The Original Baker Street Babes, Part 1, 1899-1950
We’re thrilled to bring this article series to you! Written by our friend, Holmesian scholar and collector Howard Ostrom, “The Original Baker Street Babes” will take us through the history of women performers and Sherlock Holmes.
The Original Baker Street Babes
Female Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson Performers
by
Howard Ostrom
Part One 1899 – 1950 – Early Stage, Silent Films, Film, and Radio
Introducing the Babes.
For the Sherlockian, access to online news archives is the equivalent of an astronomer given a more powerful telescope: suddenly you see more stars. My ever-expanding gallery, “A-Z of Sherlock Holmes Performers” ( http://www.nplh.co.uk/a-z-index.html ) , rescues many a forgotten, faint star from obscurity, including so many female performers that I now judge it time to update 2012’s essay, “The Original Baker Street Babes”.
A chronological arrangement for this galaxy of women who have played Holmes, performed Watson or otherwise contributed significantly in one medium or another, places each entry in proper perspective. The Lucy Liu of 2012 may dazzle with superstar luminosity, yet, to the story told in the whole constellation, distant, dimly lit Bessie B Beardsley, the first known ‘Baker Street Babe’, matters just as much.
CBS may profitably have played the novelty card with “Elementary”’s female Watson but the real story began long before – so long ago that we are still in a time when the Canon stood at just twenty-four short stories and two novels and William Gillette was in his first iconic year as Sherlock Holmes. For well over a century the kaleidoscope of bustling Baker Street has been enlivened and enriched by the presence of women. This essay is a celebratory record and, as I owe its title to that contemporary sensation, the podcasting “Baker Street Babes”, it seems totally appropriate to bookend the gallery that follows with a vignette from 1899 and a concluding bow to the internet’s Baker Street Babes.
1899 – Mrs. Nichols, yes 1899! Ray Wilcockson (the discoverer of this performer and many other entries in my index) wrote: “While of tangential historicolockian interest: Mrs Nicholls was I’m sure lecturing about rather than performing character sketches in ‘Sherlock Holmes’, the early history of the Philomathian Club and the moustachioed ladies in an unnamed skit are too delightful to miss – one wonders if one of their lost? skits was Holmesian.”
Barre Evening Telegram (Vt.), January 14, 1899 Mrs. Nichols
“The Philomathian Club was organized 9 October 1894 as a club devoted to study and improvement. In 1896 the club joined the State Federation of Women’s Clubs. In its early days club members met weekly and gave papers on specifically chosen study topics. The club still exists in a slightly altered form.”
Before film there was stage, so let’s begin with those early female pioneers of the footlights.
1900 – Bessie B Beardsley “Who, anonymous as she remains, would appear to be the first female to impersonate Mr Sherlock Holmes in any media. Here’s what I know (and it’s not a lot!) about the original Baker Street Babe. Not to be confused with Edison’s (later) film “Miss Sherlock Holmes” starring Florence Turner, “Little Miss Sherlock Holmes” was a one-act vaudeville sketch, performed at Proctor’s 5th Avenue Theater in early July, 1900.”
New York Clipper, July 14, 1899 Proctor’s 5th Ave. Theater
1904 – Clara Turner, assumed numerous aliases in “Miss Sherlock Holmes: A Sensational Melo-Drama in Four Acts”. “Mr. Ira W. Jackson presents Clara Turner and a Company of Metropolitan players. Taunton Theatre, September 23, 1904. Cast: Gilmore Hammond (Roderick Tracy), Albert Lando (Barry Mallison), W. J. Downs (Sir Gervaise Langton), Rollo Lloyd (Lodovice Stuyvesant), Morris Smith (Phoebus Rockaway), Frank Hopkins (Stephen Hardcliff), Nettie Bagley (Madam Retzdorf), May Walters (Stella Mallison), Clara Turner (Florence Langton, Grizzle Gutteridge, Mrs. Gummage, Harry Racket, and Barney O’Brien). Contents: Act I. Hotel at Baden. — Act II. Madam Retzdorf’s Refuge. — Act III. Scene 1. Street in London. Scene 2. The Thieves’ Retreat. — Act. IV. Madam Retzdorf’s Country Home.”
