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William Hooker Gillette (July 24, 1853 - April 29, 1937) was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes.
Gillette's most significant contributions to the theater were in devising realistic stage settings and special sound and lighting effects, and, as an actor, in putting forth what he called the Illusion of the First Time. He was also the first American playwright to receive praise in England for recognizably American works on American themes.
Gillette's portrayal of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective. His use of the deerstalker cap (which first appeared in some Strand illustrations by Sidney Paget) and the curved pipe became synonymous with the character. He assumed the role onstage more than 1,300 times over thirty years, starred in a silent motion picture based on his Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio.
Born in the era of melodrama, with its grand gestures and sonorous declamations, he created in his plays characters who talked and acted the way people talk and act in real life. Held by the Enemy, his first Civil War drama, was a major step toward modern theater in that it abandoned many of the crude devices of 19th century melodrama and introduced realism into the sets, costumes, props and sound effects. In Sherlock Holmes, he introduced the fade-in at the beginning of each scene, and the fade-out at the end, instead of the slam-bang finishes audiences were accustomed to. Clarice in 1905 was significant because, for the first time, he sought to achieve dramatic action through character rather than through incident and situation.

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