回复：The Jeremy Brett Archive

This was another surprise. Jeremy enjoyed opera, and I thought he would have known Canio’s aria, “On with the Motley,” which closes the first act of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Even if he had never looked beyond the first line of that particular tear-jerker, I am sure he would have recognized the word “motley” from As you Like It, a play he appeared in with great distinction in the early days of the National Theatre. Motley is the traditional multicoloured uniform of the clown or jester, and as Jacques says in admiration of the wisdom of a fool, “Motley’s the only wear.”
I was equally surprised that this word had also sent Penelope Keith scurrying to the dictionary, but Miss Keith was splendid on memories of Christmas parties with Jeremy. They only appeared together in a play on one occasion—Frederick Lonsdale’s On Approval for television—but frequently spent Christmas together. At these gatherings Jeremy devised absurd treasure hunts for domestic utensils. The spectacle of him standing in front of the hearth, champagne in hand, refusing to reveal where he had hidden the lavatory brush, was irresistible.
The next speaker was Tarn Bassett Gresser, who was filling a gap created by the death of Robert Stephens earlier in the month. As a friend throughout Jeremy’s theatrical career, Sir Robert would certainly have provided a larger-than-life tribute if he had lived. Instead he was represented by his widow, Patricia Quinn, and his second wife, Tarn Bassett, who read part of Henry Scott Holland’s famous sermon which included the words “Death is nothing at all; it does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room.” But for a matinee of the play in which she was appearing at Wyndham’s Theatre, Sir Robert might also have been represented by his third wife, Dame Maggie Smith.
The public-address system was particularly unkind to Judy Parfitt, who was supposed to read messages from Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. As far as I could gather, Mr. Wagner’s message had not arrived and Miss Powers remembered Jeremy as “the captain of her team” and wished him “Goodnight, sweet prince.” But I can tell you—and I know that Jeremy would have loved it—that Miss Parfitt wore a truly memorable hat!
John Stride read a piece called “Footprints,” which Jeremy always carried with him and which testified to his faith in God. Denis Quilly gave us a more down-to-earth memory of himself and Jeremy bringing a Cornish restaurant to a standstill as they sang selections from The Most Happy Fella over dinner. That happened during the filming of The Devil’s Foot, on the doorstep of Michael Grime’s country home. Mike, who died in 1994, was the designer who created the whole appearance of Baker Street for the television series back in 1983. I found it sad that no one mentioned him or David Plowright, the Managing Director of Granada, who supported the project so generously before it was an international success. There was one shining exception: Edward Hardwicke. Only he had the grace to mention the early films and his predecessor as Watson, David Burke. But then Edward is one of the most perfect gentlemen in this or any other profession.


（来自Michael Cox and R. Dixon Smitha的回忆）
monograph titled Remembering Jeremy Brett by Michael Cox and R. Dixon Smith in a chapter titled "Jeremy Brett: An Appreciation" by R. Dixon Smith
Actors and musicians who have achieved stardom are often said to possess charisma. Charisma is an elusive, indefinable quality that many are said to possess, but which few actually do. I have met or known a number of such actors and musicians, but only two--Elvis Presley and Jeremy Brett--have radiated genuine charisma. I met Elvis Presley in the early 1970s, when he was still youthful-looking and trim. His charisma was overpowering, a combination, or so it seemed to me, of his devastating good looks (which affected men almost as much as it did women), eye contact, infectious humour, and the knowledge of who and what he was. I met Jeremy Brett twice in 1989; I had published a monograph on the Granada series in 1986 (Jeremy Brett and David Burke: An Adventure in Canonical Fidelity), and Brett suggested that we get together to discuss the possibility of my continuing that work. I knocked, he bade me enter, and once I had, he leaped off his chair, as we'd all seen him do in the sitting-room at 221B, and exclaimed, sounding more like Holmes than J.B., "Oh! I was so afraid you'd get lost and wouldn't come back." He'd been on the telephone with Michael Cox earlier that day, discussing my work and his desire to see me write a book-length, critical assessment of the Granada series. We talked for hours, about the series, his interpretation of Holmes, and what his role in shaping such a book would be. I was struck by the fact that he possessed charisma with a capital "C" -- as indefinable with Brett as it had been with Elvis Presley. the matinee-idol looks had a lot to do with it, but it was also a combination of eye contact, talent, gregariousness, infectious laughter, and generosity.