Harrisburg Telegraph (Pa.) Mar. 16, 1904 Clara Turner
1905 – Adrienne Herndon (1869 -1910), although not a Holmes performer, she did serve a major part in bringing a serious Holmes production to the Afro-American community at the turn of the century. Adrienne was an important African American woman in Atlanta, Georgia. She married Alonzo Herndon, who was
Adrienne Herndon
born a slave, and became the first black millionaire in Atlanta. Denied being the actress she wanted to be by racism, “she brought Shakespeare to the South, presenting the University’s first Shakespearean production; Herndon directed the Atlanta University’s theater offerings and gave Atlanta’s black community access
William Gillette
to serious drama with professional stage sets and costumes. Moreover, she opened the university community to the American theater world, hosting the William Gillette Theater Company of New York in a performance of Sherlock Holmes in the Adventure of the Second Stain. She engaged others at the University in her work W. E. B. Du Bois, her colleague on the faculty, served as the stage manager for the Gillette production.”
Original Program William Gillette Theater Company of New York Sherlock Holmes in “The Adventure of the Second Stain”
(from The Herndon Home Museum, Atlanta, Ga.)
1905 – Emma Bunting, it appears may have taken over the role of Miss Sherlock Holmes from Clara Tuner, since she is also in “Miss Sherlock Holmes” at the same Grand Opera House of Harrisburg, Pa.
Harrisburg Daily Independent (Pa.) Mar. 10, 1905 Emma Bunting
1905-06 – Jenny Clare, played the role of Hairlock Combs in the pantomine “Babes in the Wood”.
The Era (U.K.) Dec. 23, 1905
1906 – Bonnie May, in what is described as a fun burlesque, plays Sherlock Holmes’ wife, who impersonates her famous husband. The title of the show is “Sherlock’s Home”.
Bonnie May Los Angeles Herald (Cal.) May 8, 1906
1906 – Nellie Kennedy, not only played the part of Miss Sherlock Holmes in the play of the same name, but she owned the touring company too!
Nellie Kennedy The Barre Daily Times (Vt.), Nov. 16, 1906
1906 – Ruth Bryan Leavitt, the daughter of the famous politician and three times Presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, while attending a performance of a Sherlockian play at a Denver theater casually remarked that she could write a better play than the one they were watching. Challenged by the taunts of her friends, she wrote a play titled “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective”.
Oshkosh Daily Northwestern (Wisconsin) Aug. 31, 1906
Ms. Leavitt’s “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective” was branded by the media as a play sketch which starts out as a detective yarn, and winds up in a love story. With William Jennings Bryan attending opening night, and having been written by a woman, the play caused quite an uproar in the press. Political opponents of W. J. Bryan, and the practically all male press of the time, tended to be quite harsh in their opinions. Just check out the headline below, “ ‘Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective’, Given Precedence Because It Is The Product Of A Woman’s Pen.”
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), Sep. 2, 1906
Or how about this presumptuous headline referring to Ms. Leavitt as simply ‘RUTH’ and implying a critical question to her plot. “But Ruth, Where is the Necklace?”
Levantrque Citizen (New Mexico) Sep. 10, 1906
Ruth Bryan Leavitt Owen (remarried name) “became Florida’s (and the South’s) first woman representative in the United States Congress in 1929, coming from Florida’s 4th district. Representative Owen was also the first woman to earn a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1933, she became the first woman appointed as a U.S. ambassador to another country when President Roosevelt selected her to be Ambassador to Denmark and Iceland.”
I sense that while “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective” might not have reached the heights of a Shakespeare work, it surely received much more criticism then it deserved, mainly due to the sexism of the times (sound familiar fandom?), and the political opponents of her father. Did the play live up to Ms. Leavitt’s boast that she could right a better play than the one she attended? Perhaps not, but I wish I could rely on my own eyes for the decision, don’t you?
Next we will take a look at the two actresses who appeared in “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective”. Elizabeth Spencer, listed in the newspaper clip I have as Mrs. Otis Spencer, the first actress hired and Maude Turner Gordon, the actress who was the major performer for the play.
