Trivia

In one of his productions of "Sherlock Holmes," he gave a young unknown actor the supporting role of Billy, the messenger boy. That actor was the later famous comedian Charles Chaplin.

Was the first actor to be universally acclaimed for portraying Sherlock Holmes, having staged the first authorized play in 1899.

As Holmes, he smoked a curved Meerschaum pipe, rather than the more accurate straight clay pipes that Holmes always smoked in the stories. Gillette did this because it was nearly impossible for him to do believable "business" with the clay pipes. Because of this, one of the stereotypical Holmes trademarks is a Meerschaum.

His home in East Haddam, CT, is known as Gillette Castle and is now a state park. The castle was built for him and contains many ingenious and unique items designed by him; for example, no two of the 47 interior doors are alike.

In 1882, Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit. She died in 1888 from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix. The couple had no children. He never remarried.

Performed his "Sherlock Holmes" character around 1,300 times.

Gillette wrote 13 original plays, 7 adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaption. Two pieces based on the Civil War remain his greatest works: Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1896). Both were successful with both the public and the critics, and Secret Service remains the only one of his plays available today on commercial VHS and DVD from a 1977 Broadway Theater Archive production starring John Lithgow and Meryl Streep.

Gillette's last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong's Three Wise Fools in 1936.

Cousin of writer Clare Kummer.

He patented several theatrical devices, such as a new method for imitating hoofs and different horse gaits with clappers instead of coconut halves. He was also extremely concerned and careful on how to create the ambience for a play -sets, lights, sound effects, the smallest prop- and gives precise instructions for all of these issues in his plays.