The Man Who Became Sherlock Holmes: The Tortured Mind of Jeremy Brett [Hardcover]

I pray the day will never come when Sherlock Holmes fans have only this insulting account of the late great Jeremy Brett on which to base their opinion of him. Mr Manners has set out to turn the life of a fine actor and human being into a gothic horror story. The result is a sensational and to my mind a distasteful treatment of the man who to me will always be Sherlock Holmes.
Jeremy Brett deserves a better memorial then this and I hope someone soon will set out to provide the thoughtful biography he deserves. In the meantime this is a slap in the face for his memory and all his fans. If you want a better account of JB as Sherlock Holmes try the great "A Study in Celluloid" by Michael Cox. Then wait in hope for a biography that portrays JB the man and not just a sentionalist image of the manic depression he fought so bravely. There was much more to Jeremy Brett then his illness, I wish Mr Manners had taken the trouble to show that.

... my overwhelming impression of this biography is of a highly disjointed narrative, with facts being presented apparently in the order they were discovered, with vague gestures towards chronological order. There are blatant contradictions. The overall impression is of a hasty, uncareful, undercollaborated work; one gathers that the author had in mind to convey more about manic-depressive illness, from which Jeremy Brett suffered, than he wished to write a life of Jeremy Brett. That said, Brett's courage and determination in the face of such a terrible and debilitating illness is well portrayed. Still, I would like to have seen more interplay between Jeremy Brett and Sherlock Holmes than between manic depression and Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett may well have suffered from manic depression, and that is significant, but to reduce Brett to 'a manic-depressive actor' is a profound mistake. It is not a mistake I suspect Manners of making: only of perpetrating. His portrayal of Mr. Brett himself is, overall, shallow (one gets the impression that Jeremy Brett did little throughout his life than call people 'darling' and create party atmospheres frm which he would evaporate). The emphasis on sex in the beginning of the book is ad-hoc and off-putting in nature, and, for those who are thrilled by such things, noncontinuous throughout the narrative. I was initially suspicious of a biography of such slim porportions, and I fear my suspicions were not falsified by piercing concision. I did learn a thing or two, but very little I could not have learned by perusing the vast amount of Internet bandwidth devoted to Jeremy Brett as Jeremy Brett as well as as Sherlock Holmes. One is especially stricken by the tension between the line "Jeremy Brett always liked to have the last word, and it is fitting that he should have the last word at the end of his story" (p 233) and Manners's insistence on getting the last word: "If God has a theatre in heaven, Jeremy Brett will have auditioned by now" (p.234). Much as the sentiment is compelling, the tension does not work, and this, in my opinion, is exemplary. My verdict: if you're really interested in Jeremy Brett and in his relation to Sherlock Holmes (from which no biography of Brett could divorce itself), wait for a more scholarly biography.

Having been a huge fan of Jeremy Brett for a few years, I snapped this book up when I saw it and settled down for a good read. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that this was going to be an uncomfortable experience.... The author manages the extraordinary feat of seeming uncomfortably intrusive without imparting any insight into an incredibly complicated, and potentially fascinating life. The description of his death is both tacky and morbid, written as it is from Brett's point of view. The author seems to have taken a huge liberty in imagining what was going through his mind immediately before he died. For years, I've eagerly anticipated a sensitive and incisive biography of a complex man - and I'm still waiting.