1906 – Elizabeth Spencer, of Denver, was the original starring actress in Ruth Bryan Leavitt’s play “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective”.
Kansas City Daily Gazette (Kansas), Apr. 4, 1906
1906 – Maude Turner Gordon (1868-1940), starred as Mrs. S. Holmes in Ruth Bryan Leavitt’s, “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective”. As Mrs. Holmes at the start of the play, when informed of burglars in the neighborhood, she confides to her audience that she has always felt that she had detective ability, and that if anyone of these mean robbers entered her house, why, she’d just detect them and have them locked up.
Ruth Bryan Leavitt and Maude Turner Gordon
Albuquerque Citizen (New Mexico) Sep. 10, 1906
Maude Turner Gordon appeared in a number of Broadway productions from 1908–1925, and “Mrs. S. Holmes, Detective” was produced by her own company. She would go on to appear. in 81 films between 1914 and 1938.
Maude Turner Gordon
Pre-revolution Russia staged many Holmesian plays, which one can read about in my essay “From Watson, With Love”, a history of Russian Sherlock Holmes performers. One of those performers was a woman, Ms. Nekrasova-Kolchinskaya. Russia would also be the first country to have a film with a female couple as Holmes & Watson, but I’m getting ahead of myself, as that comes later in this essay.
1916 – Ms. Nekrasova-Kolchinskaya (Некрасова-Колчинская), played a character named Mary Sherlock in the 1916 play “Miss Sherlock”.
Mary Sherlock – Ms. Nekrasova-Kolchinskaya
The Silent Film Era of the early 1900’s had Sherlock Holmes-related actresses a-plenty. The earliest I am aware of was Florence Turner.
1908 – Florence Turner (1885 – 1946), was often referred to as ‘The Vitagraph Girl’, due to her many roles for the Vitagraph Film Company. In 1908 Florence Turner is credited as starring in the Vitagraph film “Miss Sherlock Holmes”. Yes, the Vitagraph Film Company which gave us the ”Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” (aka “Held for Ransom” 1905), starring G.M. ‘Broncho Billy’ Anderson as Sherlock Holmes. Coincidently, Miss Turner was oft later paired in Vitagraph films with Maurice Costello, who is frequently cited mistakenly as the actor playing Holmes in that 1905 film.
Florence Turner
Two references I found to “Miss Sherlock Holmes” describe it thus:
“Miss Sherlock Holmes” – “An interesting detective story in which the little girl plays the part of Sherlock Holmes and succeeds in convincing her father that she ought to marry the man she loves, and she does it in a unique way. Perhaps the real criminal had a chance to figure out what he gained before he was released from the vault. The photography and filming are good and the film works smoothly.”
“Miss Sherlock Holmes” (Edison Mfg. Co.) Length 800 feet – Jack Rose & Jim Dalton are both employed in the same broker’s office, are both in love with daughter. Nell favors Jack. Learning that Dalton is planning mischief, Nell disguises as a boy and gets employed in same office. Long story short, Dalton speculates loses and tries to frame Jack. Nell’s Sherlock Holmes’ detective work saves the day, Jack is exonerated, and Nell’s Dad agrees she can marry Jack. Florence Turner, as Nell.
1910 – Marie Elaine (1902 – 1981) played Edna Robinson, a juvenile Sherlock Holmes, in “A Twenty-Nine Cent Robbery” (1910) for Thanhouser Film Co. It was Marie’s very first role and she had the starring role.
Marie Elaine
Thanhouser Notes column – “Tiny Marie Eline, who made a hit as the juvenile Sherlock Holmes in “A 29-Cent Robbery” (1910)….”
1910-11 – Elsie Albert (1888 – 1981) made a series of detective films for Yankee Film Company in 1910-1911, which dubbed her “The Yankee Girl Detective”. In the first film of the series, Nell Pierce’s father, Nat Pierce, a Sherlock Holmes type of crime investigator, gets killed. Nell, played by Elsie Albert, with the greatest of Holmesian skills takes over the case and solves the crime from some very slim pieces of evidence.