Watch Brett in action and you're glad he hid his personal charm as well as he did (from all accounts, he was a lovable and loving man). His Holmes prefers to leap over chairs rather than walk around them. The force he brings to the part is dark, edgy, sometimes reckless. Brett was clinically bipolar, and while it would be an insult to his talent to assume that the illness helped make his Holmes so mercurial and unpredictable, there's no doubt that, as Conan Doyle describes him, the great detective endures dark lows and manic highs. Thus the c0caine and the smoking (Brett had a three-pack-a-day habit he found devious ways to indulge during the filming).
Unlike the cold, analytical Holmes embodied by Basil Rathbone, Brett's is passionately, warmly alive. The warmth is doubtlessly his essential humanity shining through the neurotic trappings. He's playing a man who is notoriously closed, yet you can see him feeding on his own intelligence when the essence of a problem possesses him; it's the hectic fever in his eyes and the play of nerves and muscles in his face, especially in the odd, twitching half-smiles that are among his rare flashes of civility. To understand the wildness he brings to the role, think of a less murderous Mr. Hyde. His Holmes storms around the flat at 221b Baker Street like a caged tiger; you can almost see the walls shaking. His "filing system" is a masterpiece of mad-genius chaos. He flings his papers about in a fury, leaving the mess for the steadfast, often exasperated housekeeper Mrs. Hudson (Rosalie Williams) to clean up.
Brett's random, often seemingly involuntary gambits make his quiet moments all the more moving. A talented singer who was told early in his career that he could be an opera tenor if he dedicated himself to it, he has the power to send his voice to the depths of the balcony with ease, to bully and intimidate at the top of his bent, and then come beautifully down to earth as he does at the end of the episode titled "The Second Stain." Having been congratulated in uncharacteristically heartfelt terms by Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard (Colin Jeavons) after a particularly miraculous feat of detective work (he has just saved England, in effect), he drops in the space of a heartbeat from a ringing, typically imperious acknowledgment of the compliment to a humbled, barely audible "Thank you."
It's hard to imagine any actor surpassing or even matching what Brett accomplished in these 41 episodes. I haven't seen the Holmes played by the Russian actor, Vasili Livanov, whose work earned him an OBE, but my guess is his was a more contained, less extreme portrayal, one less likely to offend the Queen's sensibilities. Again, it seems a crime that Brett never received the formal recognition he deserved.
It's worth repeating the invaluable contribution of Burke and Hardwicke in bringing Dr. Watson to life as Doyle intended him: a man whose skills as a physician, pugilist, and documentarian are indispensable to his difficult, fascinating, and ultimately beloved friend. Brett considers that relationship one of the glories of the series: "To me, the Sherlock Holmes stories are about a great friendship. Without Watson, Holmes might well have burnt out on c0caine long ago. I hope the series shows how important friendship is."


The Down Side
Having watched all but the last few episodes, I should point out that there were times when the commercial powers-that-be trumped Jeremy Brett's dedication to the integrity of the source. No doubt the occasional heavyhanded, florid, and sometimes downright ludicrous impositions on Doyle's storyline were due to the immense popularity of the series. Whenever a full-length television "special" was called for, the producers simply picked the most exploitable stories, padding them with bogus scenes and invented situations. Even in some of the best of the shorter episodes, the situation verges on cliché whenever it strays too far from Holmes and Watson and Baker Street. The most egregious examples come in the 1990s with bloated travesties such as "The Three Gables" and "The Master Blackmailer." Not to end on a negative, here are some personal favorites: "The Naval Treaty," "The Copper Beeches," "The Second Stain," "The Devil's Foot," "The Man with the Twisted Lip," "The Dying Detective," and "The Illustrious Client."
The set of the Granada Sherlock Holmes now available at the library (791.45 SHE, volumes 1 through 6) has been remastered, bringing out the original brilliance of the production values. The attention to detail is admirable, with locations and landscapes stunning enough to serve as commercials for England's Department of Tourism. The carriages and hackneys and period trains are especially beautiful to behold. The final volume's special features include an interview with Edward Hardwicke, a tour of a reconstructed to the last detail Baker Street with Adrian Conan Doyle (the author's son), and a conversation with Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke.
Finally, to appreciate how eternally grateful to Granada we should be, consider the television work Jeremy Brett was doing prior to taking on Sherlock Holmes: The Love Boat, Galactica 1980, Hart to Hart, The Incredible Hulk, and Young Dan'l Boone. Granada gave a great actor the role of a lifetime.


