Douglas Wilmer was an English actor best known for his leading role in the 1960s British TV series Sherlock Holmes. Wilmer played the famous sleuth from 1964 to 1968, and reprised the character in the 1975 comedic film The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, starring Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn and Marty Feldman.
Wilmer also appeared as the character Diogenes Gent on the BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. And Wilmer portrayed Professor Van Dusen, a Holmesian detective created by American author Jacques Futrelle, for 1971's The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes.
Additionally, he had roles on several U.K. television productions that also aired in the U.S., including the programs The Adventures of Robin Hood, The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, H.G.Wells' Invisible Man, The Saint, The Avengers, The Baron, Journey to the Unknown and Space: 1999.
He also appeared in the films Richard III, starring Laurence Olivier; El Cid, with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren; Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison; The Fall of the Roman Empire, with Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, and Loren; A Shot in the Dark, starring Peter Sellers; Khartoum, with Heston and Olivier; Patton, starring George C. Scott; Journey to Murder, with Joan Crawford; Revenge of the Pink Panther, starring Sellers; Rough Cut, with Burt Reynolds; and Octopussy, starring Roger Moore.
Wilmer served in the British Army and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art prior to beginning his career in entertainment. He got his start in repertory theatre, made his West End debut in Antony and Cleopatra at the Piccadilly theatre, spent a season at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon and joined the Old Vic company in 1951.
He also once ran Sherlock's wine bar in Woodbridge, Suffolk, and lent his voice to a series of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories on audiocassette. In 2010, he published a memoir, Stage Whispers.
Wilmer died March 31, 2016, in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. He was 96.