BASIL RATHBONE - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 10/31/1942 - HFSID 255052

BASIL RATHBONE
The English actor pens this letter to an admirer regarding their busy schedules and what he is involved in at the present time
Autograph Letter Signed: "Best Wishes always,/Basil Rathbone", 1¼p, 7¼x10¼. No place, 1942 October 12. On his personal stationery to "Dear Mary". In full: "Thanks for your letter. You are a very busy girl these days - I too have more than I know how to cope with - being President of British War Relief - on the Executive Councils of United Nations, Community War Chest & Motion Picture Relief Fund - I average a meeting a day! This year I have to write out & address all my own Christmas Cards, some 400, as I have no Secy. I have just completed 145 & mailed them to England! We are all having servant trouble & so one spends a lot of time cleaning the house, sometimes cooking, & working in the garden. Every day is almost too full to be true! - In between one tries to remember to make a few pictures!!! The 3 Sherlock Holmes are good. I have seen them all & like them. I haven't seen 'Crossroads' - next week I start 'Above Suspicion' with JoAn (sic) Crawford - well back to writing some more Christmas cards!" Lightly creased with folds, not at signature. Ink smudged at 1 word. Slightly soiled. Fine condition. Accompanied by 7½x4 unsigned envelope addressed in his hand: "Miss Mary Sandmann/31 Wigglesworth Str./Roxbury/Mass.", postmarked Los Angeles, California, November 2, 1942, 3-cent stamp affixed. Lightly soiled. Stray ink mark in upper left corner. Otherwise, fine condition. Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) was first cast as Sherlock Holmes in 1939 in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the first of his 14 screen appearances of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective. In this letter, he is likely talking about his starring roles as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon and Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (both released in 1942) and Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, which was released in 1943. In 1942, he also starred as Henri Sarrow in Crossroads, which co-starred William Powell, Hedy Lamarr and Claire Trevor. In Above Suspicion, which was released in 1943, Rathbone starred as wicked German officer Sig von Aschenhausen, who imprisons and tortures Frances Myles, played by Joan Crawford. The film also starred Fred MacMurray as Frances' husband, Richard Myles. Later in 1943, Sherlock Holmes in Washington would be released, followed in 1944 by the Sherlock Holmes film that many consider to be Rathbone's finest, The Scarlet Claw. Rathbone, who also played Sherlock Holmes on the radio from 1939-1946, had previously been nominated for Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936) and King Louis XVI in If I Were King (1938). His other notable films include David Copperfield (1934), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), The Last Days of Pompeii (1936), Anna Karenina (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Two items.