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The Last Dance
At the end of Granada's The Final Problem, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes is seen plunging into the Reichenbach Falls, locked in the death-grip of Professor Moriarty. Little did anyone know that shortly after this memorable scene was filmed, Jeremy would be gripped by a tragedy which would help plunge him into an emotional maelstrom.
In interviews Jeremy gave in early 1985, there was no hint anything was wrong.
About his decision to perform in America during his Holmes hiatus, Jeremy simply said, "I wanted a holiday...and it was also to be near my wife." However, he had a particularly compelling reason to be near Joan.
As the making of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes wound down, Jeremy knew that Joan had cancer. However, the demanding Holmes filming schedule had kept him from being by her side. Joan thought this may have been best, though.
Jeremy explained in a 1991 interview, "I felt so frustrated that I couldn't be with Joan, although actually she didn't want me around while she was having chemotherapy. She said, 'You're not up to this.'
Joan was correct. Jeremy was so sensitive to his wife's suffering that he fainted the first time he saw her receiving chemotherapy at a Boston clinic:
"I walked into the treatment room and saw the equipment pointing up at her. I just fell apart.
"But what really threw me was a two year-old girl who'd lost all her hair because of the chemotherapy. Seeing Joan and that child together was just too much for me. And I fainted.
"I was such a dead loss. Joan said, 'You mustn't do any more of this; it doesn't do you any good.' I apologised, and in fact I did go again and was better."
Once the Adventures series was completed he was able to spend more time in America. He took on two assignments in New York, which enabled him to stay near Joan and kept him from brooding about her tragic situation.
In April 1985, Jeremy performed as the off-stage narrator of Martha Graham's 28-minute visionary ballet Song, based on "The Song of Solomon" from the Bible and set to music by Gheorghe Zamfir, "King of the Pan Flute" (whose albums were later hawked endlessly on cable television).
Song was the 171st ballet choreographed by Ms. Graham. It was commissioned by fashion icon Halston, who also designed the costumes, and it was dedicated to Lila Acheson Wallace, the co-founder and publisher of Reader's Digest and a major benefactor of the arts and culture.
Song was part of a three-week repertory of Graham's work which ran through April 21, 1985, at the New York State Theatre at the Lincoln Center. The opening night program also included Diversion of Angels, Errand into the Maze and The Rite of Spring, three other ballets by Martha Graham.
The New York Times described this sensuous Song:
"The inspiration is the biblical 'Song of Songs.'   These are love poems, once attributed to Solomon but generally regarded as fragments from a marriage ritual in which the bridal couple acted out the roles of a king and queen. The shepherdess-女英雄 calls herself black in the poems and Miss Graham has cast black dancers in that role - Thea Nerissa Barnes in the first cast, Kim Stroud in the second. The selected lines from the text are recited offstage by the British actor, Jeremy Brett.


All very 1923, but it was a hit in 1985, as well. Aren't We All? would
eventually gross $3,208,200 with a total audience of 98,681 during its limited Broadway run.
And, critics raved about the play and its players. Frank Rich of the New York Times said, "Mr. Brett, in a part played by Leslie Howard on Broadway in 1923, is the most charming specimen of debonair English manhood to come our way since Jeremy Irons skipped town."
Critic Don Freeman of the San Diego Union wrote about how charming Jeremy was offstage, as well:
"Now it is a Wednesday, which to the working actor means a matinee and an evening performance, and between shows we are doing an interview in Jeremy Brett's dressing room at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in New York...Brett, one of the best of a younger crop of British actors, is starring with Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert and Lynn Redgrave in a deliciously witty play, Aren't We All?
A farce dating back to the early '20s, but it is surprisingly modern in point of view and humor as well as exquisitely played. Aren't We All? was a great hit in London [LLO note - JB did not appear in the London production] and now it is a ringing success on our shores.
"As for Jeremy Brett, he's a medium-tall fellow, as lean as a three-wood and with his highly detailed features he still looks like Sherlock Holmes even though he's relaxing in a T-shirt and blue jeans. Moreover, Brett yields to humor with hearty howls of laughter, which I don't recall being an attribute of the dour and cerebral Sherlock."
Jeremy was ecstatic about the success of Aren't We All?:
"The producers had taken the Rainbow Room on opening night. It was April, and the room was full of peach blossoms. Joan looked absolutely radiant, wearing silver and scarlet, and a glorious wig, a facsimile of her hair. And, we danced as the notices flooded by. There was Lynn Redgrave, looking wonderfully Twenties, and darling little Claudette, looking like a girl of 83...and the critics fell at our feet! Frank Rich mentioned me eleven times, I couldn't believe it!"
It was Joan and Jeremy's last dance. 

