回复：The Jeremy Brett Archive

Rebecca - 1979 (Mini-series)
On Approval - 1980 (Play)
The Tragedy of Macbeth - 1981   (Play)
The Good Soldier - 1981
这三段已附在相关视频帖内
The Morte d'Arthur - 1984
In 1984, Jeremy Brett played one of his most unusual roles: King Arthur. Now, what's so unusual about King Arthur? Many other actors had previously spoken or sang the role. However, JB portrayed the legendary king without saying a word in The Morte d'Arthur, a BBC2 TV production based on Sir Thomas Malory's 15th-century work of the same title. An actor portraying Malory read the tale over the soundtrack as JB and other performers mimed its events and emotions.
This unique vision of The Morte d'Arthur was the brainchild of director Gillian Lynne (who had also directed and choreographed Cats on the stage). In an article in Radio Times, Ms. Lynne revealed that she chose Jeremy Brett to play the king because "...he had the right kind of nobility in his face for Arthur, and the right kind of gentleness."
But, Jeremy wasn't too sure how he would work without words. Quoted in the same Radio Times article, he confessed:
"I find, as an actor, being without words is almost impossible to bear. I feel deprived. So I learned all the Arthur speeches to give me some meat to feed on...It's been complex, it's been dangerous, you hope that the effect of the flood of emotion you show through the brooding look isn't too grotesque..."
Speaking of "grotesque," JB's Arthur meets a grisly end in The Morte d'Arthur.
After spearing his illegitimate son, Mordred, Arthur is in turn mortally wounded when the dying Mordred thrusts the king's spear back into his head.
Incidentally, Mordred was played by Nickolas Grace, who worked with Jeremy again in The Master Blackmailer (as Bertrand, the blackmailer's French henchman).
After Jeremy's passing, Grace recalled that during the filming of their final scene in The Morte d'Arthur, JB had asked him to strike his helmet harder, so Arthur's death would look more realistic. Grace complied, but then JB screamed out in pain and claimed that the blow had driven his contact lens into his eye.
However, JB said he didn't blame Grace for potentially blinding him, because he had asked Grace to hit him harder! Grace also remembered that Jeremy threw a tantrum on the set when the film wasn't completed on time. JB immediately apologized, though, sweetly explaining that he'd just needed to vent his frustration! (After all, he had all those words pent up inside of him....) ;->
Apparently, The Morte d'Arthur is not available on VHS or DVD, so we can only hope it's waiting in the BBC's vaults for a "once and future" release.