（来自Peter Haining）
This is a long interview with J.B that Peter Haining conducted for 'A Television Sherlock Holmes'. Slightly edited to cut straight to the question/answer segment with Jeremy. This was transcribed by Boswell.
In Conversation with the Great Detective
Part One
It is December in 1985-and I am in Manchester on Granada’s superb reconstruction of Baker Street watching the filming of ‘The Second Stain’, one of the stories for ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes’. It is a particular pleasure to be observing this story, for it was one that Conan Doyle himself considered ‘among the neatest stories I ever did’ and it has been dramatized by one of the masterminds of the series, John Hawkesworth.
I am also here to spend some time with the man who has created the most highly acclaimed of all television portrayals of ‘The Master Detectives’.
The street is a facade-a masterpiece of steel, wood, plaster, canvas and paint-while behind it lies the old warehouse which has been converted into one of the most modern television studios in the country. And wherein is to be found the equally impressive reconstruction of 221 B.
The man I meet a few minutes later is not just an actor playing a part. Not just a very good actor playing a part very well. But Sherlock Holmes personified. The look of the man, the dark, very dark eyes. The high forehead and prominent almost aquiline nose. The strong mouth, the red lips almost a gash in the pale, white skin. And the finger raised like an exclamation mark to touch his lips before thrusting out a firm handshake.
This Holmes is of enormous strength, you feel almost at once, a man who would see through a lie or an untruth immediately. A man not to be underestimated. A man to have on your side-if the side you are on is the side of law and order. The face breaks into a smile and Jeremy Brett greets me with a warmth that I am to learn is very much a part of his character. A character that has endeared him to all who have worked on the series and a far, wider international television audience. For it has taken a man with the fullest range of personal emotions to translate Holmes the enigma, to the screen. Jeremy welcomes me into 221 B.
The room has, in fact, become an immensely important element in Jeremy’s interpretation of Holmes as he is quick to tell me. ‘I love this set’, he says in the same undulating, velvety tones that have helped make his performance so memorable. ‘I am happier working here AT 221 B than anywhere else. I find it easier to work here in the womb of our home than out on location or in a strange house. I work faster too. I find myself more in tune with Holmes here. In fact i have personalized this tiny space. I even sleep in the bedroom sometimes during my lunch break.’
He pauses for a moment and a smile crosses the wan features. ‘Put me outside and what with my slicked back hair and black clothes I look like an undertaker!’ The humour cracks the formality of our meeting and I decided to ask Jeremy to go back to the beginning of his involvement with the series that has brought him international recognition and acclaim.