Elsie Albert
Here are some of the story lines I’ve found for this series of films:
“The Monogramed Cigarette” – (Yankee) 1910 – “The cigarette has been credited with being the cause of a great many crimes. …..Nat Pierce, a Sherlock Holmes type of crime investigator, was retained by Sloan to ferret out the theft, there being important reasons why Sloan did not desire publicity, and therefore kept the loss of the jewels from the police.” Long story – short – Nat Pierce ends up getting killed, his daughter, Nell Pierce, “The Yankee Girl Detective”, with only a cigarette butt and only halve-obliterated monogram, and the use of disguises, avenges her father’s death and solves the Waldo jewel theft case.
“The Cat Came Back” – (Atlas) – Nell Pierce the girl detective once again solves a case of a missing jeweled bracelet, by saving a cat tossed in a bag in a pond by a tramp, and the cat had the bracelet around it’s neck. “Nell was a sharp shrewd and well read young miss and had a literary acquaintance with every detective from Nick Carter to Sherlock Holmes.”
“The Case of the Missing Heir” – (Yankee) – Nov. 14, 1910 – “Tells a story more hair-raising then the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, a plot more intensely interesting than Arsine Lupin’s most daring achievement.” Another Nell Pierce “The Yankee Girl Detective” story.
“The Counting House Mystery” (Yankee) – ‘Yes the money disappeared while every member of the counting room was present. … Nell Pierce did not accept the popular verdict, however, but unerringly hit upon a solution of the problem, which proved her wonderful power of deduction. ….Nell “The Yankee Girl Detective” finally brought her man to bay, and saved an innocent boy from prison….”
Due to copyrights, the character name was changed from Sherlock Holmes to Nell Pierce, but Elsie Albert was, without a doubt, a female Sherlock Holmes.
1911 – Helen Anderson, played Sherlock Holmes Jr., in a 1911 film aptly named “Sherlock Holmes Jr.” If you read this plot summary from a movie magazine, you would guess a boy had played the part, but no it was child actress Helen Anderson.
Helen Anderson
“Sherlock Holmes, Jr.” – (Rex) – “Little Sherlock Holmes, Jr., reads the doughty doings of his hero-god, and at once determines to become a detective himself. Providence at once favors him by giving him a mystery to solve. His father has noticed that in some weird, unaccountable fashion the whiskey in the decanter is ever vanishing, and father swears he drink it as fast as all that. So Sherlock Holmes, Jr. assigns himself the task of discovering who tampers with his father’s soothing beverage. Concealed behind a table, he sees Bridget, the cook, come in and at once proceed to get on the outside of a man’s size pull on the flask. At once the embryo detective makes his report to his father, with the astounding solution of the mystery. The father decides to use Dr. Brown’s Sure Cure for the Liquor Habit on the cook, and obtains a bottle of the fluid. This he puts in the room near the whiskey, intending to pour some in the bottle a little later. Sherlock Holmes, Jr., discovers the bottle and follows the ‘Do it Now’ maxim. There are friends visiting the house at the time, who are sitting on the lawn with his parents, awaiting tea, which the maid is going to bring them. Sherlock Holmes, Jr. pours a goodly amount of the fluid into the tea. One of the results of taking the liquid is falling into a deep slumber, and in a few moments the host, the hostess, and the
A Scene from”Sherlock Holmes, Jr.”
guests are fast asleep. Then happen’s along Bridget’s beau, the policeman, for whose particular benefit Bridget essays to go inside and procure a glass of ‘buttermilk.’ After imbibing, the policeman forgets all about everything except that he is awful drowsy, and the next thing, he, too, is asleep. It must have been contagious – or could Bridget not have forgotten herself? – but at any rate, she, too, wanders off into the Land of Nod. Then Sherlock dons the policeman’s clothes and club, and marches through the house, monarch of all he surveys. At this opportune moment, two burglars arrive at the scene, and seeking the sleepers, think they have been transferred to Burglar’s Paradise. They sneak upstairs, fill their bags with silverware and then fall for the whiskey on the table, little Sherlock watching eagerly. At last they get themselves off, followed by the creator of all the mischief, but they have not gone far when they are overcome by the liquor cure and fall in their tracks to sleep. Little Sherlock now takes the manacles from the policeman’s coat pocket, and ties both legs of the burglars together. In due time the household awakes, they seek the boy, and eventually find him covering the two burglars, prisoners of Sherlock Holmes, Jr.”