"And then it all ended in tears because Joan died on July 4th, Independence Day.
I staggered on and finished the play, but the lights were out."
Their busy careers meant that Jeremy and Joan spent only about three months out of the year together. Joan recounted in a 1980 interview, "I spent a week with Jeremy in January. In February, we got together when Mobil threw a party for Masterpiece Theatre. In April, I saw him in London. Mostly, he stays in Los Angeles and I'm here in Boston. We see each other in different places - wherever we happen to be."
Jeremy characterized those scattered precious moments as "a bonfire of fun." He described Joan as "a milkmaid from Wisconsin, really, originally, and a quarter Cherokee, a breathtakingly beautiful woman," and told TV Guide that she "was my confidence. She understood the hell actors go through."
He told another publication, "We had a once-in-a-lifetime love. She was an incredible person, the best wife a man could have. This was the kind of relationship where I would start a sentence and she would finish it. Sometimes you can see behind somebody's eyes and feel as if you have known them all your life. That's how it was."
Jeremy would cherish Joan's memory for the rest of his life. It's easy to see why:
Born in Wisconsin on November 3, 1931 (exactly two years to the day before Jeremy's birth), Joan was the daughter of John Harland and Esther (Stanton) Wilson. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College in Iowa (she would later receive honorary doctorates from Grinnell and from Salem State College in Massachusetts).
Joan arrived in Boston in 1967   to produce, direct and act in the WGBH Radio Drama Development Project.   Her early work as a television producer at WGBH included programs such as Eliot Norton Reviews, Kitchen Sync, and Growing Up Female. She later created and produced Classic Theatre - The Humanities in Drama, Piccadilly Circus and Mystery!
In 1973, Joan became the executive producer of Masterpiece Theatre (which she did not create, as is often reported). Joan took a "hands on" approach to her work, ensuring that every aspect of the series was the best that it could be.
She traveled the world to find productions for the show, and had an uncanny knowledge of actors and crews that helped her determine instantly how good a project would be. Her discerning taste was respected internationally.
And, the mementoes from various Masterpiece Theatre productions that were shown during the series' opening credits were from Joan's personal collection.
An associate remembered in a Boston Globe tribute, "Joan was a tough bargainer for everything that was important to her. Nobody could get in the way of what she thought was best for her shows. She was one of the unsung powerful women in the annals of television. But, she was also very warm and very funny. Joan was known at staff meetings for launching into these tangential stories, often at a very tense time, that were hilarious. She was a strong, funny, consistently interesting woman."


A production coordinator also recalled Joan's lighter side: "She was so much fun to work with, it was like going to the movies every day. She had a background in the theater and she was a wonderful mimic. She would often imitate people, as well as sing and dance; she was so upbeat that she'd carry you along. You had to work very hard, but it was more like an adventure."
Alastair Cooke, host of Masterpiece Theatre, movingly captured Joan's spirit in his remembrance:
"She was Masterpiece Theatre. She prepared all the dishes, I was only the head waiter...she had this appalling tenacity through the hours. She was a slight woman, but gave the appearance of being very muscular. When we came to London, along with Herb Schmertz [Mobil's vice-president for public relations], watching series we might take, she would spend all day watching video cassettes and go to the theatre every night. 'Dedication' is an overworked word, but she dedicated herself to an early end, I fear. She was a marvelous boss."
Following her death from cancer on July 4, 1985, Joan was remembered not only by her husband, family and associates, but by the industry to which she contributed so much. The Joan Wilson Fellowship for Drama was established by the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences shortly after her passing to "to enable young, non-American professionals under the age of 30 working in television drama to experience drama production in another country. In most cases this has meant young writers, directors, or producers coming to the United States for a 1-2 week period."
Jeremy never forgot Joan's commitment to quality drama, either. He dedicated his performances as Sherlock Holmes to her, and tirelessly helped raise funds for PBS. Tom Feran of the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that Jeremy had recorded a poignant appeal for pledges while visiting the local PBS station in 1991:"The current membership pledge drive on WVIZ Channel 25 features one of the most effective appeals you're likely to see. It was taped during a recent visit by Jeremy Brett, the enormously personable and popular actor who portrays Sherlock Holmes on Mystery!. After noting that both Mystery! and Masterpiece Theatre were [produced] by his late wife, Joan Wilson, a public TV executive who died in
1985, he talks briefly and touchingly about her and then asks viewers to become station members:
'If you won't do it for me, please, will you do it for her?'"
Despite his enormous loss, Jeremy Brett somehow went on with his life. He acted in Aren't We All? until the play closed on July 21, 1985.