Part Two
The thing these readings confirmed to him, surprisingly, was that there was not a lot he liked about Holmes.
‘I never found him interesting or attractive,’ he recalled. ‘I always thought of him as a machine. I found him boring to watch and quite arrogant. He’s certainly not the kind of person I’d gravitate to at a party. He’s chilling, in fact. If I saw him walking down the street I ‘d say, ‘Poor soul…What a tortured creature. He’s not a happy man’. Who could be happy who falls apart when he’s not working or has to be drugged to go to sleep?’
Jeremy pressed his left finger to his lips again. His lean, aristocratic features took on the slightly far away look that is so Holmesian. Which made his next remark all the more surprising.
‘I didn’t think I looked like the character Doyle had in mind. In fact, as I understand it, he felt the Sidney Padget illustrations were too good looking, not precisely what he envisioned. It was these early illustrations that I used as a make-up guide. With my white face and hair swept back I looked more like Basil Rathbone than anyone else.’
Although Jeremy never tested for the role of Holmes, he did play a make-up test for the cameras. The memory of this occasion again creases his face into a huge smile. ‘I think the mistake I made at the beginning was to endeavour to try and make myself look so completely like Holmes that I became a parody. I put this white line across my forehead, another one down my nose, and gentian violet under my chin. I looked like a kind of gargoyle! I also walked about quickly as if I had St Vitus dance and spoke in a very sharp way. I don’t know if those original camera tests still exist but you could mistake me for a lean ghost with a high-pitched voice. I just pray they don’t!
We both laugh at the though of this film and I cannot resist mentioning how much the more fanatical Sherlockians would love to get their hands on a private copy of the test. Jeremy gives a mock shudder at the thought, and then goes on: ‘Anyhow, the people at Granada looked at the film and their immediate reaction was, Is there going to be any of Jeremy in this Holmes at all?’ It was the clue I needed, and gradually my confusion cleared and I became more and more fascinated with the part.’
Jeremy also went on a diet and lost 15 pounds to achieve the gaunt look, and applied dye to his naturally dark brown hair to give it Holmes’ coal black appearance.
‘Apart from all the problems of getting my character right, I think I was also very concerned about the enormous amounts of money that were going to be involved in the production-what with the huge Baker Street set, the interiors, the location work and of course, not forgetting the big names who were being lined up for guest roles. I think this gives you an exaggerated sense of responsibility in case it doesn’t come off.’
Jeremy’s determination to seek perfection was greatly encouraged when he set eyes on the scripts for the first 13 stories. ‘They were marvellous. Beautifully written and in the main adapted in the most faithful way. But I still did come across the occasional liberty. Adaptors have a right to do their own thing. But they will sometimes miss out important words and that’s where I get reminders from Doyle. And I’ll battle to get them back.’


At this, Jeremy turned round in his chair and picked up a large, ornately bound book that lay on the table beside him. It was an illustrated edition of ‘The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’. He opened it on his knee and flicked over the page. I saw immediately that the pages were heavily annotated in his own handwriting.
‘I have had this book beside me since I began because as I mentioned I wanted to keep Doyle’s stories as close to the originals as possible. Now adaptors do have a way of changing things and so I needed this to refer to. When I found something I didn’t like, I would flip open the book and say ‘Isn’t the original better?’
‘I became a bit of a pain in the neck at times, I guess, but it was worth it to get the stories as close to the books as possible.’
Jeremy also recalled that whenever he got stuck with a scene he would try all sorts of ways to get it right. ‘I would walk all over Manchester wrestling with the problem. Sometimes I would discuss it with others or else read the lines over and over again. But in the end I realized the best thing was to go back to Doyle’s original text. So I would pick up my annotated copy and there would be the answer staring me in the face!’
Another problem that he managed to resolve was the schedule allowed for filming.
‘When we first started I was getting up at 3am to prepare. It takes a lot of effort to go deeper into a story so it’s not simply a parody. I was bouncing a scene like a trampoline. I’d be polishing my magnifying glass, eating breakfast and making-up all while doing 26 pages of dialogue. I seemed to have more lines than I’d had hot dinners. By 4pm when the director wanted fire, my fire was out!’
Jeremy decided to take up the matter with Michael Cox. ‘I remember Michael came onto the set and I said ‘Can you have a word with the powers that be? I cannot make these stories on one week’s rehearsal. To bounce the words I really should have two weeks.’
‘The result was that Michael got us two weeks for rehearsal and then we had three to three and a half weeks for actual filming. It was a tremendous upheaval in the Granada schedule, but I promised them, ‘I will last longer if you take care of me!’


