Biography

Son of Cedric Hardwicke and Helena (Pickard) Hardwicke.

Beginning with The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986), Hardwicke 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).

He played Albert, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) in Part Seventeen (1974) while his mother Helena Pickard played Edward VII's mother Queen Victoria in The Lady with a Lamp (1951).

Military service in the RAF, pilot officer, 1951-1952.

He played Lord Stanley in Richard III (1995) while his father Cedric Hardwicke played King Edward IV of England in Richard III (1955).

"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.

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.

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.