1913 – Alice Guy (1873 – 1968) was the first female film maker. Her Sherlock Holmes connection is that in 1913 she directed Fraunie Fraunholz, as Burstup Holmes, in a series of silent film shorts, which included “The Case of the Missing Girl”, “The Mystery of the Lost Cat”, “Burstup Holmes’ Murder Case”, and of course“Burstup Holmes”. Alice Guy-Blaché’s career of 24 years of directing, writing and
Alice Guy
producing films is the longest career of any of the cinema pioneers. From 1896 to 1920, Guy directed over 1,000 films, some 350 of which survive, and 22 of which are feature-length films. Guy was and still is the only woman to ever manage and own her own studio, The Solax Company. Despite these accomplishments, she is
Fraunie Fraunholz as Burstup Holmes
rarely, if ever, mentioned among her peers in the history of cinema, and most professionals in the industry are completely unaware of her work.
1913 – Pearl White (1889 – 1938) starred in “Homlock Shermes” (1913). “Pearl, the girl detective, is at home chafing with inactivity and the want of something to do. She decides to go out for a walk in the hope that something in the way of an adventure may come her way. Fred Hanley, a young man, has become a confirmed drunkard. A friend of his brings a doctor to visit Hanley. Hanley becomes excited during their visit and frightens them nearly unto death by shooting at them with a revolver. They leave in haste, but decide to lock Hanley in his room. This they do, leaving a servant to watch the door. Hanley, crazed for want of drink, writes a note that he is wrongfully imprisoned, and offers $5,000 reward for anyone who liberates him. This he throws out the window, just as Pearl is passing the house. She picks it up, reads it and realizes that her quest for an adventure has borne fruit. She immediately goes home and disguises as a boy. Coming back, she applies for a job and the woman downstairs employs her and puts the supposed boy to work. Pearl has a hard time of it, peeling potatoes and scrubbing floors, but with never a chance to liberate the unfortunate, supposed prisoner. Later, however, she is caught upstairs listening at the door by the servant, and is kicked downstairs. The woman pulls her ears for leaving the kitchen, and all in all, Pearl is treated exactly how a real detective should not be. However, at last, Pearl succeeds in gaining access to the room and is fondly dreaming of the five thousand dollar reward and her noble work and bravery, when Hanley’s friends enter and explain. Pearl appreciates that she has been stung and beats a hasty retreat, resolving to detect in a more profitable way in the hereafter.”
Pearl White
1914 – Bliss Milford, starred as Sally in “The Sherlock Holmes Girl” (1914). A small town girl, from Hope, North Dakota, Bliss Milford was known for her versatility, but “The Sherlock Holmes Girl” helped prove comedy was her forte.
Bliss Milford
“The Sherlock Holmes Girl” – (Edison) – “Sally was the maid-of-all-work at the Palace Hotel, Jonesville. Sally’s rise to fame was occasioned solely because some absent-minded guest had left a book behind him, when he departed from the somewhat limited splendors of the Palace hotel. The book was a treatise on the ancient and gentle art of detecting. Filled with a desperate zeal to distinguish herself, Sally decided to ‘shadow’ the very next guest who arrived in the hotel. The first guest who arrived after Sally’s decision was plainly a suspicious character. To begin with, he was quietly dressed and perfectly respectable in appearance. So Sally ‘shadowed the stranger in the most approved fashion. When he locked the door to his room she looked over the transom. Sure enough he took some jewels out of his suitcase. Sally instantly summoned the police. Entering the room to keep the man under closer surveillance, she accidentally pointed a fan, shaped like a pistol at him. Instantly his hands shot above his head. The funny part of it all was he really was the thief. Sally pocketed the reward and departed.”
Bliss Milford can be seen on Youtube in the film “Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus” (1914). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwH2GGbD5U0
1914 – Grace Cunard (1893 -1967) was an actress, screenwriter and film director. Her connection to Sherlock Holmes was that in 1914 she wrote the scenario for a two reel adaptation of the famous Conan Doyle story “A Study in Scarlet”, for Gold Seal Film Company.