Part Three
As if on cue, a solicitous member of the production team arrived at this moment to take Jeremy away to shoot a scene. I sit back to enjoy the feeling of being in Holmes’ sanctum...
It seemed like only a matter of moments before Jeremy returned. He sat down in the chair and lit not a pipe, as I half expected, but a filter tip cigarette. He inhaled and blew the smoke out suddenly. He examined the cigarette for a moment and spoke once more.
‘When I was reading the books and stories I discovered that Holmes smoked a rather dirty, broken-off clay pipe in his meditative moods and a long cherrywood in his disputatious moods. He also smoked a lot of cigarettes, and an enormous amount of cheroots, not to mention c0caine, 鸦片 and all that. I did smoke the curled Meerschaum pipe in ‘The Final Problem’, but only as a gesture to William Gillette. Otherwise, I tried to follow the books exactly.’
After a couple more pulls at the cigarette, Jeremy’s face relaxes and my initial misgivings that maybe the scene had not gone as well as he had expected are allayed. ‘Another thing that I have found exciting about making this Sherlock Holmes series has been the people working on it with me. It is very seldom that you get an entire studio of people that have actually read the script before they come to the first shoot. That does so help. Some of them have even read the original stories as well. If we are the skin, the flesh that is being burned, then there must be skilled people all around doing the mechanicals. We need brilliant artistry, great lighting, pure sound to get the maximum effect. It is good to have new people around you from time to time, giving different kinds of performances. This helps you keep your own performance moist and stops it from becoming staid like porridge.’
I took this opportunity to bring Jeremy’s thoughts back to how he had finally evolved the Holmes we now know. He squashed the rest of his cigarette out and again made a pyramid of his fingers.
‘Curiously, I found one or two similarities between us. I realized that he was very vulnerable which I tend to be underneath. I’m also very quick. And like me, when he’s not working he tends to fall apart, but from the moment he gets a job he’s on fire. But there was no way I could identify with his dark side-the addiction to drugs and all the rest. You realize that he is an isolated, lonely man and a difficult one to live with for an actor. Some actors have actually become suicidal playing him...’ Jeremy’s voice momentarily fades.
‘Fortunately, I have a very strong Christian ethic and I jettison him as fast as I can come the end of the day. If there are too many pressures I meditate or break open a bottle of champagne. Still, I admit I don’t like the smell of him. He’s very dangerous. I believe that if you’re dealing with criminology, you become criminal. I began to find cracks in the man. To discover there was flesh and blood underneath. But the most important thing of all I discovered was the relationship with Watson. He wasn’t the doddering plodder following behind as is so often shown. He had the compassion to stay with Holmes, picking him up. It’s one of the great friendships of literature. If you look at it from Watson’s side, Holmes emerges as about the loneliest man in literature. Really, Watson is much more my kind of part than Holmes - Holmes is a big stretch. I don’t like working alone. I’m not a one-man band, so when I took on Holmes I came to rely on Watson as much as I could without bending the willow. Holmes is a private man, a tragic genius. But Watson has his friends and his surgery. He’s not a dull man; he’s an ordinary, good man of great compassion, warmth and consideration. He’s a gentleman. Everybody would like a friend like Watson. The relationship between them is terribly British. Holmes has a great of trouble saying ‘Help’, ‘Thank you’ and ‘I’d be lost without you’. Watson sees beyond that. He’s fascinated by Holmes and his intuitive leaps. And he realizes that if he stays away for too long, Holmes will overdose. Yes there is no doubt in my mind that it is Holmes who needs Watson and not the other way around. I didn’t see any of that in the earlier films, nor did I see anything of the vulnerability of Holmes. So that’s why I set out right from the start to show the insecurity and to explore the amazing friendship between those two men.’


Jeremy’s evident understanding of both sides of this partnership helped me fit another piece into the jog-saw of how he achieved his outstanding performance.
This also seemed like a good moment to discuss the two men who had partnered him as Watson, David Burke and Edward Hardwicke.
Jeremy’s face broke into a smile at the mention of David Burke. ‘We made a very good odd couple,’ he chuckled throatily. ‘Of course it was a terrific gamble that would be able to work together, that we would see our parts in a compatible way. But in fact there was no cause for worry because we soon found we got on so well. David is debonair with an attractiveness about him that proved to be unusual and appealing in a Watson. That was a real bonus and helped to break the traditional mould.’
I asked Jeremy how he felt when David decided not to reprise the part for ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes’.
‘I was very sorry naturally,’ he replied, stretching his lean frame further out from the chair and contemplating the fireplace. ‘But being an actor I quite understood. And if it had to happen, that was the right time between Holmes disappearance in ‘The Final Problem’ and his reappearance three years later in ‘The Empty House’. Looking back, I think the change has been very useful.’
Jeremy closes his eyes for a moment as if carefully selecting his next words.
‘The thing is, if you work with the same person it almost becomes like a marriage. However fresh you try to be on a day-to-day basis it becomes a known way. So for me the change was like a breath of fresh air, a shot of adrenalin in the arm. What happened was a chemical change- and it is a chemical change-of a new person adding a new element to the friendship. Three years have passed since the two men last met, so things have happened to them both, which enabled us to restart things at a slightly different angle. I have this feeling that’ The Return of Sherlock Holmes’ is better even than the first 13 stories. I can’t tell you why that is- it has something to do with some shift of emphasis, some confidence, some chemistry between Edward and me. But there is definitely something. You can so easily fall into a kind of complacency if things don’t change. It’s something to do with the human animal. So I’ve enjoyed new directors, new actors, even new lighting cameramen or technicians. You need new faces to bring new ideas. All the time the format is changing ever so slightly and that is terribly important I think.’
At that moment, Jeremy was called away to play another scene. He invited me to come and watch...


