Topic: Basil Rathbone

Basil Rathbone, MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967), was a South African-born British actor most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and of suave villains in such swashbuckler films as The Mark of Zorro, Captain Blood, and The Adventures of Robin Hood.

He was born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, South African Republic, to English parents Edgar Philip Rathbone, a mining engineer and scion of the Liverpool Rathbone family, and Anna Barbara née George, a violinist. He had two younger siblings, Beatrice and John. The Rathbones fled to England when Basil was three years old, after his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy near the onset of the Second Boer War at the end of the 1890s.

Rathbone was educated at Repton School and was engaged with the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies. In 1916, he enlisted for the remaining duration of World War I, joining the London Scottish Regiment as a Private, serving alongside his future successful acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman. He later transferred with a commission as a Lieutenant to the Liverpool Scottish, 2nd Battalion, where he served as an intelligence officer and eventually attained the rank of Captain. During the war, Rathbone displayed a penchant for disguise (a skill which he coincidentally shared with what would become perhaps his most memorable character, Sherlock Holmes) when on one occasion, in order to have better visibility, Rathbone convinced his superiors to allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight hours instead of during the night, as was the usual practice in order to minimize the chance of detection by the enemy. Rathbone completed the mission successfully through his skillful use of camouflage, which allowed him to escape detection by the enemy. In September 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross. His younger brother John was killed in action during the war while also serving Britain.