JBTV - Part III
SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MAN WHO BECAME JEREMY BRETT
At last, our journey into Jeremy Brett's television career reaches his best known characterization: Sherlock Holmes.
When Jeremy first assumed the role, he had reservations about playing such a well-known character. However, he probably had no clue his fresh yet faithful interpretation would enchant most viewers and enrage others.
Few performances have sparked more heated debate than Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes:
"Jeremy Brett is the best Sherlock Holmes that I have ever seen. If you love the great Victorian detective, or just want to see what he looks like when he is perfectly played, you should not miss Brett's artistic triumph." -- Philadelphia
Inquirer TV critic Lee Winfrey
"An abomination." -- author Marvin Kaye
"The Holmes of my youth." -- Dame Jean Conan Doyle (late daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"A bad Holmes." --Boston Globe TV critic Ed Siegel
"Of the scores of actors who have portrayed Holmes, it is commonly said that Brett's only real competition is Basil Rathbone...Rathbone was elegantly understated, embodying the icy reserve of Holmes, but Brett has gone the other way--he is fearlessly florid, grandly melodramatic in a way that matches the tone of Conan Doyle's prose." -- Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly, 12/6/91.
"Conan Doyle only hinted at what Jeremy Brett brought out. [Brett] played Holmes as deeply neurotic. That was crucial. Both Basil Rathbone and Brett made [Holmes] more interesting than he came off in the stories."--Caleb Carr (author of The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness)
"...so long as Brett was in it, The Adventure of the Successful Selfridges Food Hall Expedition would probably suit me perfectly well."--Lynn Truss, London Times (3/5/94)
As you may have already guessed, I'm in Brett's corner. Why? Well, I actually had a pretty poor perception of Sherlock Holmes when I was growing up. Sherlock Holmes was that chap who appeared in grainy black-and-white on local TV's "Saturday Matinee" when they weren't showing Jungle Jim or Bowery Boys movies.
You know--the guy in the goofy hat who went around sternly puffing on a pipe and declaiming, "Elementary!" (Did he ever make it to junior high?) And, there was his doughty old assistant, Dr. Watson. (How did this doofus ever make it through medical school?)
Sorry--that's all I had to go on. None of those old "Saturday Matinee" flicks prompted me to even consider reading a genuine Holmes story, nor did any of the awful pastiches which occasionally popped up in prime-time (e.g., Sherlock Holmes in New York).
中间有一些作者本人主观的内容，不再引述。这里只尽量摘述一些相对客观的资料。
By now I'm sure we all know Jeremy was laboring under tremendous emotional and physical stress while filming most of the Granada Holmes series. (See "Later Stages," TBE, Vol.III, #3). How Jeremy managed to act (or even survive) during this time is the greatest mystery of all to me. He gave life to Sherlock Holmes as his own life was tragically ebbing away. Yet, although he literally acted his heart out, Jeremy Brett apparently never won (or was even nominated for) any major acting awards for his bravura performance.
Furthermore, the series was compromised by staff changes, industry politics and budget cuts during its decade-long run. The show even lost its lovingly constructed Baker Street set, which Granada Television converted into a tourist attraction while the series was still in production.
However, despite the turmoil offscreen, I still think what ended up onscreen is one of the best television programs of any kind ever produced. It's truly "must see TV."
And, that's what matters to me. It really isn't necessary to be a Sherlockian or a Brett fan to enjoy Granada's Sherlock Holmes series. It's only necessary to watch it.


EARLY STAGES
The cue bells sound, alerting theatregoers that the play is about to start--time to take their seats. The house lights dim. The curtain goes up.
A tall, slender, handsome young man walks onto the stage. His name might be Mercury, or Troilus; Roderick, or Ron; Peter, or Reverend Highfield--or even Hamlet. He moves with patrician grace and speaks in a regal, cultured voice.
Who is this chap? Programmes rustle. Ah, here it is--"Mr. Jeremy Brett."
Long before Jeremy Brett portrayed the Sherlock Holmes we came to know and admire, he had a successful and distinguished career on the stage. His stage career spanned 35 years. During that time, Jeremy performed in plays ranging from the classic to the avant-garde; from grave drama to light comedy; and, he was privileged to work with some of the greatest names in international theatre.


Unfortunately, because of the ephemeral nature of the theatre--plays open and close, and many aren't recorded for future generations to enjoy--most of us never had the opportunity to experience Jeremy's theatrical performances. What follows is a glimpse at what we missed:
In 1951, Jeremy entered London's Central School of Speech and Drama, While at the Central School, Jeremy adopted the stage name of "Brett" and made his feature film debut in Svengali, starring Donald Wolfit and Hildegarde Neff.


Although his name is not in the credits, Jeremy played a French art student in this obscure version of the famous Svengali story.
Before leaving the Central School in 1954, Jeremy participated in the annual "matinee" performance and received what may have been his earliest review in the Times of London:


"The annual matinee by students of the Central School of Speech and Drama is always worth watching, and the performance at the Scala Theatre yesterday afternoon, which went to Shaw, Moliere, Mr. O'Casey, Mr. Maugham, and Henry Arthur Jones for its excerpts, once again introduced two or three young actors whom one would like, and rather expects, to see again. Of the 英雄 and 女英雄 of the afternoon there was no doubt whatever. The scene from The Misanthrope, in Mr. Miles Malleson's translation, had not been under way five minutes before it was plain that the brilliant bickering of Celimene and Alceste proceeded from a mutual affection as deep as it was differently expressed. It is not impossible
to drill young actors into stylish performances, but when the characters begin to show between the lines, as Miss Wendy Craig and Mr. Jeremy Brett discovered Celimene and Alceste to yesterday's audience, we may be sure that it is the work only of strong natural talent. Since even good actors are better in some parts than in others, and may be quite bad in parts which do not suit them, it is the sensible custom at these matinees to show most of the performers in more than one role. Mr. Brett was fortunate in having, in the part of the disappointed host in the second act of The Liars, a part that suited him, and it must be said
that the second act of The Liars was fortunate in having him." :)