Photo of Grace Cunard is from year 1914, with Francis Ford too!
Sherlock Holmes was played by Francis Ford, who also directed the film, and Dr. Watson was played by Jack Ford (Francis’s younger brother, better known in later times as the great film director, John Ford).
Francis Ford
1915 – Bessie Eyton (1890 – 1965), played Bessie Blake, a female Sherlock Holmes, in the film “The Missing Ruby” (1915) Born Bessie Harrison, Eyton starred in at least 200 melodrama, action westerns and crime films. In the 1910’s she was visiting the Selig Film studios with a party of friends, when a director saw and liked her red hair because he said it would photograph a beautiful black, so he offered her a minor role, she had no formal training on stage, as did many early film actors, she was talented and soon rose to be one of Selig’s most popular stars.
Bessie Eyton
“The Missing Ruby” – (Selig) – March 3 – Another lady detective drama — without the crooks. Nevertheless, a very valuable ruby disappears from a jewel case belonging to a young heiress, and a female Sherlock Holmes is called to solve the mystery. This she does, with neatness and dispatch. Bessie Eyton, as the detective, continued to look like a lady, even in her maid’s costume.”
1915 – Flora Finch (1867 – 1940) played a female Sherlock Holmes, know as Serena Slim – the slender sleuth, in “Heavy Villains” (1915). Flora Finch was an English-born film actress who starred in over 300 silent films, including over 200 for the Vitagraph Studios film company.
Flora Finch
“Heavy Villains” featured, “Flora Finch as a female Sherlock Holmes; Hughie Black as the village cut-up; Kate Prince as a cook; and John T. Kelly as a woman hater; are members of a cast in which Cissy Friz-Gerald, Charles Brown, William Shea, Arthur Cozine and Ethyl Corcoran play straight parts, in a paradoxically entitled comedy “Heavy Villains.”
1918 – Mae Marsh (1884 – 1968) played Jane Ridgeway, described as “a captivating little Sherlock Holmes…”, in Goldwyn’s “The Face in The Dark” (1918).
Mae Marsh
1918 – Zoe Rae (1910 – 2006), born Zoë Rae Palmiter Bech, was a child silent film star, who appeared in approximately 58 films between 1915 and 1920. One of those films was “Little Miss Sherlock” (1918) for Universal. She was known as ‘Little Zoe, the Universal Baby’.
Zoe Rae
“Little Miss Sherlock” – Universal -April 1 – “Will be a Little Zoe Rae feature, directed by Rea Berger, who becomes this clever little girl’s screen manager with this issue. Norris Shannon wrote the story and Francis F. Clark made the screen preparations. Claire Du Brey, Charles Hill Mailes, and William Carroll will have prominent supporting roles.”
1938 – Margaret Lockwood (1916 – 1990), perhaps could be considered the first female Watson as Sir Michael Redgrave calls her that while wearing a deerstalker and smoking a pipe, while theorizing on a train in the comic thriller “The Lady Vanishes” (1938).
Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood
See Sir Michael Redgrave as “Sherlock Holmes” & Margaret Lockwood as “Watson” in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” at the 57 minute mark at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1J0pUURCj8
1938-39 – Bonita Granville (1923 – 1988), dressed as Sherlock Holmes for a promotional photo for her Warner Brothers “Nancy Drew” films (1938-39).
Bonita Granville
1939 – Gracie Allen (1895 -1964), best know for being part of the ‘Burns & Allen’ comedy team with husband George Burns, appeared dressed as Holmes in this promotional poster for the sleuth series film S. S. Van Dine’s “The Gracie Allen Murder Case”. “A longtime fan of comedians George Burns and Gracie
Gracie Allen
Allen, ‘Philo Vance’ creator S. S. Van Dine wrote a tailor-made screenplay for the team, which emerged on-screen as ‘The Gracie Allen Murder Case’. The Paramount studio executives decided to dispense with the services of George Burns, leaving scatterbrained Gracie on her own to match wits with urbane private detective Philo Vance (Warren William).”