Over the Edge
In August 1985, Jeremy was back in Britain filming The Return of Sherlock Holmes. He seemed to think that immersing himself in work would make his loss easier to live with. He told reporters "The dust has settled, and I'm coming to terms with it."
However, the dust had not settled. Grief must be dealt with--it should not be deferred or denied. As Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, "Give sorrow words: for the grief that does not speak knits up the o'er wrought heart, and bids it break".  
And, as Jeremy later told his friend, Linda Pritchard, "Don't be too brave. Bravery is a fine thing on some occasions, but sometimes it can be quite a dangerous thing. The stiff upper lip is not always the best."  
Unfortunately, he came by this wisdom the hard way. Unresolved grief and anger, compounded by long days spent filming on location and lonely nights spent in hotel rooms, took their toll on Jeremy. He finished the first episodes of The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and shortly afterward experienced what was widely described at the time as a "breakdown."
"I tottered to the edge and fell over," Jeremy later explained.
In 1990, he told a Times of London interviewer, "And then the whole thing went.
The one place I couldn't control, which was my brain, just went. My body was fine, but my brain...Well, the first thing that happened was that the whole world went pink. And white...I was very angry, I remember. During that time I would go into my favourite restaurant and buy every table in the place a bottle of champagne. Everyone was totally delighted, but the people who loved me, and my friends who ran the restaurant, were concerned. I thought I was in dazzling form, but my behaviour wasn't comfortable for anyone else."
Alarmed, Jeremy's family conducted an intervention at his home and took him to Maudsley Hospital. He ended up staying at Maudsley for two months. Afterwards, Granada TV paid for a two-week stay at the Charters convalescent home for Jeremy. He suffered a minor set-back after being cruelly ambushed by tabloid reporters ("Vile people!" Jeremy described them) at Charters. He continued his recovery at the home of his Sherlock Holmes co-star, Edward Hardwicke.
Tragically, Jeremy's "breakdown" was not simply a temporary condition caused by grief and overwork. In the course of his treatment it was determined that Jeremy was actually suffering from bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression).
Jeremy had apparently had the condition most of his life, but the symptoms--enervating depressions alternating with energizing "highs"--were chalked up to actorish temperament.
In retrospect, however, it's clear that Jeremy Brett fit the profile of a manic depressive. The Mayo Clinic Book of Family Health could almost be addressing Jeremy's condition specifically, so precisely does it describe many of the symptoms he experienced:
"Your feelings may become so intense that they take over completely, and you lose contact with the real world. The manic phase usually is the episode that may require the person to be hospitalized. During the manic episode, you may feel very 'high' or irritable. Euphoria may not be obvious to those who do not know you well, but friends and loved ones will come to recognize it as unusual or as typical of the manic phase. Your speech and thoughts seem to run at high speed, so fast that it is difficult to understand them. Your speech may be become so laden with puns, jokes, and plays on words that it makes little sense.


