Who's Played Sherlock Holmes? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mack Sennett

The earliest film featuring Sherlock Holmes was made in the United States in 1905, but between 1911 and 1913, Mack Sennett produced and acted in 11 slapstick shorts very loosely based on Conan Doyle's detective. The first four were made while still working at Biograph, and the rest were made at Keystone, the studio he founded in 1912.

Answer: Basil Rathbone

In 1939, Basil Rathbone, along with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, made his first appearance as Sherlock in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. It was in the second, 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', that he spoke those iconic lines. Rathbone and Bruce went on to make 12 more films, this time in modern dress (it was explained they were 'timeless') and fought the Gestapo. Rathbone also reprised the role on stage, television, and in radio plays.

Answer: Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing

Hammer Studios became known as the home of horror in the '60s and Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were their biggest stars. Both appeared in one of the earliest Hammer productions, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' (1959), Cushing as Holmes and Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville. Two years later Lee got to play Holmes in a German/French film 'Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace' and in two television movies early in the '90s.

From 1965 to 1968, Peter Cushing starred in the BBC series 'Sherlock Holmes', a critically-acclaimed production based on the original Conan Doyle stories.

Answer: Michael Caine

There have been many Sherlock spoofs, but this 1988 film stands out. Here Dr. Watson, played by Ben Kingsley, is the real detective, but he writes up the cases he solves in 'The Strand' magazine (the publication in which Conan Doyle published his stories) using a fictional detective to disguise his real identity. Eventually he has to hire an out-of-work actor, Michael Caine, to play Sherlock and prove to the world that his stories aren't fiction.

Answer: Jeremy Brett

Jeremy Brett, whom many have regarded as the era's definitive Sherlock, starred in the Granada series 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' from 1984 to 1995. From 1986 onwards, Edward Hardwick played Watson.

Unfortunately, Brett, who had thrown himself into the role and had produced a brilliant and nuanced Sherlock, started getting treatment for bipolar disorder in 1986. Playing a character who he called 'the dark side of the moon' didn't help. Over the next decade, he would be treated many times for mental illness and physical deterioration and died of heart failure in 1996.

Answer: Jonny Lee Miller

Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock is a scruffy, tattooed, recovering junkie who's been sent to New York for rehab. Sherlock's more traditional 7% solution of cocaine has been upgraded here. Dr. Watson, played by Lucy Liu, is his minder, hired by his father to keep him sober. Formerly working with Scotland Yard, Sherlock starts working with the NYC police department because he thinks crime in New York is 'more interesting'.

Despite the differences, Lee's Sherlock has the same manic brilliance displayed by more traditional interpreters of the role.

Answer: Roger Moore

'Sherlock Holmes in New York' is light years away from Jonny Lee Miller. It's traditional, Victorian, and Sherlock comes complete with deerstalker, briar pipe and no drugs. The stellar cast includes Patrick McNee as Dr. Watson, John Huston as Moriarty, Charlotte Rampling as Irene Adler, and even Jackie Coogan in a small role.

The American actress Irene Adler appears in only one Conan Doyle story, 'A Scandal in Bohemia', as the only woman to ever have impressed Holmes. She has been written into many an on-screen production, and the relationship between her and Sherlock has varying degrees of intimacy, depending on the script. This film takes the relationship further and intimates that Sherlock and Irene had a child together.

Answer: Ian McKellen

It's 1946 and Sherlock Holmes is 93 and living in the country with a woman who looks after him and her son. He is attempting to write up a case that took place 30 years earlier, but is struggling with his failing memory. Ian McKellen has to veer between scenes shot in the present and ones in the past, when Sherlock was at the top of his game. His relationship with the boy Roger (Milo Parker) and his mother (Laura Linney) is what involves him in this film, a tour de force.

Fun fact: The man playing Sherlock Holmes in the film that the old Sherlock goes to see is Nicholas Rowe, who starred in 'Young Sherlock Holmes' (1985).

Answer: Robert Downey Jr.

Sherlock Holmes as an action hero? The critics responded with everything from 'rip-roaring' to 'trash'. In 'Sherlock Holmes' (2009) and 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' (2011), Downey Jr is the brilliant detective who still gets to detect between explosions, and Jude Law plays Watson, who is a bit more involved than usual.

Answer: Benedict Cumberbatch

The BBC created a series where Sherlock uses third generation technology and social media to solve cases. He texts, he uses GPS, and Dr Watson (Martin Freeman) writes a blog, not stories. Unlike Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock in 'Elementary' (with which he is frequently compared) beyond the tech, Cumberbatch gives a more traditional, upper class representation.

But his relationship with Watson is complex and as Martin Freeman explains, Watson is a 'moral compass' for Holmes. Both actors have won Emmys and BAFTAs for their roles.