In the now often forgotten media of the radio, where Sherlock Holmes also once roamed, we have some ladies who assuredly deserves a mention in this article.
1930’s & 1940’s – Edith Meiser (1898 – 1993) was ‘the woman’ who penned many of the original stories for the radio Sherlock Holmes stories in it’s golden years of the 1930’s and 1940’s. She was instrumental in putting Sherlock Holmes on the radio in the 1930’s. “In the late 1920s Meiser, and her husband Thomas McKnight, left vaudeville for the world of radio and an opportunity to put Sherlock Holmes stories on the air.
Edith Meiser
The first Holmes tale, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” was broadcast on October 20, 1930 and featured William Gillette in the lead role… the golden age of Sherlockian radio began in California in the fall of 1939 when the success of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in two Twentieth-Century Fox films precipitated
Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce
a radio revival of the Edith Meiser scripts… one of the conditions of continuing the show on the Mutual network was the Edith would come up with ‘new’ adventures… This she did… In the 1950s she worked with Frank Giacoia to produce a Holmes comic strip.”
A new recent radio find sent to me by Sherlockian Ken Arromdee is the 1946 “Meet Miss Sherlock”. “Meet Miss Sherlock” aired in 1946-1947 and was the show of a smart girl who solves crimes a la Sherlock Holmes.
1946 – Sondra Gair (1924 – 1994) “During World War II no women sleuths arrived on the scene but 1946 was a banner year when three new ones debuted on network radio. One was as much comedienne as crime solver, ‘Meet Miss Sherlock’. This was a CBS summer sustainer that recounted the adventures of
Sondra Gair
Jane Sherlock, a scatterbrained amateur detective, and her boyfriend, Peter Blossom, a civil attorney who occasionally fainted. There were two separate versions of this show; the first ran from July 3, 1946 to September 26, 1946 while the second one ran from Sept 28, 1947 to Oct 26, 1947. Both series were produced and directed by David Vaile, with scripts by E. Jack Neuman and Don Thompson. The announcer was Murray Wagner and the live orchestra was headed by Milton Charles. Sondra Gair had the title lead in the 1946 version, Captain Dingle of the NYPD was a youthful Bill Conrad and Joe Petruzzi played Peter Blossom.”
‘Meet Miss Sherlock’
1947 – Monty Margetts (1912 – 1997) “When the ‘Meet Miss Sherlock’ series resumed in the fall of 1947, Betty Moran did the first epiosde but her voice was not ‘dithery’ enough so Monty Margetts was brought in and she played the lead until it went off the air two months later. Barney Phillips was the voice of Captain Dingle. This series was more comedy than adventure, although crimes were eventually solved.”
Monty Margetts
Unfortunately it seems only two episodes still exist of this show.
“The Case Of Wilma & The Widow”
“Case Of The Deadman’s Chest”
Listen to them at:
http://www.myoldradio.com/old-radio-episodes/meet-miss-sherlock-case-of-the-deadman-s-chest/1
End Part I
See Part Two for 1950 -1999
Wo….(wait for it)….w.
This is a mind-blowing list. Kudos to Howard Ostrom for this.
Wonderful! *applause* This adds so much to Sherlockian history. Looking forward to reading part two!
For the Russian 1916 play “Miss Sherlock”, I have found this translation of it’s plot: “In New York’s banking house Morton and Co., a robbery was carried out, for papers worth of 2 million dollars. At first the suspect of the crime was accountant Wilbert. But, with the involvement of the woman-detective Miss Sherlock, Wilbert was freed of charges and the true culprit was found: Robertson, Morton’s companion who did the crime under the influence of his lover Yulia Garrington and her relative Charles. Miss Sherlock and her companion Atkins, by risking their lives repeatedly, getting into all sorts of dangers and disguising, break into Yulia Garrington’s house and find the stolen papers. The third act takes place in a third-sort pub during a masquerade ball with dance, songs and music. In conclusion, the culprit Robinson shoots himself, Yulia goes insane, and Miss Sherlock and Atkinson get a reward for solving the crime” from: http://spiritcc.tumblr.com/post/120225670508/so-on-twitter-howard-ostrom-updated-his-essay-on
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