Troilus and Cressida re-joined the repertory in late December. Although it premiered last, it was hardly least. Troilus was the production which generated most of the publicity and reviews during the Old Vic's stint on the Great White Way.
And, no wonder. The Old Vic's Troilus and Cressida was staged both in London and New York by Tyrone Guthrie, the famed theatrical director who had encouraged Jeremy to attend the Central School. Guthrie was known for his unconventional stagings, and this production was no exception. Some reviews described this version of   Troilus and Cressida as having an "Edwardian" setting, circa 1912. (In the play's program, Guthrie sets the date at "just before 1914.")
However, elements of other eras were evident, as well. Some scenes seemed to take place in no particular era at all. Part of the cast wore Edwardian apparel; others wore Graustarkian garb; still others wore suits of armor. Guthrie wasn't overly reverential toward the material: directing Jeremy and Rosemary in a scene, he advised, "This is where Shakespeare needs a little help."
Critics didn't know what to make of this Troilus and Cressida. Brooks Atkinson called it "Mr. Guthrie's practical joke." He had kinder words for Jeremy: "Jeremy Brett's youthful, eager Troilus, who can hardly believe Cressida's treachery, is...a first-rate bit of straightforward acting."
Debuting on Broadway was a magical experience for Jeremy. He and his co-stars were caricatured by cartoonist Al Hirschfeld for the New York Times. (No, Jeremy's likeness didn't contain the "NINA"--that honor went to Coral Browne.)
They were also sketched by caricaturist Sam Norkin (see above).  
Jeremy later told an interviewer about a star-studded party he attended with Rosemary Harris in New York. After going from room to room and glimpsing celebrity after celebrity--Edward G. Robinson, Charles Laughton, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, the Gish sisters, Judy Garland, Stanley Holloway--Jeremy told his leading lady he was going to lock himself in the kitchen because he was afraid if he saw any more stars, he'd faint!
JB (center) enjoys a performance by entertainer Burl Ives along with other Old Vic players including Claire Bloom and John Neville (right). This photo was presumably snapped during the Old Vic's Broadway run in 1956, when Ives was portraying "Big Daddy" in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.
In early 1957, the tour traveled to other US cities including Boston,
Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Jeremy debuted on US television on March 4, 1957, as "Paris" in Romeo and Juliet. (John Neville and Claire Bloom played the title roles.) This NBC broadcast also marked the Old Vic's debut on US television, and was the last stop on their 1956-'57 tour.  
Accent on Youth
After his tour with the Old Vic company, Jeremy returned to England. In 1957, he appeared (and sang) at London's Aldwych Theatre as "Roderick" in the period musical Meet Me By Moonlight. This production also ran briefly at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. A reviewer for the Cambridge Daily News described Roderick as "a young man, played in a very bronzed and personable way by Jeremy Brett, who is so Byronic and romantic that he nightly leaps a ten-foot garden wall and presents the object of his elevated desires with a rose from her own father's garden, when all the house is asleep."


It wasn't exactly West Side Story, and most reviewers didn't rave about the play, although they seemed to like Jeremy's performance. In fact, The Daily Mail stated, "Jeremy Brett...displays a compelling stage presence that holds much of the play's action together."
The Times of London said, "Mr. Jeremy Brett plays the vicar with sincerity, and sings his not very taking songs well, but some of his lines are terribly parsonical, such as 'I don't smoke myself, but I keep a few [cigarettes] for my friends,' or 'We must find you lads something interesting to do on these long evenings.'"
And, from the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post: "Jeremy Brett, in particular, deserves credit for his presentation of Highfield. The danger in acting a man who will not tell a lie to save a friend is manifest; one touch of priggishness and the sympathy of the audience is lost. Mr. Brett gives him the honourable simplicity which convinces us that for him only one course of action is possible. Also, and this is a surprise to me at least, he sings acceptably."


