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Rathbone, Basil: Actor's schoolboy passion was sport
As a public schoolboy at Repton, all the young Basil Rathbone wanted was success on the sports’ field. It wasn’t until after he left the school that he revealed his ambition to become an actor, as Vivienne Smith discovered.
    
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Although a veteran of stage and screen by the time he wrote it, he devoted a whole chapter to memories of his time at Repton School.
Philip St John Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, in South Africa, on June 13, 1892, the eldest child of British couple Edgar and Barbara Rathbone.
His father was a mining engineer employed in the goldfields of the Transvaal.
The future actor was three and a half when he and his family experienced a real-life adventure.
Early in January 1896, the Rathbones were forced to abandon their home and leave behind all of their possessions.
The abortive Jameson Raid on the Transvaal, then a Boer colony, made it too dangerous for them to stay, especially as Basil’s father was suspected of being a British spy.
In order to reach the safety of Durban (from where they could get a boat back to England), the family faced a 300-mile trek by train.
During the long journey, Boer soldiers wielding rifles came aboard on several occasions. Each time, Edgar Rathbone had to hide himself under the seat.
Meanwhile, his wife, with Basil and baby Beatrice cradled on her lap, answered the enemy’s questions as calmly as she could.
She successfully deterred one particular officer from his line of enquiry by pinching her son hard to make him cry and thus create a distraction.
The Rathbones managed to escape to England, and settled in London where their youngest child, John, was born.
Yet Basil’s father still made excursions abroad in pursuit of his profession.
In 1897, for instance, he travelled to Alaska and became one of the first men to reach the Klondike during the famous gold rush.
However, he failed to make his fortune from this venture. In fact, by the time his eldest son was of an age to attend public school, family finances were tight.
But this did not stop him seeking the best for his first-born.
Basil himself was in no doubt where he wanted to go.
As he later wrote in his autobiography: “My father and mother had been somewhat at a loss to know why I was so insistent upon going to Repton School.”
The youngster kept the real reasons to himself.
Years later, he admitted the truth: “Repton School in 1906 was possibly the most renowned public school in England for its accomplishment in the field of sports.”
Basil Rathbone started in the autumn term of 1906. The 14-year-old quickly acquired the nickname of “Ratters” from his classmates.
His boarding house was the Mitre, located near Repton Cross, and housemaster the Rev Arthur Cattley was a strict disciplinarian.
Right from the beginning, sport was Basil’s passion.
Even in old age, he looked back with regret on his failure to get his cricket colours at the school.
As a boy, he would have sacrificed all his sporting prowess for such an honour.
In the pavilion, he would gaze with admiration at the names engraved there of Repton’s greats: C B Fry, Jack Crawford and Bill Creswell.
These were his sporting heroes, all three going on to play cricket for England in Test matches against Australia.
Basil’s only consolation was to try to make the grade in football instead.
He regularly scanned the list of “hopefuls” posted on the noticeboard outside Pears’ Hall.
The schoolboy was over the moon when he finally made the team. He even began to dream of playing for England some day.
Then, one cold, wet afternoon, the team captain I P F Campbell led him onto the football field. Ratters had won his colours at last.
Writing of the event some 50 years later, the actor recalled how the cheers of his team-mates had echoed in his ears as he was lifted onto their shoulders.
It was something he had never forgotten.
He wrote: “Later, one was to hear such applause again – many times – but no first night in any theatre anywhere held such an ecstasy of accomplishment as that moment when one received one’s colours at Repton School.”
Despite the occasional twinge of guilt at what his parents had scarificed to send him there, Basil continued to show little interest in competing for academic honours.
While admitting that such subjects as essay writing, Greek, Latin and history were enjoyable, he generally remained near the bottom of the class.
However, on one memorable occasion, the youngster surprised everyone by winning first prize for an essay on The Merchant of Venice.
It was entitled Was Shylock the villain of a melodrama or the hero of a tragedy?
Even housemaster Arthur Cattley could not disguise his amazement at such an achievement. Basil’s school friends put it down to a fluke.
Little did they realise that the theatre was his secret passion.
In fact, in the evenings after supper, when supposed to be doing homework, he was busy working on his first play King Arthur.
Basil took an active part in the debating and music societies, but there was no drama club at Repton in those days.
So, the schoolboy decided to keep this particular interest to himself. After all, it would not do for teachers and classmates to discover “I was not quite the he-man they thought me to be”.
Basil had just turned 18 when he left Repton in the summer of 1910.
His father was somewhat aghast to learn he wanted to be an actor and suggested 12 months as a clerk for an insurance firm first.
But, as soon as the year was up, Basil pleaded with his cousin, the well-known actor-manager Frank Benson, to give him a trial.
For his audition, the young man chose a scene from The Merchant of Venice. As he later commented in his autobiography: “Shades of Repton!”
Having warned him there would be no special favours, Benson placed him with his Number Two Company to prove his worth.
While touring the country in repertory, Basil gained invaluable experience and even took the opportunity to learn fencing as a stage craft.
His London debut came in July 1914.
However, with the outbreak of the First World War, the former Repton boy joined the Liverpool Scottish Regiment and he ended up with the Military Cross.
Years later he modestly dismissed his actions: “All I did was to disguise myself as a tree and cross no-man’s-land to gather a bit of information from the German lines. I have not since been called upon to play a tree.”
After the war, Basil’s stage work attracted the attention of a film director. His first screen appearance was in 1921 in the British silent movie Innocent.
However, it was in Hollywood that his film career really took off.
He had the advantage of being tall, dark and handsome. And his distinctive and commanding voice stood him in good stead with the advent of the talkies.
In 1935, Basil appeared opposite Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina. He also had a thrilling sword fight with Errol Flynn in Captain Blood.
His dazzling swordplay proved the highlight of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) when, as the dastardly Sir Guy of Gisbourne, he fought another memorable duel with Mr Flynn.
By the time he took on Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro, his reputation as the greatest of all swashbuckling villains was assured.
Fred Cavens, fencing master to the stars, paid him special tribute. Of all the actors he coached, Basil Rathbone was the one most likely to have succeeded in competitive fencing.
It was in 1939 that the actor first took on the role for which he is now best remembered.
Twentieth Century Fox cast him as Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Nigel Bruce in the role of Watson.
The Repton old boy ended up in a total of 14 films as the sleuth, and for many he remains the definitive Holmes.
During his long career, Basil Rathbone appeared in more than 50 Shakespearean roles on the stage and in more than 100 films.
His autobiography, In and Out of Character, was published in 1962, just five years before he died.
While he may not have acquired his acting skills at Repton, the school undoubtedly left a lasting impression on the star.
In his book, he recalled the effect that the movie Goodbye, Mr Chips had had on him following its release in 1939.
He wrote: “I wept unashamedly during the portions shot at Repton School itself.”
Thankfully, this legendary actor’s connection with the school has not been forgotten.
In 1996, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of British cinema, a commemorative plaque was erected there in his memory.
It was placed on the wall of the old boarding house in Repton where Basil Rathbone spent some of the best days of his life.
TIPS
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County: Derbyshire
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This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.
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