FINAL STAGES
          
             The Secrets of Jeremy Brett and Sherlock Holmes
The plaintive sob of a violin echoes across the theatre. The music leaps majestically, then tiptoes softly as a lone man on stage begins to speak. He warmly recalls how he met his best friend.
Suddenly, his soliloquy is interrupted by a withering voice:
"Watson, tell the truth! Or, at least as much of it as your gullible public can digest."
Laughter and applause greet the first words of Jeremy Brett in The Secret of Sherlock Holmes.
It wasn't unusual for a British television series such as Sherlock Holmes to be adapted for the stage (even Are You Being Served? had a stage run). However, almost everything else about the play was unusual.
Jeremy Brett and writer Jeremy Paul had become friends in the 1960's. Paul wrote several episodes of the Holmes series. The two Jeremys spent a lot of time discussing Sherlock Holmes: Where did he come from? What was his childhood like?
What motivated him? Paul remembered these discussions in 1987 when he decided something should be done to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first Sherlock Holmes story. A play about Holmes, perhaps?
Jeremy Brett was extremely enthusiastic about Paul's idea. So enthusiastic, that he commissioned the play for himself. And, why not? As Jeremy Paul later observed, "Holmes was a poseur, full of theatrical gestures, and I think Jeremy's high style of acting, though not terribly fashionable today, is in keeping with the period. There aren't many actors around now who move around the stage as he does, he's incredibly light on his feet for a big man, almost balletic."
So enthusiastic, that in early 1988 Brett jubilantly told writer David Stuart Davies the play would soon be premiering in Australia.
There was just one problem--the play wasn't even completed yet. The shadow of bipolar disorder had fallen across Jeremy's mind, causing his mental state to seesaw between crippling lows and soaring manic highs. A possibility was no different than a reality to Jeremy when he was in his exuberant "manic" phase.
Although his mind raced ahead of him while discussing the yet-to-be-completed play with Davies, Jeremy was quite serious about the project. As Jeremy was wont to do, he created an elaborate "back story" for Sherlock Holmes. He sat down with a tape recorder and began dictating into it everything he'd learned about Holmes. He drew from his knowledge of the Sherlock Holmes "canon" to piece together Holmes' background. Where the stories were silent on Holmes' early life, Jeremy filled in the blanks with ideas suggested by Holmes' times ("Holmes was tied to his cot, as children were in Victorian days"). And, although Jeremy's own boisterous boyhood was quite different from the bleak, repressive beginnings he imagined for Holmes, he also incorporated bits of his own youth
into the detective's --"Holmes loved to sing--probably joined the choir."
(Jeremy loved to sing, and had been a member of Eton's boy choir.)
It has been suggested that pouring out his ideas about Holmes' life was cathartic for Jeremy. He was able to express his feelings about Holmes, and in so doing, perhaps express feelings about himself.
For instance, much has been made of Jeremy's describing Holmes' father as "a fat, ex-army toad." (A line not used in the play, incidentally.) The theory goes: Jeremy' father, Colonel "Bill" Huggins, was a distinguished Army man.


On With the Show
While basically drawn from Doyle, the final version of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes contains some situations not found in either the original or the Granada versions of the stories. The play isn't based on just a single Holmes story; it's actually a sampling of vignettes from various stories, strung together to form a surprisingly moving narrative which charts the singular friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The action is centered mainly at 221-B Baker Street; locales such as Switzerland are suggested by swirling dry ice clouds and sound effects.
The play begins with Watson warmly reminiscing about his first meeting with Holmes as Holmes kibitzes with memories of his own. Watson, an impoverished war veteran, agrees to share Baker Street lodgings with Holmes, who liked to beat up corpses in his spare time (in the name of science, of course!) Holmes becomes a detective; Watson becomes his chronicler. Watson takes a bride; Holmes takes to the needle. Holmes confronts "the Napoleon of crime," Professor Moriarty, at Reichenbach Falls, intending to put an end to his evil empire. Unfortunately, Moriarty intends to put an end to Holmes, and away they go over the Falls. Since neither man is seen again, Watson assumes they met a watery demise.
Au contraire! Holmes reappears three years later at Baker Street and poor Watson faints dead away. 

After nearly scaring his friend to death at the end of Act One, Holmes then thoughtfully explains in Act Two where he was all that time.
No, he wasn't attempting to break the underwater endurance record beneath Reichenbach Falls. Holmes was trying to find peace of mind in 西藏.
The detective gets a shock of his own when Watson tells him he already knew that. (The good doctor has been in contact with Holmes' brother, Mycroft.)
But, what of the nefarious Professor Moriarty, who took the Reichenbach plunge along with Holmes? Holmes vividly reveals the truth to an incredulous Watson. Needing a nemesis to challenge his brain during a "black fit" of depression, Holmes invented Moriarty. Moriarty was the brilliant detective's evil equal, the flipside of his genius. But, when this imaginary persona threatened to take over the sleuth's mind, Holmes realized it was time to kill Moriarty off. Thus, the elaborate ruse at Reichenbach Falls and Holmes' "hiatus." 

