


His highest profile film appearance was as Freddy Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady (1964), again with Audrey Hepburn. He starred in several serials, including as d'Artagnan in an adaptation of The Three Musketeers (1966). įrom the early 1960s, Brett was often on British television. He made his first appearance in a major film with War and Peace (1956), which starred Audrey Hepburn.
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Career Stage and screen īrett made his professional acting debut in rep at the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1954, and his London stage debut with the Old Vic company in Troilus and Cressida in 1956. He could not believe the circumstances and channelled his anger into his performance. I felt cheated-I felt my mother had been cheated-the rage of that came through". Later in life, he spoke about the accident, its impact on him and consequently his performance "my mother had been killed savagely in a car accident in 1959, and I was very angry about that, because my son, when she was killed, was only three months old. In 1959, while Brett was playing Hamlet, his mother was killed in a car crash in the Welsh mountains.

He was trained by Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall in London, graduating in 1954, but his father had demanded that he change his name for the sake of family honour, so he took his stage name from the label of his first suit, "Brett & Co." However, while at Eton he excelled at singing and was a member of the college choir. He underwent corrective surgery as a teenager and followed it with years of practising. His father and brothers were also members.Īlthough he eventually developed precisely honed diction, he was born with " rhotacism", a speech impediment which prevented him from pronouncing the "R" sound correctly. Brett belonged to the Woodmen of Arden, an archery club established in 1785. Educated at Eton College, he claimed to have been an "academic disaster", attributing his learning difficulties to dyslexia. The actor Martin Clunes is his nephew (or, according to other sources, either his cousin or cousin, once removed). He had three older brothers: John, Patrick and Michael. He was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Henry William Huggins, DSO, MC, DL (1890–1965), an Army officer, and Elizabeth Edith Cadbury Butler (1903–1959 of the confectionery dynasty). His birthdate was actually 3 November 1933, but it has also been stated as December 1933 or 1935, according to many sources. Fully illustrated with more than fifty photographs, some never before published, Bending the Willow' is an important addition to the libraries of Sherlock Holmes followers, and Jeremy Brett fans alike.Jeremy Brett was born Peter Jeremy William Huggins at Berkswell Grange in Berkswell, then in Warwickshire. The result is the first detailed assessment of all of Jeremy Brett's performances as Sherlock Holmes.
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In this fascinating and perceptive study, David Stuart Davies draws on the many conversations he had with Jeremy Brett and key people involved with the Granada Television series and the stage play The Secret of Sherlock Holmes'.

Bending the Willow' examines how this brilliant actor channelled the demons of his debilitating illness into his iridescent portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. Before his untimely death in 1995, Brett had made the part his own, all the time battling against the manic depression which had plagued him for many years. Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective is widely recognised as the best yet seen.
