19th century. Of his cathedral restorations, inspired as they were by the mistaken idea that a medieval church ought to be homogeneous in style and unencumbered by screens, monuments, and other obtrusive relics of the past, it can only be said that the Chapters who employed him were no more enlightened than their architect, and that at Westminster Abbey at least he accomplished an urgent work of repair in an unexceptionable manner. His activities at Salisbury, Durham, Hereford, and Lichfield were bitterly criticized by John Carter in his Pursuits of Architectural Innovation, and it was due in large measure to Carter's persistent denunciation that, in 1796, <mask> failed to secure election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. In the following year, however, he was permitted to add F.S.A.to his name by a majority of one hundred and twenty-three votes. <mask> was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785, and took an active part in the politics of the Academy. In 1803 he was one of the members of the Council which attempted to assert its independence of the General Assembly of Academicians, and when the resultant dissensions led Benjamin West to resign the Presidency in the following year, it was <mask> who was elected to take his place. But his election was never formally approved by the King, and in the following year he appears to have acquiesced in West's resumption of office. <mask> was one of the founders of the Architects' Club in 1791, and sometimes presided at its meetings at the Thatched House Tavern. In 1802 <mask> built a new house for the 7th Earl of Bridgewater on the Ashridge estate in Hertfordshire which is now a Grade I listed building. In 1803 Thomas Johnes hired <mask> to design Saint Michel's Hafod Church, Eglwys Newydd, in Ceredigion, Wales.Family and death
<mask> died on 4 September 1813 as the result of an accident to the carriage in which he was travelling over the Marlborough Downs with his friend and employer, Christopher Bethell-Codrington of Dodington Park. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. He left a widow and four sons, of whom the eldest, Benjamin Dean, and the youngest, Philip, were notable architects. Matthew Cotes (1777–1862), the second son, became a well-known sculptor, whose best work is the bronze statue of George III in Cockspur Street off Trafalgar Square. Charles, the third son, was for a time in the service of the East India Company at Calcutta, but returned to England in 1801; nothing is known of his later career. Pupils and employees
He had many pupils, of whom the following is an incomplete list: William Atkinson; W. Blogg; H. Brown; Joseph Dixon (perhaps a son of the draughtsman); John Foster, junior of Liverpool; J. M. Gandy; C. Humfrey; Henry Kitchen; W. Sanderson; R. Smith; Thomas and John Westmacott; M. Wynn; and his sons Benjamin and <mask>. Michael Gandy and P. J. Gandy-Deering were also in his office for a time.<mask>'s principal draughtsman was Joseph Dixon, who, according to Farington, had been with him from the time of the building of the Pantheon. List of architectural works
<mask>'s known works include the following. The Royal Academy has drawings for the mausoleums at Brocklesby Park and Cobham Hall. An album of <mask>'s sketches, in the possession of the Vicomte de Noailles, contains designs for chandeliers, torchères, vases, etc., a plan for Lord Courtown, etc. Those for Slane Castle are in the Murray Collection of the National Library of Ireland. Portrayals
There is a portrait in the RIBA library, and a pencil portrait by George Dance is in the Library of the Royal Academy. The National Portrait Gallery has a bronze bust of <mask> by John Charles Felix Rossi.See also
 <mask> family

Footnotes

References
   (1954): A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 1660–1840, Harvard, pp. 722 and onwards. (2012): Woolwich – Survey of London, Volume 48, Yale Books, London. (online text)

External links

 <mask>'s biography at Beckfordiana, the website for resources on the life and work of William Beckford of Fonthill. <mask> & the Palace of Westminster - UK Parliament Living Heritage
 Packington Hall, Home of Rev. Thomas Levett, Whittington, Staffordshire, ca 1900

18th-century English architects
British neoclassical architects
Deaths by horse-riding accident in England
1746 births
1813 deaths
Royal Academicians
Road incident deaths in England
Burials at Westminster Abbey
People associated with Sandleford, Berkshire
Architects from Staffordshire
James

masks:
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