Unfortunately, Johnny the Priest was a bust at the box office. It lost a whopping 25,000 pounds in just 11 days at the 王子Theatre in London, and, not surprisingly, closed after only 14 performances. It also marked Jeremy Brett's last appearance in a British stage musical until 1977 (when he starred in Robert and Elizabeth). Although Jeremy loved to sing onstage and off, an unwritten code of the British theatre was "Serious actors don't do musicals."
Jeremy personally thought such distinctions were "stupid," but, he wished to be taken seriously as an actor. Also in 1960, he acted in Donald Howarth's All Good Children, which examined the problems of a permissive society. And, in 1961 he appeared as "Alsemero" in the English Stage Company's Royal Court production of Thomas Middleton's The Changeling (which, incidentally, was the first time this Jacobean tale of lust and murder had been professionally presented since the 17th century).   
A Prince Among Players
And, Jeremy's next role was very serious, indeed: Hamlet.
In 1959, Tyrone Guthrie had planned a modern dress version of Hamlet with Jeremy in the cast. However, this production was never staged.  
In 1961, Jeremy played the melancholy Dane for director Frank Hauser on a nearly bare stage at the Oxford Playhouse. His performance was a critical success:
"...The text received full consideration and was delivered with good sense by every speaker, but, as to acting, Jeremy Brett as Hamlet was alone remarkable...Here, everyone was in black or dun and it testified to Jeremy Brett's fitness for the part of the 王子 of Denmark that he did not seem to require greatly the usual sable sartorial distinction. He was manifestly a 王子 among players. His voice was pleasant and pliable, nor did he seem to tire, from his natural surprise and concern at the news of the apparition to the moment of sad realization of Laertes' treachery. Somewhat taller than most, he was 有王子气质 in looks, manner, speech and authority, and had an easy transition of mood..." ("H.G.M.", Theatre World)
"Hamlet was directed with all Frank Hauser's customary refreshingly direct approach to Shakespeare, with its insistence on clear and musical speech so that sound and sense were indivisible, as, ideally, they should be. The Hamlet of Jeremy Brett came like a fresh cooling draught after our recent agonized wanderings in the desert of the Ian Bannen-Peter Wood Hamlet at Stratford-upon-Avon. Here was a Hamlet youthful, 有王子气质的, embittered, passionate in his vengeance-seeking, mordantly witty in his encounters with Polonius and in the play scene yet, albeit, a man of whom Ophelia could very conceivably have referred to as 'the expectancy and rose of the fair state'--a man who in voice and mien suggested a royal personage.
"Mr. Brett's speaking of the language had a consistently fine and expressive musicality--I do not think in recent years I have heard the soliloquy 'How all occasions do inform against me'-- spoken with such a range of nuance and such flexibility of rhythm." (Frank Dibb, Plays and Players).  


