Douglas Wilmer 1920-2016
“I play the game for the game’s own sake,” said he.
Thursday 31 March 2016 had been already clouded by the news that the comedy legend Ronnie Corbett had passed away earlier in the day. Then in the afternoon more sad news started coming down the wire; Douglas Wilmer had also died.
There’s a tribute to “an incomparable actor” on the Sherlock Holmes Society of London website. Douglas was an Honorary Member of that Society; he was a true Holmesian gentleman.
The sad news about Douglas has come too late for us to cover it adequately in our next newsletter (No. 138, due mid April). Already completed, bar the inevitable proof read, we didn’t want to disturb it at this stage so will pay our due respects in the May issue (mid month). In the meantime, this short Bulletin must suffice.
As for the newsletter itself, contributions (short, long or in between) re Douglas Wilmer (and anything else) are invited. These must reach the office by 20 April to be considered for inclusion.
There’ll also be an opportunity for those present at the next RSS (Sunday 24 April) to talk about the great actor, after we’ve watched the last episode in our current Douglas Wilmer Season – The Devil’s Foot.
We aren’t aware of any direct links between Ronnie Corbett and Sherlock Holmes but his wife Anne Hart was the Music Hall singer in The Illustrious Client, the first episode in the Douglas Wilmer Sherlock Holmes 1964-5 series. By a quirk of fate, the crew watched this at the last sailing.
We’ve included a nice picture of Douglas Wilmer on our Home page.