However, the lama Holmes consulted with in 西藏told the detective he needed Moriarty to survive, just as he needed Watson to help keep his excesses in check. Without Watson and Moriarty, there would be no Holmes.
And, that was the secret of Sherlock Holmes. A rather lightweight conceit, perhaps, as some critics were quick to point out. For instance, Kenneth Hurren of the Mail on Sunday sniffed, "Jeremy Paul's The Secret of Sherlock Holmes produces another fanciful theory of what 'really' happened at the Reichenbach Falls. Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke as a plausible Holmes and Watson are the entire cast of this undramatic miniature, which will chiefly interest the oddball aficionados who talk of these characters as if they are real people." (!)
Jim Hiley of The Listener sneered, "...Holmes shoots up a few times, succumbs to an attack of dry ice at the Reichenbach Falls, then returns miraculously to prattle and shoot up some more."
However, the strength of this play was not in its plot, but rather in its characters. In the masterful hands of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke, Holmes and Watson were far more than just a brainy detective and his befuddled "Boswell."
Therefore, most critics praised the performances of Brett and Hardwicke. Of Hardwicke's performance, Milton Shulman of the Evening Standard observed, "In Edward Hardwicke's interpretation of Watson, there is less of the amiable bumbler and awe-struck sycophant than one is used to and more of an independent spirit ready at times to tell Holmes he is talking through his deerstalker."
Francis King of The Daily Telegraph crowed, "Brett's performance, with its elegance, arrogance, world-weariness and melancholy, is particularly noteworthy.
It is time that this superb actor did something--Chekhov, Ibsen, Shakespeare?--fully to extend him on the English stage."
"In many ways Jeremy Brett is an old-fashioned, barnstorming sort of actor who appears to revel in strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage," wrote The Stage and Television Today's Nick Smurthwaite. "Watching him on TV, you sometimes feel he is unhappily constrained by the smallness and intimacy required of screen acting. On stage he is larger than life, pacing around the elegant Victorian set like a caged animal, yet he knows exactly when to tone down the bravura style in order to invest the merest look or line with significance. You may be able to see the cogs turning in Brett's performance, but it's such a marvelous machine you don't really care."
One critic even managed to sum up the very essence of Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes: "Brett was, and still is, a bit of a glamour boy, which originally made him surprise casting as Holmes. But he has captured the fastidious theatricality of the master criminologist and given him a neurotic vulnerability that forever eclipses the memory of Basil Rathbone playing him straight. You care about this lonely Holmes like no other incarnation. And, he makes you laugh frequently at his answer for everything, delivered with wonderfully dry timing. This is a Holmes with humour and unexpected heart." (Maureen Paton, Daily Express)


Life Imitates Art
In The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson is deeply concerned about Holmes' 可卡因 abuse and his obsession with Moriarty. Holmes is acutely aware of how indebted he is to Watson, whose concern keeps him alive, and of how badly he's treated Watson. At one point he says, "A man needs a companion--he cannot sit alone...there never was a better friend, and I treated him abominably."
As the run of the play progressed, life began to imitate art. Jeremy Paul's concern about Jeremy Brett's mental equilibrium wasn't entirely groundless.
Brett's manic depression made him irritable and suspicious at times, causing him to act much like the troubled character he was portraying on stage. Not even his dear friend and colleague Edward Hardwicke was spared from the anger which uncharacteristically erupted from the normally gracious actor.
Jeremy's racing thoughts and the need to keep his performance fresh caused him to insert stray bits of dialogue into "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes," such as Orsino's opening speech from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. He might say just the first line: "If music be the food of love, play on..." Bravo, Mr. Brett. A little spice in the performance. No harm done. But, sometimes, the first line stretched to include the whole speech:
"...Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again!   It had a dying fall;
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor!   Enough, no more!
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
That notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price
Even in a minute! So full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical."Hearing Jeremy Brett recite this Shakespearean passage off the top of his head must have been a rare pleasure--but not in the middle of a play about Sherlock Holmes. These non-sequiturs confused the audience and enraged Duncan Weldon.