I asked him whether he thought Holmes had any humour in him?
‘Yes, I do’, he replied thoughtfully. ‘I was not sure to begin with because he suppresses so many of the emotions in himself. But once I began to find cracks in his armoury I realized that there were moments when he laughed. I was also anxious to let a little of my own humour into the part. I once suggested a scene where I fell flat on my face and Watson had to pick me up. It would have been very funny, but the director was adamant, ‘Can we shoot the alternative?’ he said – which meant, ‘No!’ I suppose there are certain rules about what Holmes can and cannot do.’
Jeremy did though recall some funny moments. ‘I mean when Holmes falls on his knees with a lantern and magnifying glass, and with his backside stuck up in the air – that is funny. On another occasion he rushes through some shrubbery sniffing his way among the rhododendrons like a golden retriever on the scent! And of course, the way he teases Watson!’
He grinned and then added, ‘Although Watson tells all the stories in the first person; I think it is amusing to imagine what he didn’t write. He obviously chose to very carefully show Holmes in the best light. I imagine Doyle was a rather extraordinary creature. I don’t find it surprising that he should have become so absorbed in spiritualism and fairies and such like in the later part of his life. Being a man with a most logical mind and at the same time saddled with this character he could not get rid of, he must have found relief in the illogical. We really don’t know much about Doyle do we? He was overtaken by his own invention. One wonders what he would think if he could see how we are still wrestling with Holmes a hundred years after his creation?
Jeremy is in fact, a fund of little stories about what he calls the ‘Doyle Dynasty’ – the author himself and members of his family. Some are much too libellous to print, but three stick in mind.
‘I love the story about Doyle meeting the American actor William Gillette when he arrived in London after his huge success with Holmes on Broadway. Gillette actually turned up in his complete Holmes costume – cloak, pipe, deerstalker hat and all. No wonder Doyle’s first words to him were, ‘You are my Sherlock Holmes!’ I actually met one of Doyle’s nieces in Lancaster and I think she probably longed never to have been his niece at all. The shadow of Holmes seemed to have kept her fossilized in the past.’
Jeremy’s voice then dropped to a conspiratorial note. Like Holmes, he loves picking up gossip. ‘Have you heard the story that Doyle was actually removed from this life by a member of his family?’
He waits for my reaction, which is non-committal. He goes on all the same. ‘Apparently he was spending all the family goodies on the occult and one of them got a bit concerned about the inheritance…’
The face breaks into a huge grin and Jeremy lights another cigarette.