Someone's in The Kitchen with Jeremy
(actress Sandra Caron, 1961)
In 1963, Jeremy performed at the Chichester Festival Theatre, portraying "Dunois" in Shaw's Saint Joan (Joan Plowright played the title role). The Chichester Festival cast also performed St. Joan at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963.
Jeremy as "Dunois" in Saint Joan, 1963
At Chichester, Jeremy also portrayed "Maurice Sweetman" in John Arden's The Workhouse Donkey, which premiered July 8, 1963. Donkey, a play about political corruption in a West Yorkshire industrial town, is difficult to categorize. Was it a drama? A comedy? A melodrama? A musical? (All of the above?)
Jeremy later described The Workhouse Donkey to an interviewer: "It was a good, serious, profound play, and it kept the customers away in droves, while Joanie [Joan Plowright] in St. Joan packed them in."
John Arden saw The Workhouse Donkey as "...a straightforward classical comedy in structure. It's based on the sort of Jonsonian type of comedy in which you get a fairly large cast, a contemporary theme with social comment in it and then an elaboration of plot which is not realistic but fantastic, ending up in a sort of classical shape to the play--you know, the various threads of the plot culminating in a big scene at the end, for instance, in which everybody's exposed, and the use of verse to give an extra dimension to the goings-on. I'm also using some shreds from English music-hall and pantomime tradition, which are more apparent when the play's staged than when you read it because there is a sort of running musical background to the whole thing, which sometimes becomes the accompaniment to songs and and sometimes is just played behind speech. I call it melodrama in that sense, you know--a play with music. It's not a musical by any manner of means, but it has this integrated music with it."
The reviewer in Plays and Players threw in the towel: "As I have suggested, the plot is so hopelessly involved, and there is so much of it, that we are clearly not intended to take it in detail by detail, turn by turn (which is my excuse for not trying to summarise it here!) but simply to derive from it a general impression of little people scurrying backwards and forwards, grouping and regrouping like ants, while from this intricate pattern emerge two commanding, opposed, but not dissimilar figures, Alderman Charlie Butterthwaithe and Colonel Feng, the chief constable...the rest [of the characters] are modern, they are without principle, they work entirely by expediency from moment to moment;
Butterthwaithe and Feng ...are lost in the present and this is why they are both doomed to defeat."
Anyway...Jeremy's Maurice Sweetman is the son of   Tory Alderman "Sir Harold Sweetman," who also secretly owns the tawdry Copacabana Club. Young Sweetman ends up drunk with a hostess bunny on his lap while Labour Alderman Butterthwaithe is visiting the club. Butterthwaithe has the Copacabana shut down on moral grounds. The elder Sweetman reopens the club as a toney art gallery, but Butterthwaithe stirs up demonstrators against it. The demonstration backfires and Butterthwaithe and the protestors are arrested.


However, Howard Taubman, reviewing the play the day after it opened, said, "As a play, The Deputy is flawed. As a polemic, it is fierce and compelling. Since it wrestles with one of the most important moral issues of our time, it deserves to be seen, debated and taken to heart."
Jeremy's Father Fontana is an Italian Jesuit priest who learns of the Nazi's atrocities while serving in Berlin. At the Vatican, he urges Pope Pius to "...[proclaim] before the world a curse upon the man who slaughters Jews like cattle." When he is unable to convince the pontiff to break his silence, Father Fontana pins on a yellow star and returns to Germany. He is consigned with the Jews to Auschwitz.
Taubman noted, "Jeremy Brett brings fire and dedication to the role of Father Fontana."
In conclusion, Taubman wrote, "Now that The Deputy, which has stirred Europe for the past year, is here, the debate, already begun, will be intensified. Our theater rarely touches on moral issues of this magnitude. For this is a play about choice. Every man, no less than the Pope, must make choices, and the avoidance of choosing is an act of choice itself. The Deputy poses a universal problem in a sensational way." 

The drama taking place outside the Brooks Atkinson on opening night was no less sensational. 这句不能通过，大意是说一些新教徒，犹太人，天主教信奉者（一些类似新纳粹的人）聚集在剧场周围，大喊着口号，剧场里面都能听见. Police blocked off traffic around the theatre for 20 minutes before the curtain rose. Jeremy said The Deputy cast had to show ID badges to be allowed past the police barricades. For safety's sake, the owner of the theatre asked the audience not to go outside during the play's intermission. 