The run of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes wasn't all Sturm und Drang, of course.
There were many happy moments, too, both for Jeremy and for the hordes of fans
who came to see him and Edward Hardwicke in the play.
WHO HAD A "DARLING" DRESSING ROOM?
WHO WERE SHERLOCK HOLMES' LITTLEST FANS?
WHO GOT A KISS FROM JEREMY?
Find out in Final Stages, Pt. II!
References
   BBC2 Interview, 7/18/89.
   Christopher, James. "Books," Time Out, 2/28-3/6/96.
   Cox, Michael. "And Now...On With the Motley!," The Sherlock Holmes Gazette, Issue 14, 1996.
   Davies, David Stuart. Bending the Willow--Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Calabash Press, 1996.
   Fell, Connie. "The Colonel's Regiment," Berkswell Miscellany, Volume V, 1989.
   Haining, Peter. The Television Sherlock Holmes, Virgin Books, 1994.
   Hiley, Jim. Review of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Listener, 10/6/88.
   Hurren, Kenneth. Review of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Mail on Sunday, 9/25/88.
   Johnson, Roger and Upton, Jean. "A Message From Jeremy For His Friends: The
   Memorial Service for Jeremy Brett," The Baker Street Journal, March 1996.
   King, Francis. Review of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Sunday Telegraph, 9/25/88.
   Koenig, Rhoda. "There's No Place Like Holmes," TV Guide, 10/22/88.
   Paul, Jeremy. The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Ian Henry Publications, Ltd., 1989.
   Paton, Maureen. Review of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Daily Express, 9/23/88.
   The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Programme, Proscenium Publications, 1989.
   Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, The Folger Library
   General Reader's Shakespeare, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1960.
   Shulman, Milton. Review of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, Evening Standard, 9/23/88.
   Smurthwaite, Nick. "Investigating the Bionic Brain," The Stage and Television Today, 9/15/88.
   Stashower, Daniel. "And Here There Are Genuine Tears." The Armchair Detective, Winter 1996.
Theatre programme cover scanned from L. L. Oldham's personal collection of JB memorabilia.


FINAL STAGES (Part II)
Sharing the Warmth
At the end of each performance of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, another show began. Jeremy's ebullient curtain call was said to be worth the price of admission. As Michael Billington of the Guardian described it, "Jeremy Brett places one hand on his heart and another on his knee suggesting an Edwardian actor-manager with a touch of arthritis. He then takes the hand off his heart and extends it towards Edward Hardwicke, implying our too-kind applause should be directed towards his sterling colleague. Not since Donald Wolfit used to cling to the curtain, apparently in a state of terminal collapse, has London seen anything quite like it."
Before and after each performance of Secret, Jeremy Brett held court in his dressing room, graciously giving his time to the crush of admirers, interviewers, and photographers who came to call.
A reporter from the Christian Science Monitor described the scene shortly after the play opened at Wyndham's:
"There is something about Jeremy Brett that makes you want to put the word 'darling' at the end of every sentence, darling. I mean really, all those Etonian vowels, the West End dressing room with that darling basket of fruit, the darling bouquet of lillies from all those darlings on opening night.
"'Oh, I mean really. It's the most divine theatre in London, and the show is just a great joy,' says Mr. Brett with a wave to his dresser. 'See you anon, my dear.' 'Right,' says the actor, swiveling to face the interviewer...It is a superlative backstage performance that Brett is giving in his subterranean dressing room at London's Wyndham's Theatre, just a few hours before curtain.
The wallpaper is English awful, the air heavy with the perfume of the lillies and the gently decaying fruit. And the contrast between the on-camera Holmes--a reptillian dandy with laquered hair and pursed lips--and the offstage Brett could not be more, well, theatrical."
Writer Daniel Stashower recalled his March 1989 meeting with Jeremy: "Mr. Brett was an animated and quirky interview subject. An actorly superstition holds that it is bad luck to speak of Shakespeare's Macbeth in a theater. Over the course of two evenings Mr. Brett took great delight in trying to coax the offending title out of me: 'That was the year,' he would say, his voice falling to a dark whisper, 'that I toured with...the Scottish play...' I had spent enough time around theater people to know that if I rose to the bait--'You mean Macbeth?'--tradition would require me to run into the hall, turn three times and spit on the floor in order to ward off bad luck. I kept my mouth shut. Later, when I spotted a friend of Mr. Brett's spitting mightily into a fire bucket, I knew the actor had sprung his trap. His laughter echoed through the wings, followed by the peculiar sight of Sherlock Holmes giving Dr. Watson a high-five."
Jeremy Paul later remembered, "During the run of The Secret of the Sherlock Holmes there was one abiding memory. The star's dressing room was always left open. Jeremy called it 'the Green Room'--and at any time you could wander in and find people--the mighty and the lowly--completely at their ease. He had time for everyone--to laugh with, to share a glass of champagne or simply to listen to their troubles over a cup of tea. Writing, as we know, is a solitary business, and one of my great pleasures at that time was to drop in at Wyndham's Theatre and share the warmth. It was always stimulating to be with Jeremy. His interests spread far and wide."


