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William Gillette
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The neighborhood where William Gillette was born, Nook Farm (in Hartford, Connecticut), was a literary and intellectual node, abiding Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. His father was Francis Gillette, a former US Senator with reformist ideas, fighting for the abolition of slavery, public education, temperance, and women's suffrage, and constructing most of town's infrastructure. His mother was Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the puritan leader, who founded the town. In the Gillette home, young Will grew up with his three brothers and a sister. One other sister, Mary, died as a small child. One of his brothers, Edward H. Gillette, became a newspaper editor and congressman.
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William Gillette was a successful actor and playwright known primarily for his portrayals of Sherlock Holmes. He took the money and ran to this hill rearing above the Connecticut River, where he had his castle built. It's difficult to believe that he really thought the result resembled the Norman fortresses that allegedly were his inspiration. Rock gardens by roadside eccentrics in South Dakota or Death Valley are closer relations. Gillette felt it necessary, for one example, to design a dining-room table that slid into the wall, an inexplicable space-saving effort by a bachelor rattling around in 24 oddly shaped rooms.
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When the great American actor - playwright William Gillette agreed to revise a five-act drama about the exploits of Sherlock Holmes written by Arthur Conan Doyle, a new era of the Holmes legend was set in motion. Gillette extensively rewrote the script, loosely basing it on the Holmes tales A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA and THE FINAL PROBLEM and tailoring the part of Holmes to suit his own personality. Shortly after Gillette received Conan Doyle's approval of the final draft of Sherlock Holmes in 1899, the play toured across America, Europe, and England. Gillette himself played Holmes for over 30 years in thousands of stage performances. In addition to Sherlock Holmes, Gillette wrote a number of plays, including Secret Service (a New York success for Meryl Streep in its revival), a successful spy thriller and one of the first plays set in the Civil War.
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The first William Gillette/Sherlock Holmes Festival, held in Tryon, NC,on 8 November 1997, came about almost by accident. It was proposed by a frame shop owner named Jerry Soderquist, formerly of Lake Forest, Illinois, who says that he finds the serene life in Tryon far more appealing than the early grave he was working on as a big-time, but overworked, engineer designing malls, buildings and train stations. In reading about Gillette's tenure at Tryon, Jerry noticed that Gillette's Sherlock Holmes had opened at the Garrick Theatre on Broadway on November 6, 1899. Soderquist wrote to the editor of the Tryon Daily Bulletin (which claims to be the smallest daily newspaper in the world) and asked, "Why not hold a festival to honor Gillette's work?" Since Gillette lived in Tryon for nearly 20 years, from about 1891 until 1910, and was, in fact, living there when he first played Holmes, it seemed fitting that Tryon should host such a festival. But, as Soderquist found out, "It's like I plugged into some cosmic source while sitting at the computer that day.
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William Gillette is best known for his role on the stage. Gillette displayed histrionic talents early in his life and was later urged to adopt the stage as a career by Mark Twain, a neighbor of his family in Hartford. It was Twain’s influence which aided Gillette in securing his first amateur acting positions. In later years, he became a well-known playwright, producer and actor. One of Gillette’s most popular acting roles was that of the great detective Sherlock Holmes which he first played from 1899 until 1936.
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Ted Tine, Owner of Ted Tine Motorsports said, "One of the most self satisfying restorations I have ever done (along with several restorations for the Guggenheim Museum) is Gillette's train. Just like a filmed performance will forever immortalize an actor, preserving this piece of history will allow future generations to know William Gillette not only as a celebrated actor, but ... as a skilled designer, engineer and railroad enthusiast. At the same time, it will commemorate the vision and contributions of a dedicated group of people from a later era who had the heart and soul to restore, appreciate and conserve this important artifact."
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William Gillette