Despite the tension, no violence erupted, and the protesters left before the play ended. (Thereafter, the theatre was searched daily for bombs as a precaution.) In keeping with the The Deputy's serious tone, the cast did not take the customary bows at the play's end.
However, even amidst the gravity of The Deputy, there was a streak of Brettish mischief. In the opening scene of the play, Father Fontana is brought a tray of food to eat. During rehearsals, Jeremy thought the Father should be shown eating the food. But, the play's director, Herman Shumlin, decided Jeremy shouldn't eat anything during the scene. To enforce his decision, Shumlin glued dog biscuits to the tray on opening night. But, Jeremy simply pried off the biscuits and ate them on stage! (He suffered no ill effects.)
Which is not to suggest that Jeremy didn't take his role seriously. In fact, portraying Father Fontana took a serious toll on his life. Jeremy told reporter William Glover in 1964 that had he trouble sleeping and had lost 14 pounds since the play began. "Each performance is a personal experience," the actor explained. "I'm in a state of total absorption. There are moments when I get almost hysterical....A good many people have told me to be objective. Well, try and do it."
Jeremy was greatly disturbed by the atrocities described in the play
("...perhaps the ghost of Auschwitz has appeared to me a little"), but
acknowledged that the subject needed to be dealt with: "I'm a rather idealistic person who would rather not believe that human nature could sink so low. I was most vulnerable to what the play recalls, and I can't get used to it. At the same time, even though it may hurt like hell and be hard to do, if the theater is to survive such topics must be aired."
Even so, Jeremy also realized that The Deputy wasn't the last word on the subject. He told Glover: "In the scene each night with the Pope, I sometimes feel as if the roof of the theater was crashing in. I wish Pius was alive to speak for himself. You can't blame one person for those things that happened just yesterday almost. I only get frightened when I see 18 year-olds in the audience. I just hope that they don't think that the play's viewpoint is the only one that should be heard."
Still, Jeremy felt that if The Deputy reminded people about the destructive power of hate, it could help stop such atrocities from occurring again.
Unfortunately, some people didn't get the message. Jeremy claimed that he'd received threatening letters and phone calls while appearing in the play. He even faced physical danger:
"One day, I was walking along a street when a man came up and asked me if I was Jeremy Brett. Well, you're always glad to meet a fan, so I reached over to take his outstretched hand. Instead of a shake, however, he pulled me past him at the curb. It was unexpected, and I went sprawling in front of a car that stopped just in time."
The Deputy provoked strong emotions and sparked critical and theological debates around the world. In spite of the controversy (or perhaps because of it), The Deputy ran on Broadway for 316 performances. Jeremy left the play in May 1964 to return to England. (David Carradine took over the role of Father Fontana; the play closed on Broadway on November 28, 1964.)


Calmer Circumstances
Back in Britain, Jeremy worked with two of the theatre's great leading ladies, under much calmer circumstances.
Jeremy co-starred with Wendy Hiller as "Gilbert" in A Measure of Cruelty. The plot concerned a wealthy older woman who "buys" a young man's affections. The London Times noted, "Mr. Jeremy Brett especially puts a stylish gloss on the bought young man and his consequent marriage of hatred."
Jeremy then appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Turgenev's A Month in the Country. When the play arrived at London's Cambridge Theatre from the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guilford, Jeremy stepped into the role of "Beliaev," which had been played out-of-town by Daniel Massey, his former brother-in-law. Beliaev is a handsome tutor who comes between aristocratic "Natalia" (played by Ms. Bergman) and "Vera," her young ward. John Higgins, in The Financial Times, wrote glowingly of Jeremy's performance:
"But perhaps most impressive of the newcomers is Jeremy Brett as Beliaev. In a production notable for the way in which each of the actors slides into his role like a hand slipping into a well-fitting glove, Mr. Brett is still outstanding.
His tutor is still basically a student, even a peasant, as the muzhik costume suggests; yet he, like Vera, becomes aware of his sexuality for the first time, his power to move others when they want to stand still. Here is Beliaev, gauche and shy, yet with the quick smile of those who are charming by nature rather than by adoption, and here was the perfect leave-taking--sad, surprised, yet totally courteous."
A reviewer in the Chicago Tribune also noted, "There's no mistaking the potent charm of   Jeremy Brett as the young tutor whose shy smile blows the roof off a dull country house."  
From the plains of Russia to Surrey: Jeremy's next stage role was "Ronnie," the eldest son in Any Just Cause, a domestic drama penned by George Pensotti, a prolific writer, director, teacher, and actor (among his many stage roles was a turn as Freddie Eynsford-Hill in a 1960 production of Pygmalion!) Phyllis Calvert played the mother, "Alice," in Any Just Cause and The London Times reviewer observed, "As her elder son, Ronnie, Jeremy Brett achieves an outstanding piece of characterization as he changes from a dull provincial drifter into a suburban miser."