Part Five
I decided to steer the conversation away to the afternoon’s shooting. Jeremy has to film a scene playing his violin, one of the most enduring images of Holmes.
‘I can’t play it, in fact,’ he admits, ‘but I have got pretty skilful at bowing the instrument. Mind you, to give the impression that I know what I’m doing, I do listen to the music for hours beforehand so that I have a feel of it. I have tried to vary my performances, sometimes playing in a very still fashion and in others with lots of movement. Recently I even swung right round with my back to the camera, but still bowing the violin. Then I threw the scene at Patrick Gowers and challenged him to put music to it. He’s a brilliant and inventive man and so, of course, he did!’
That Jeremy has succeeded well in this deception is evident from the compliments he has received – and this quite rapturous comment from Miv Schaff, the television reviewer of the LA Times, while discussing the authenticity of the whole series.
‘And at the end – here comes the nerve-wracking part – Holmes picks up his violin. Please, please, we pray, he will not play that damnably ridiculous, fluffy springtime air Basil Rathbone always played. Miracle of miracles, he does not. The bow goes on the strings, Holmes holds it as if he were accustomed to playing the instrument and yes, a slow, sad melody, a sober one that Holmes himself might have composed and clever Brett has taken the time to learn the correct bowing so that we are convinced he is playing the violin. He stops, puts down the instrument and bow – look! He does not put his fingers on the bow hairs as his unthinking, non-violinistic predecessors have done – and he sits in his armchair next to the fire, fingertips together, just as Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh surgeon professor who was the inspiration for Holmes sat, thinking Holmesian thoughts.
The words echo what I am looking at, for Jeremy prepares to play his scene with the violin and picks up the instrument from beside him. Standing up briskly, he thrusts it under his chin, and begins to play with an invisible bow. A soundless music fills the air. The maestro is performing!
It is time for me to slip away, for the rest of the afternoon will be busy for Sherlock Holmes, and we still have a dinner date to come. I am now conscious as I leave Jeremy that all the praise has been fully justified – and earned by the most dedicated hard work. What the cost of this long and arduous performance has been to the man himself I decide to keep to raise in the relaxed surroundings of our meal together.
The dinner proves to be an evening to remember. I share it not only with Jeremy, but Edward joins us as well. Dinner with Holmes and Watson – what more could a chronicler of their adventures ask!
We dined together at the Britannia Hotel in the centre of Manchester, a most suitable venue with its huge rooms, imposing staircases, Victorian décor and ornate crystal chandeliers.
Jeremy and I had arranged to meet in the foyer – and he spotted me before I did him. For what a change from the man I had last seen in the studios! Gone were the wan features, the slicked back hair and the funeral clothes. Instead, a smiling face, a sweep of brown hair, stylish, casual clothes and a multi-coloured scarf wrapped around his neck.
I could not avoid commenting on the transformation, and almost before we had been seated in a corner alcove of the restaurant, Jeremy was answering the question I had wanted to put out about the effect of Holmes upon him.
‘I found after a time that Holmes was threatening me,’ he said. ‘He became the dark side of the moon because he is moody and solitary and I am sociable and gregarious. Holmes is so still and I’m like Jiminy Cricket. I had to wash the part out of me as well as the grease out of my hair. It got dangerous for me about the tenth film (Norwood Builder). I began to feel there was nothing in my life but Holmes.
Jeremy hesitated momentarily as thoughts of those dark days obviously crossed his mind. He took a sip of white wine which had already been brought to our table. I waited for him to speak again.
‘Holmes is a very difficult man to live inside,’ he said finally. ‘He’s obsessive, and he’s dazzling, and I became very weary in my psyche, my head. It was rather like being a violin wound up too tight. The thing was, I had become changed by the stories. I was marinaded in them. They’re pre-Freud, pre-psychology, and much wilder. You realize they’re much more destructive and dangerous than you could have imagined. Holmes is his own Special Branch. He’s a man who flirts with crime all the time, and I always think this rubs off.’ 

Stephen Fry's在他的传记中简要地提到了David，另一段是David说到他父母。（来自The Fry Chronicles）
With the exception of one of our number we would have looked like, to an outside observer, as prize a parcel of punchably pompous and buttoned-up arseholes as ever was assembled in one place. The exception was a bondage-trousered, leather-jacketed, henna-haired youth called Dave Huggins. He looked like the kind of punk rocker you would cross the King's Road in Chelsea to avoid. Despite being far and away the friendliest and most approachable of our group he scared the hell out of me and I think out of everybody else too. Something in my booming voice and apparently confident manner seemed to appeal to him, however, or amuse him at least, and he dubbed me the King.
For all his forbidding street aspect, Dave had been to school at Radley, one of the smarter public schools; in fact most of us in the English literature intake had been privately educated.
^^^^
Dave Huggins stopped me in Walnut Tree Court one afternoon.
'"My mum's coming to see your play tonight."
"Is she?" I was surprised. Dave wasn't in the drama world, and it seemed odd for a parent to come to a production that her child wasn't in.
"Yeah. She's an actress."
I consulted my memory to see if I could offer any data on an actress called Huggins. It had no suggestions. "Er...well. That's nice."
"Yeah so's my dad."
"Might I know them?"
"Dunno. They both use acting names. She's called Anna Massey and he calls himself Jeremy Brett."
"B-but...good God!"
Anna Massey, coming to see me in a play? Well not expressly to see me, but coming to play that I was in.
"Your father won't be there as well, will he?"
"No, they're divorced. He's gay."
"Is he? Is he? I didn't...well, well. Goodness. Blimey. My word.
I tottered off, numb with excitment.

