Richard Gordon (October 25, 1882 – December 11, 1967) [1] [2] [3] [4] was an American actor for vaudeville and stage performances, movies, and radio. He was perhaps best known for acting as the title character for the radio version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes .
A native of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Gordon worked as a reporter for a newspaper there before he relocated to New York City and became a reporter for the New York World . His earnings paid for his studies at Yale University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. [5]
In addition to his work for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [6] from 1931 to 1933, [7] Gordon's roles for old-time radio included those shown in the table below:
Program | Role |
---|---|
The Bishop and the Gargoyle | The Bishop [8] : 43 |
Follow the Moon | Tetlow [9] |
Hilda Hope, M.D. | Dr. Boros [10] |
Jane Arden | Jane's father [8] : 172 |
Orphans of Divorce | Cyril Worthington [11] |
Our Gal Sunday | Dr. Abbott [12] |
Pepper Young's Family | Mr. Jerome [9] |
Reginald Fortune | Reginald Fortune [13] |
Stella Dallas | Morgan Ford [10] : 225 |
Thatcher Colt Mysteries | Thatcher Colt [9] |
Valiant Lady | Jim Barrett [8] : 346 |
Gordon was also heard on The Biblical Hour and for Shakespearean productions. [8]
After he refused a producer's offer of $35 per week for a minor part in a play, Gordon spent 10 years with a theatrical touring company. [12] Films in which Gordon appeared included The Birth of a Baby , 13 Rue Madeleine , St. Benny the Dip , [12] and Things to Come. [14]
Gordon was involved with founding the Actors' Equity Association. Not long after it was formed, however, he encountered conflicts with officers of the organization as he advocated for inclusion of actors from movies and radio. Those efforts apparently resulting in his quitting the group's council after five years. As continued growth of radio resulted in the formation of another group to represent that medium's actors, Gordon served as an advisor to the new American Federation of Radio Artists. [12]
Gordon married three times, always to actresses with whom he was performing currently or had done so previously. The first marriage, beginning in January 1907, was to Denver-born actress Rachel Crown, [15] [16] with whom Gordon had two children, [5] and with whom he continued to appear onstage at least as late as the summer of 1910. [17] Next, from 1923 until her death in 1946, [18] [19] [20] was Emily Ann Wellman, an actress and playwright [21] with whom Gordon performed vaudeville acts. [22] To help her promote her works to producers, Gordon built a miniature theater using a scale of one-half inch to one foot. The couple prepared miniature props to enable creation of sets to help producers visualize the production of a play. [21] Gordon, whom one newspaper reporter described as an "actor-carpenter", used his workshop, which was equipped with saws, drill press, planer, and lathe. [23] Finally, from about 1946 until at least 1964, he was married to Boston-born former actress Margaret Brainard (né Taylor), [24] [25] with whom he had co-featured more than three decades before in a well-received stage adaptation of Harold Bell Wright's novel The Winning of Barbara Worth . [26] [27]
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely in Dartmoor, Devon in England's West Country and follows Holmes and Watson investigating the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character's eventual revival.
Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC was an Anglo-South African actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films.
The year 1943 in film featured various significant events for the film industry.
Frederick Charles Jones was an English actor who had an extensive career in television, theatre and cinema productions for almost sixty years. In theatre, he was best known for originating the role of Sir in The Dresser; in film, he was best known for his role as the showman Bytes in The Elephant Man (1980); and in television, he was best known for playing Sandy Thomas in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale from 2005 to 2018.
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor-manager, playwright, and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 silent film.
"A Scandal in Bohemia" is the first short story, and the third overall work, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It is the first of the 56 Holmes short stories written by Doyle and the first of 38 Sherlock Holmes works illustrated by Sidney Paget. The story is notable for introducing the character of Irene Adler, who is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock Holmes series, despite appearing in only one story. Doyle ranked "A Scandal in Bohemia" fifth in his list of his twelve favourite Holmes stories.
"The Red-Headed League" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It first appeared in The Strand Magazine in August 1891, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Conan Doyle ranked "The Red-Headed League" second in his list of his twelve favourite Holmes stories. It is also the second of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in 1892.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of short stories by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published on 14 October 1892. It contains the earliest short stories featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, which had been published in twelve monthly issues of The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The stories are collected in the same sequence, which is not supported by any fictional chronology. The only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson, and all are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.
"The Five Orange Pips", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the fifth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is one of 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the eighth story of twelve in the collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was originally published in Strand Magazine in February 1892.
The Adventure of the Dancing Men is a Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as one of 13 stories in the cycle published as The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1905. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in December 1903, and in Collier's in the United States on 5 December 1903.
"The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" (1924) is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of the 12 stories collected as The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927). It was first published in Collier's in the United States in November 1924, and in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in two parts, in February and March 1925.
Alan Douglas Cox is a British actor. He portrayed a teenage Dr. Watson in Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985.
Donald Ellis Brodie was an American film and television actor.
Louis Hector was an American radio, theater, film, and television actor. He is best known for his roles of Sherlock Holmes in the 1937 broadcast of The Three Garridebs ; and that of the Reverend Browne in MGM's 1940 Technicolor release of Northwest Passage.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is an American old-time radio show that aired on US radio networks between 1930 and 1936. The series was adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories by scriptwriter Edith Meiser. For most of the series, Richard Gordon played Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell played Dr. Watson.
Edith Meiser was an American author and actress, who wrote mystery novels, stage plays, and numerous radio dramas. She is perhaps best known for bringing adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories to radio in the 1930s.
Emily Ann Wellman, who has been absent from the stage since her marriage to Richard Gordon at the time she was appearing in The Wasp, is planning to return to the footlights next season.