William Gillette

Did You Know?

• Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit in 1882; she died in 1888 from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix, and he never remarried.
• He was very fond of cats and at one time shared Gillette Castle with up to 17 cats, for whom he designed finely crafted cat toys.
• In 1929, at age 76, Gillette started a farewell tour of Sherlock Holmes in Springfield, Massachusetts; the tour included actress Peg Entwistle as his female lead.

Early life

William Gillette was born in the Nook Farm neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut, a place known for its concentration of writers and thinkers like Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles Dudley Warner. His father, Francis, had served as a U.S. Senator and was active in causes such as public education, temperance, ending slavery, and women’s voting rights. His mother, Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, traced her lineage back to Reverend Thomas Hooker, a Puritan who founded Hartford and is credited with either writing or inspiring the first written constitution for a government.

Gillette had three brothers and a sister; another sister, Mary, died young. The oldest brother, Frank Ashbell Gillette, traveled to California and died there of tuberculosis in 1859. The third brother, Robert, fought for the Union in the Antietam campaign, fell ill and was sent home, then joined the Navy. He served on the U.S.S. Gettysburg during both assaults on Fort Fisher and was killed the morning after the fort’s surrender when the powder magazine exploded.

Brother Edward moved to Iowa, and sister Elizabeth married George Henry Warner, both in 1863, leaving William as the only child at home.

At twenty, William left Hartford to start training as an actor. He spent a short time with a stock company in New Orleans, then came back to New England. On Mark Twain’s personal recommendation, he made his debut at Boston’s Globe Theater in 1875 in Twain’s play The Gilded Age. For the next six years, he worked as a stock actor in Boston, New York, and the Midwest. He attended classes at a few schools but never finished a program. His father Francis strongly disapproved of the theater, yet he drove William to the train station, noting he had taken two other sons there who never came back, and told William to be the exception. He also gave him an allowance to live on since the apprenticeship paid nothing.

In 1878, Francis’s health declined, and William left the stage for over a year to nurse him through his final illness. After his father died, William and George Henry Warner were named executors of the estate, and the inheritance was divided among William, his mother Elisabeth, and his brother Edward.

Theatrical career

In 1881, Gillette was hired as playwright, director, and actor for $50 per week while performing in Cincinnati by two of the Frohman brothers, Gustave and Daniel. His first written and produced play was The Professor, which debuted at the Madison Square Theatre and lasted 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states as far west as St. Louis. That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written with Frances Hodgson Burnett. Early in his career, Gillette realized that the triple role of playwright, director, and actor would allow him to make the most money.

He became a premier matinee idol, described by actress and drama critic Amy Leslie as 'one of Gibson's notables materialized'. Lewis Clinton Strang observed that he rarely gesticulated and his bodily movements often seemed purposely slow and deliberate, with absolute composure and complete mental grasp of a situation. Georg Schuttler noted that occasionally, when least expected, he gestured or moved his body so quickly that the speed was compared to the swift opening and closing of a camera's shutter.

S. E. Dahlinger summed him up as thrilling without bombast and infinitely touching without sentimentality, with a great strength being his ability to say nothing on stage while holding the audience silent. Montrose Moses commented that he made appeal through sentiment of situation and exquisite sensitiveness of outward detail rather than romantic attitude. Ward Morehouse described his style as dry, crisp, metallic, almost shrill. Gretchen Finletter recalled a dry, almost monotonous voice admirably suited to Holmes.

The New York Times noted in 1937 that it would be conservative to say he was the most successful of all American actors.

Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle had killed off Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem (1893) but later needed further income to build a new home called Undershaw and decided to write a play. He offered the role first to Herbert Beerbohm Tree and then to Henry Irving; Irving turned it down, and Tree demanded to play both Holmes and Professor Moriarty, which Doyle refused. Literary agent A. P. Watt sent the script to Charles Frohman, who suggested an adaptation by Gillette.

Doyle endorsed this, insisting only that there be no love interest. Gillette read the entire collection for the first time, outlining the piece in San Francisco while touring in Secret Service. After exchanging numerous telegrams, Gillette telegraphed Doyle: 'May I marry Holmes?' Doyle responded: 'You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him.'

Gillette's Sherlock Holmes consisted of four acts combining elements from several Doyle stories, mainly 'A Scandal in Bohemia' and 'The Final Problem', with elements from A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery', and 'The Greek Interpreter'. All characters except Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty were Gillette's own creations; his creation of Billy the Buttons was later used by Doyle for 'The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone'.

Gillette portrayed Holmes as brave and open to express his feelings, substantially different from the intellectual-only original. He wore the deerstalker cap on stage, originally featured in illustrations by Sidney Paget.

Gillette Castle

Gillette Castle in Hadlyme, Connecticut, sits atop a hill in the Seven Sisters chain over the Chester–Hadlyme ferry's pier. The castle and its grounds feature numerous innovative details designed entirely by Gillette. Material was carried up by a tramway he designed. During the five years of construction from 1914 to 1919, he lived aboard his houseboat, the Aunt Polly, or at a home in Greenport, Long Island.

The mansion was finished in 1919 at a cost of $1.1 million; Gillette called it 'Seventh Sister'. His miniature railroad, 3 miles long, traveled around the property crossing several bridges and one tunnel he designed. After his death, the train was relocated to Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut, from 1943 through the mid-1990s; both locomotives have since been returned to the castle, with one restored and on display. In 1943, the Connecticut state government bought the property, renaming it Gillette's Castle and Gillette Castle State Park.

After a four-year restoration costing $11 million, it reopened in 2002 and includes a museum, park, and theatrical celebrations, receiving 100,000 annual visitors. The castle is on the National Register of Historic Places and remains one of the top three tourist attractions in the state.