Douglas Wilmer

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Douglas Wilmer
Born	(1920-01-08) 8 January 1920 London, England, UK
Years active	1954–1996, 2012
Spouse(s)	Anne Wilmer (?-present)

Douglas Wilmer (born 8 January 1920) is an English actor, best known for playing Sherlock Holmes in the 1965 TV series.

Early life

Wilmer was born in London and educated at King's School, Canterbury and Stonyhurst College. He trained at RADA but was called up to the Army in World War II. Posted to an antitank battery in the Royal West African Frontier Force, he was invalided out after he acquired tuberculosis.^[1] He made his 1945 stage debut in repertory at Rugby. He appeared frequently on the London stage, mainly in classical and Shakespearean roles.

Career

He made his first major film appearance in Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955); thereafter he appeared in a large number of films, mostly in supporting roles. They include several epic films: The Battle of the River Plate as M. Desmoulins (1956), El Cid as Al-Mu'tamin (1961), Cleopatra (1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Khartoum as Khalifa Abdullah (1966), Patton as Maj. Gen. Francis de Guingand (1970), Cromwell as Sir Thomas Fairfax (1970), and Antony and Cleopatra (1972). Other appearances include Jason and the Argonauts, the Pink Panther films A Shot in the Dark (1964) and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), The Vampire Lovers (1970), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), and Octopussy (1983).

He is mainly associated with the role of Sherlock Holmes which he first played in the BBC's 1964 production of The Speckled Band. Together with co-star Nigel Stock, who played Doctor Watson, Wilmer was brought back for a further twelve episodes of the series. In 1973, Wilmer played author Jacques Futrelle's Holmesian detective Professor Van Dusen in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes for ITV. In 1975 he once again appeared as Holmes (albeit in a supporting role) in Gene Wilder's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, with Thorley Walters as Dr Watson.

Wilmer also played Sir Denis Nayland Smith in two Harry Alan Towers' Fu Manchu films The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966) and The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967).

Wilmer was an honorary member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London.^[2] He has recorded a series of the stories on audio cassette for Penguin audio books and has appeared as a guest at several UK and US events, the most recent being the Society's Golden Jubilee Dinner in January 2001.^[3]

His other television credits include: The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Saint, The Troubleshooters, The Avengers, The Baron, UFO and Space: 1999.

In 2009, Wilmer published his autobiography entitled Stage Whispers. On 24 March 2009, Wilmer was guest of honour at a launch party for his book held at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall Place, London.

In 2012, Wilmer made a cameo appearance in the The Reichenbach Fall episode of Sherlock. He played an irate old man in The Diogenes Club.

Selected filmography

References

External links

Douglas Wilmer at the Internet Movie Database

Authority control	VIAF: 46948165 ISNI: 0000 0000 7824 7688 GND: 138277451 BNF: cb13901214m

Persondata
Name	Wilmer, Douglas
Alternative names
Short description	Actor
Date of birth	8 January 1920
Place of birth	London, England, UK
Date of death
Place of death

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