Nigel was, from the beginning, typecast as bumbling English
aristocrats, military types or drawing room society snobs and, within
the narrow parameters of his range, he was very, very good at playing
these parts. Nigel Bruce was born in Mexico, where his father, Sir
William W. Bruce, worked as an engineer. His family was part of English
aristocracy, ever since Charles I. bestowed a baronetcy upon them in
1629 (William's older brother Michael held the hereditary title). Nigel
was educated in England at Grange, Stevenage and Abingdon. His first
job was at a stockbroker's firm. During World War I, he served in the
British Army (like his future co-star,
Basil Rathbone) where he received a
serious leg wound and was for some time confined to a wheelchair.
Following his discharge, he turned to acting in 1919, but it wasn't
until ten years later that he achieved a breakthrough in
Noël Coward's 'This was a Man' on Broadway.
Then followed the performance which was to set the standard for all his
later work in Hollywood: the 1931 comedy "Springtime for Henry". On the
strength of his performance as Johnny Jelliwell, Fox offered Nigel the
opportunity to reprise his role in the 1934 movie. Soon after that,
Nigel was cast to star as British detective Bertram Lynch in a minor
thriller,
Murder in Trinidad (1934). The
contemporary New York Times Review (May 16,1934) was skeptical about
the film's merit, but found Nigel's performance
'compelling'. After
that followed a gallery of endearingly stereotypical 'Britishers': Squire Trelawny in
Robert Louis Stevenson's
classic Die Schatzinsel (1934),
the Prince of Wales in
Die scharlachrote Blume (1934),
Professor Holly in Herrscherin einer versunkenen Welt (1935) and Sir
Benjamin Warrenton in
Der Verrat des Surat Khan (1936).
All, without exception, were roles in which Nigel felt perfectly at
home.
In 1939, he teamed up with Basil Rathbone
for the first two Holmes/Watson movies,
Der Hund von Baskerville (1939)
and
Die Abenteuer des Sherlock Holmes (1939),
filmed at 20th Century Fox. Both films had an authentic period feel for
Victorian England and the chemistry between the two stars was just
right. Three years later, Rathbone was contractually obliged to make a
further series of twelve Holmes pictures at Universal, again
co-starring Nigel as Dr. Watson. Nigel portrayed his lovable self in two Hitchcock classics
Rebecca (1940) (as Major Giles Lacy) and
Verdacht (1941) (as
'Beaky').
A
prominent member of the resident English colony in Hollywood, Nigel
Bruce at one time captained the cricket club established by fellow
actor and compatriot C. Aubrey Smith
in 1932 (other members included
P.G. Wodehouse,
Boris Karloff,
Ronald Colman and
David Niven).
