Local Author Presenting Program During Waukesha Reads

Local author Henry Zecher, who recently published a biography of one of the American theater’s great icons, William Gillette, will present his slide program Wednesday night, Oct. 26, at the __, 321 Wisconsin Ave.

This Waukesha Reads program will begin at 7 p.m. in the Library’s Community Room.

Zecher’s book, William Gillette, America’s Sherlock Holmes, was published in March 2011. Gillette is best-remembered today as the personification of Sherlock Holmes.

He wrote the first popular play about the detective. It was Gillette who brought Holmes to life and established for all time the image of Holmes with the deerstalker cap, the bent briar pipe and the profile, creating what may be the most instantly recognizable icon in the world. And it was from Gillette’s play that Hollywood film-makers derived the famous phrase, "Elementary, my dear Watson." 

 “Gillette established the manner in which Holmes was to be portrayed,” Zecher explained. “Mysteries in general have been staged on the template he created; and, until Jeremy Brett did his own interpretation, actors playing Holmes for the next several decades did it the way Gillette did it.”

Gillette played Holmes more that 1,300 times in both America and England between 1899 and 1932.

 More than bringing Holmes to life, however, Gillette was among the nineteenth century’s most successful actors and playwrights. In a career spanning six decades, Gillette was one of the best-known celebrities in the Western world.

This information was provided to Waukesha Patch by the Waukesha Public Library.