Fan Fare
Performing live after so many years of working on television put Jeremy back in touch with the public, enabling him to meet and chat with fans of all ages from around the globe.
Jeremy was delighted to discover children in the audience of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. "They were young children...I could just see their little faces over the tops of the seats. And when I talked to some of them after the performances I realized that Holmes was a heroic figure to them. I'd never seen him in that way before...
"I couldn't believe how many children came to see [the play]. From all over the world. One little boy, Sullivan, from Dallas, three years old, was brought by his dad. That moved me."
Jeremy already knew that children loved Sherlock Holmes--and him. In 1991, he movingly told a newspaper reporter in Dallas, Texas, about two special little fans:  
"'A friend of mine, an actor, rang me at a theater I was playing and said, 'Can you ring tomorrow this number? Little Louise Ann is your greatest fan. She likes you and Bette Midler.'   I love that. So I don't know why I did it, but I picked up the phone then -- it was about half an hour before the curtain went up -- and I spoke to her aunt.'
"The girl was asleep, but her aunt promised to tell her of [Jeremy's] call.
"'I sent love, and she woke, received my message and died from leukemia...I then had a letter written about three weeks before she died. And it was a letter of such unbelievable care and cherishment, saying she was concerned about me.'
"'And we must remember this powerful medium, television...for she saw a dangerous light around me and was concerned for my well-being.'
"After the girl's death, he corresponded with a friend of hers. And then, at age 15, the friend was killed in a car accident.
"'I can only tell you that I have two guardian angels. And that's all there is to that.'"
Another large segment of Secret's audience was made up of female fans from around the world. Some of them claimed to have seen the play a hundred times.
Jeremy felt many of these ladies were actually coming to see Holmes rather than him: "Women throughout the world identify with what's going on and see me as Holmes. It's all very flattering and frightening at times. I just have to realise I'm in the fantasy business, but I do feel responsible and I get very concerned about the power this character wields."
Jeremy was especially concerned about overly-obsessed female fans he called "The Women in Black." The ardor some of them displayed towards Jeremy suggests Holmes wasn't the only attraction: "They get obsessive, ringing me up, grabbing me. It can be quite disturbing." Jeremy was especially vulnerable to such attention during the run of the play because the theatres couldn't screen out "the more outlandish fans" like Granada Studios could.
However, during the play Jeremy did meet up with one female fan who became his friend and companion. That lady was, of course, Linda Pritchard. She approached Jeremy during the run of Secret in Richmond about sponsoring her as she ran around England to raise money for cancer research. Jeremy threw his support behind Linda's cause, and Linda and Jeremy remained close until the end of Jeremy's life.


American Holmes and Brett fans were tantalized by rumors that Secret would eventually come to Broadway and perhaps even tour the U.S. Sadly, these rumors never became reality. So, many American fans crossed the ocean to see The Secret of Sherlock Holmes.
One U.S. fan who made the journey was TBE reader Steven Smith. Steven attended one of the pre-Wyndham's performances. He remembers, "The highlight of the night came with the play's earliest scenes, involving the meeting of Holmes and Watson. Since those scenes, alas, were never captured in the television series, it was a thrill to hear those first exchanges of the characters performed by arguably their greatest interpreters. After the play, I hovered around the backstage door, hoping to exchange a word with Mr. Brett, armed with the introduction that I was a friend of Patrick Gowers' [composer of the Holmes TV score]. But the crowd was so tremendous--full of jostling elbows and moving bodies in the dark--I gave up and trundled wearily back to my hotel."
Many fans were luckier, though. Evelyn Leeper, another American fan, put an account on the World Wide Web of her visit to Wyndham's and her meeting with Jeremy.
Ms. Leeper wrote that "When Brett finally did come out, he was very apologetic about keeping us waiting. I figure he was probably receiving visitors from some branch or other of the Baker Street Irregulars...Brett was very gracious and asked each person to whom the autograph should be inscribed. When he heard Kate's accent, he asked where in the States she was from, and when she said, 'Massachusetts,' he said he used to live there with his 'dear late wife.'"
Some fans even gave Jeremy gifts (another "TBE" reader gifted Jeremy with a pair of crystal goblets). If Jeremy was unable to acknowledge the gifts in person (sometimes they were relayed to him via a stagehand), he usually mailed his heartfelt thanks to the giver.
One fan got much more than a "thank you" from Jeremy. American Kathy Li was working in England during the run of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes and saw the play three times. After the third viewing, she decided to wait by the stage door to see if she could catch a glimpse of its stars. Kathy managed to meet and chat with Edward Hardwicke. Then, Jeremy Brett emerged from the theatre. At the close of Kathy's conversation with Jeremy, "he swooped down upon me, exclaiming, 'Oh, how sweet!,' and gave me a peck on the cheek." The complete account of Kathy's
seeing both the play and Hardwicke & Brett can be found here.


