Maurice Costello
Costello was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants Ellen (née Fitzgerald; born 1853) and Thomas Costello (born 1852). He made his film debut in 1908, but was long believed to have debuted in "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom" (1905), supposedly playing the lead in what is regarded as the first serious film to feature the character of Sherlock Holmes, since it was preceded only by the 30-second comedy film "Sherlock Holmes Baffled" (1900). However, Holmesian scholar Leslie S. Klinger has written that the identification of Costello in the role is flawed. Klinger states that the first identification of Costello with the role was in Michael Pointer's "Public Life of Sherlock Holmes" published in 1975 but Pointer later realized his error and wrote to Klinger stating
Patrick Macnee
Macnee appeared in "Magnum, P.I." (1984) as a retired, but delusional, British agent, who believed he was Sherlock Holmes, in a season four episode titled "Holmes Is Where the Heart Is". He played both Holmes and Dr. Watson on several occasions. He played Watson three times: once alongside Roger Moore's Sherlock Holmes in a TV film, "Sherlock Holmes in New York" (1976), and twice with Christopher Lee, first in "Incident at Victoria Falls" (1991), and then in "Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady" (1992). He played Holmes in another TV film, "The Hound of London" (1993), along with the 1996 TV film "". He is thus one of only a very small number of actors to have portrayed both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on screen.