Keith McConnell

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Keith McConnell as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Death (1976)

Keith McConnell (16 july 1923 - 6 october 1987) was an Irish actor who played Sherlock Holmes in the movie Murder by Death in 1976, during a tag scene, edited out on cinema (and on DVD version) at the request of the stars of the film who felt the presence of this scene, played by little-known actor, depreciated their own performance. The scene was however displayed on television on ABC-TV. His Watson was played by Richard Peel.

In 1980 he took over the role of the detective on television in the CBS show Children's Mystery Theatre at the beginning of the episode The Treasure of Alpheus T. Winterborn (distributed on VHS as The Clue According to Sherlock Holmes), with Laurie Main as Dr. Watson. This same Laurie Main played the role of Inspector Gregson in the movie of the Sherlockian Nicholas Meyer Time after Time in 1979 when Keith McConnell played the role of Harding. McConnell and Main have often performed the Baker Street duo in advertisements for drinks such as Schlitz beer. This duo was so famous that Gene Wilder thought about them to incarnate the heroes of Conan Doyle in his parody The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother before finally asked to Douglas Wilmer and Thorley Walters because the McConnell / Main duo was not available at this time.

Finally, note that in 1974, we should have seen him as Sherlock Holmes in Murder(s) in Northumberland, a TV movie that was never distributed. It was a West End Productions project with Anthony Searl in the role of Dr. Watson. Similarly, in 1976, Keith McConnell was to play Holmes in a movie called Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Golden Vampire, written, produced and directed by Frank Saletri with Alice Cooper in the role of vampire. Unfortunately, this film, which was to be the first in a series of ten horror comedies (including The Werewolf of the Baskervilles, The Black Creature or Tor-Men-Tor), was never filmed.


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