American television and radio personality, Robert Aubry Davis, recalls witnessing Jeremy's grief at first hand：
We planned a fund-raising event on television, and a two-hour long version of the popular BBC radio program "Desert Island Discs" (the guest chooses the five recordings he would take with him to a deserted island, the music being a means to explore the subject's life and personality).   [...] the choices ended with the piece of music Mr. Brett and his wife danced to on the last New Year's Eve before her death, indeed, on her last "good" day.
The fact that both Mr. Brett and his wife shared a birthday (November 3rd), and their bond was forged in the context of Mr. Brett portraying Sherlock Holmes (all explained in the program), only intensified the experience for the other two of us in the radio studio (my producer, Juliette Weinstein, was a witness to what is about to be revealed).   Mr. Brett began to tell us as he listened to the music every detail of that last happy night together. Suddenly (shocking even us), he fell into a complete collapse, doubling over in pain. He began to shudder with sobs. Juliette and I exchanged glances--there was more to the show, after all... and then, Mr. Brett fell to the floor. He began first to crawl towards the door. Then--in an unprecedented occurrence in my professional career-- fell into a prone position, as a soldier does when under fire. Pulling himself along in this manner, he squeezed out of the door to the studio.
This being Saturday, the building was nearly empty. The record ended. Juliette and I snapped out of a trance-like state, sprang to the door...and he was gone. Literally. From the studio, from our lives.       

When we saw something particularly interesting, we would stop and have a closer look. On one of those stops, he climbed to the top of a large rock on the beach, turned his face toward the sun, extended his arms upward, closed his eyes and stood motionless.
Down below, I slowly raised my camera and took a picture. A bystander would likely have called it a bit of flippant theatrics. But to me, it was a sign he was willing to embrace and connect not only with what was near him, but with everything beyond.
Earlier in the day, he had said he didn't know how long he was going to stay in Hawaii. I assumed it would be for at least a couple of days. But late in the morning, he began to have misgivings about no one knowing where he was, particularly his agent. And as delightful as his experience had been so far, he wondered if maybe he shouldn't fly back to Los Angeles.
I was reluctant to see him leave. Yet, I understood his concern and told him I would gladly drive him to the airport and stay until I was sure he was on a flight. An hour later, he was gripping my hand tightly and thanking me profusely for my fine company. He then walked to the check-in point, turned quickly to give me a final wave and was gone.
One evening several months later, I was flipping through the TV channels. Suddenly, something caught my eye. I stopped and stared unbelievingly at the screen. It was Jeremy Brett, the same Jeremy who had been my Subaru seat mate and stood on that rock and faced the sun. The same Jeremy who had given in to an impulse to be wonderfully free if only for a short time.
There stood the man considered to be Britain's most brilliant contemporary actor, soon to become even more famous in his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in an outstanding series on PBS, a role critics throughout the world said was played more brilliantly by him than anyone else.
In bouncing through life, I have been around many creative people, one of many rewards for being a writer. But none personified creativity as intensely, completely and wonderfully as Jeremy Brett. And none have exhibited the free spirit as spontaneously or as nobly as he did.
How remarkable for me and for him, a writer and an actor, to meet by chance.
How remarkable to be suddenly joined together not by fame or fortune but by our ability to sense and feel in unison that which neither had seen nor thought about before.
How remarkable, indeed, is life itself.  

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