What Might Have Been
All good things must come to an end, and The Secret of Sherlock Holmes was no exception. After running nearly a full year at Wyndham's, the play closed on September 16, 1989. It   toured to 10 other British cities, and then closed for good in late 1989. It was time. Jeremy later said, "We must have done over five hundred performances by the end of the tour, and at times it was a struggle to keep the performances fresh. It was almost a relief to get back to the television studios."
The Secret of Sherlock Holmes should have been filmed, but wasn't. However, a lasting reminder of the play (and Jeremy Brett) can be found in Wyndham's Theatre. A memorial plaque and a photo of Jeremy were placed on the wall of the Circle Bar in 1995.
Jeremy Brett never made another stage appearance. Ah, but what might have been.
Brett approached Jeremy Paul about writing a sequel to Secret, but this project went nowhere. Another intriguing "might have been" was a play which Brett reportedly wrote about a psychiatrist in Iceland who heals his patient but ends up having a nervous breakdown himself. In 1991, Jeremy said that he had completed a first draft. Apparently, a final draft was never written. Jeremy was reportedly offered the role of "Hector" in Shaw's Heartbreak House that year, but didn't take the part. Jeremy also considered doing an Alan Ayckbourn comedy
in 1991, but ultimately dismissed it as being too "roboty."
Jeremy made his final television appearance as Sherlock Holmes in early 1994.
Now he could think about giving those long-deferred performances in Chekhov, Ibsen, or Shakespeare. In fact, the National Theatre sought Jeremy for the role of Scrooge; a season at Chichester and a musical turn as Henry Higgins were also under consideration. However, cruel fate stepped in, and Jeremy's ever-weakening heart made it necessary to turn down all of those roles.
Jeremy Brett's final curtain fell on September 12, 1995. Those fortunate enough to have seen him shine on the stages of the world will never forget his brilliance. The less-fortunate fan must be content with the photos, newspaper clippings, and playbills which testify of a now-vanished era.
But--if one is creative, one can envision Jeremy Brett on stage, still playing great roles, in the theatre of imagination. Don Quixote...King Arthur...King Lear...the possibilities are limitless. Bravo, Mr. Brett. Take a bow...
From Y0uTube, a fan's audio recording of The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, illustrated with production photos from the play (unfortunately, this play was never professionally recorded and the audio quality varies--headphones are recommended):
References
   Amole, Gene. "Jeremy Brett Will Always Be Holmes." Rocky Mountain News, 9/19/95.
   Billington, Michael. Review of "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes." The Manchester Guardian, 9/24/88.
   Davies, David Stuart. "A Tribute and Fond Farewell to Jeremy of the Brett."
   Sherlock Holmes Gazette, Issue 13, 1995.
   Davies, David Stuart. Bending the Willow--Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Calabash Press, 1996.
   DeVries, Hilary. "The Debonair New Resident of 221B Baker Street." The
   Christian Science Monitor, 10/25/88.
   Doyle, Steven T. and Gagen, Mark. "The SHR Interview." The Sherlock Holmes Review, Vol. III, #4, 1991.
   Haining, Peter. The Television Sherlock Holmes, Virgin Press, 1994.
   Liaguno, Chris. "Jeremy Brett--He's Decided to Stick With Sherlock Holmes to the End." Anglofile, Issue #20, 1991.
   Scarlet Street #22, 1996.
   Spencer, Kathryn. "Sherlock Returns But Can't Solve the Riddle of Romance." Today, 2/21/91.
   Stashower, Daniel. "And Here There Are Genuine Tears." Armchair Detective, Winter 1996.
   Sumner, Jane. "It's Elementary--He Loves Doing Sherlock Holmes". Press News Services, 11/10/91.