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Edward Hardwicke
7 August 1932, London, England
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Beginning with "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1986), EdwardHardwicke took over the role of Dr. Watson in the various Jeremy Brett "Sherlock Holmes" TV series following the departure of David Burke, who played the Watson role in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1984).
I remember one major problem which I had which was that I was always having to read things out of newspapers. And because I don't - I have to wear glasses to read and couldn't do it as Watson, so I was always learning vast quantities of newsprint, which I found *very* tedious.
Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke
Hardwicke was born in London, England, the son of actors Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Helena Pickard. He began his film career in Hollywood at the age of 10, in Victor Fleming’s film A Guy Named Joe, with Spencer Tracy. He returned to England, attended Stowe School, and did his military service as a Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force. He joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and trained as an actor.
He played at the Bristol Old Vic, The Oxford Playhouse and the Nottingham Playhouse, before joining Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre in 1964. He performed regularly there for seven years. He appeared with Olivier in Shakespeare’s Othello and Ibsen’s The Master Builder. He also appeared in Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun (with Robert Stephens), Charley's Aunt, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Congreve's The Way of the World, Feydeau’s A Flea In Her Ear (directed by Jacques Charon of the Comédie Française), The Crucible, Pirandello's The Rules Of The Game, Dostoevsky's The Idiot and Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession. He returned to the National in 1977 for a production of Feydeau's The Lady from Maxim's.
In 1973, he played Dr Astrov in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Bristol Old Vic, and had an uncredited role as Charles Calthrop in the motion picture The Day of the Jackal. In 1975, he appeared in Frederick Lonsdale's On Approval at the Haymarket Theatre, and in 1976, he played Sir Robert Chiltern in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, a production with which he toured Canada.
In 2001, he played Arthur Winslow in The Winslow Boy at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a role played by his father in the 1948 film.
Hardwicke became familiar to television audiences in the 1970s drama series, Colditz, in which he played Pat Grant, a character based on the real-life war hero, Pat Reid. He then played Arthur in the sitcom My Old Man. In 1978, Hardwicke appeared as Bellcourt in the last filmed episode of The Sweeney called "Hearts and Minds". David Burke suggested Hardwicke as his successor in the role of the Dr. Watson in the Granada Television adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories in The Return of Sherlock Holmes series, alongside Jeremy Brett. Hardwicke played the role for eight years from 1986 to 1994 as a very calm and attentive Watson and became permanently associated with it, also playing it on the West End stage with Brett in The Secret of Sherlock Holmes in 1989. That same year, he also directed Going On by Charles Dennis at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
His other television appearances have been numerous, and have included Holocaust (1978), Oppenheimer (1980), Lovejoy (1992), The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1997), David Copperfield (2000), Agatha Christie's Poirot (2004), Fanny Hill (2007), Holby City[1] and Shameless (2010) as a WW2 veteran.
He has appeared in various films, including The Day of the Jackal (1973), The Black Windmill (1974), Richard Loncraine's 1995 version of Richard III, The Scarlet Letter (1995), Shadowlands (film) (1993), Elizabeth (1998), Enigma (2001), The Gathering Storm (2002), Love Actually (2003) and Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist (2005). He has also provided narration for several films.
Hardwicke has two daughters, Kate and Emma, and a stepdaughter, Claire.
Until recently, Hardwicke and his wife lived on their farm in Normandy, France. However, they recently returned to live in Winchester in Hampshire.
Military service in the RAF, pilot officer, 1951-1952.
Son of Cedric Hardwicke and Helena (Pickard) Hardwicke.
Father of two daughters: Kate and Emma Hardwicke.
Educated at Stowe School.
Dramatic training at RADA.
An Associate Member of RADA.
Step-daughter: Claire.
His uncle on his mother's side was Group Captain Percy Charles Pickard DSO, DFC. G/C Pickard featured as the pilot of the Vickers Wellington bomber in the 1941 British propaganda film "Target For Tonight" extolling the British bomber offensive against Germany. In October 1943 Pickard took over command of 140 Wing flying the all wood De Haviland Mosquito. The connections between the Mosquito and the cinema were strong, for the aircraft's manufacturer Sir Geoffrey De Haviland was a cousin of actresses Olivia De Haviland and Joan Fontaine and the legendary exploits of British and Commonwealth Mosquito crews would inspire the films "633 Squadron" and "Mosquito Squadron". G/C Pickard was killed in action on February 18th 1944 leading the daring low level attack against Amiens prison in Northern France. The Mosquitos breached a hole in the prison wall enabling 400 French resistance fighters to escape,of which 258 managed to evade re-capture. Sadly G/C Pickard was shot down by a German fighter as he headed home and was killed along with his navigator John Broadley DSO, DFC, DFM. Aspects of the Amiens prison raid were incorporated into the 1968 film "Mosquito Squadron".
"During our 10 year association, I was privileged to get to know Jeremy very well. We became great friends. We both believed that the friendship between Holmes and Watson must be rooted in humour. In reality, Jeremy made sure there was always laughter when we were working. In spite of the enormous strain his illness placed on him he never lost his sense of joy. He had a wonderful laugh. It was infectious. The enormous list of actors and technicians who worked on the series will tell you that they never had a happier job. That was Jeremy. This, of course, was the background to a great actor giving a great performance. I shall miss him." - speaking of working with Jeremy Brett on the Sherlock Holmes series.
The biggest compliment I had paid to me was, on several occasions, I was called "David". People said, "David, can you move that way?" and I thought, "Well, there aren't too many ripples here if they think I'm David Burke." I really don't know how I differed from David, I mean we *were* different. Subsequently I've read, people said I seem to be an older, graver Watson. That always worried me a bit because I thought - what I *did* feel very strongly about playing Watson with Holmes is that two people who work together in those circumstances have to have a lot of humor, there has to be a lot of laughter. I consciously remember thinking every time there was an opportunity to bring out that sense of humor between the two people, the fact that you could smile about certain things that Holmes would say, or laugh at things that he would say, seemed to me very important. It seems to me people who work together in a rather difficult job tend to laugh a lot.
But I remember saying to Jeremy . . . "I feel I'm disappearing inside my costume." I just felt everything was too overwhelming and there wasn't an awful lot for Watson to do and I do remember David (Burke) saying that he found it very difficult to have to react a lot without having a lot of text. Jeremy subsequently found that he got a bit fed up, and I think understandably, with having to learn *huge* amounts of text and tried to get the writers to dispense a bit of it to Watson. So I picked up some of the kind of bits that Jeremy didn't really want to do.
Well, I think he's the audience. I think he is the, sort of, receptor of the idea. I think Watson really is every-man and one has to remind oneself that he's working with, or associating with, a genius.
"The whole series was a hugely happy occasion. Two wonderful producers, Michael Cox and June Wyndham-Davies, who were wonderfully knowledgeable about the stories. Lovely casts of people, these people were thrilled to be in it, they were *thrilled* to be in it. I made lifelong friends of a number of people I see frequently. And, as I say, dominated by Jeremy; hugely generous, wonderfully eccentric. But it was a very, very happy time and he's deeply and sadly missed. I mean, I miss him . . . he was an extraordinary man and a *great* loss and sadly, I feel, not honored enough for what he did; he didn't get any gongs for that performance. And it will be remembered, I'm sure, because I think he was an extraordinary Holmes." (2003)
Close friendships need humour and tolerance. Watson needs a sense of humour to survive Holmes' worst excesses.
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