F2M2: How Aragorn is Sherlock Holmes and Germanicus and was married to Minerva McGonagall
In this fourth edition of my irregular column F2M2, that is, Fun Facts on Middle-earth related Media, I will continue with another actor who had in some way to do with a production based on Tolkien’s works – but quite obviously did do other things in his or her life you may not be aware of! Today’s most excellent example of F2M2ism is…
Robert Stephens was… Aragorn.
Robert Stephens
… in what I still consider the best adaptation of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, that is, the 1981 BBC radio series written by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell.
For many years, this radio adaptation had the voice of Aragorn for me (listen to it in the short snippet below).
And yes as well, I perfectly agree with Brian Sibley’s comment in the booklet to the CD edition of the series:
He was, for some, an unlikely choice; but for a great many listeners Robert’s powerfully idiosyncratic performance embodied a strong sense of Aragorn’s lost nobility.
The iconic rendition of Aragorn with the film trilogy aside, I have always felt there was a seriousness about this particular character that should feel… weightier, for the lack of a better word. Viggo Mortensen is a legend, no doubt about it, but in this radio series Robert Stephens nailed it – at least, for me.
I think I have heard this radio series first around the time when the major public broadcasting companies of SWR and WDR teamed up to do the German Herr der Ringe radio series in 1992 which to this day is one of the most successful and most expensive radio productions ever done in Germany – at the time about 100,000 listeners tuned in to each episode. That’s when I realised that there also was an “original”, so to speak, done by the BBC.
And I love it.
What I did not know at the time is that Robert Stephens was one of the most well-respected actors of his generation and by many considered a natural successor to Laurence Olivier.
Sherlock Holmes fans with a heart for completism will certainly have a few things to say about The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in which he played the eponymous detective (please also note: in this version Mycroft Holmes was played by none other but Christopher Lee who was happy to see himself play roles different from horror).
From “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (c) Twentieth Century-Fox
To me the episode The Settling of the Sun (s02ep03) of Inspector Morse was particularly interesting for a number of reasons. For one thing, you can see Oxford in the 80s, a few years before I went there first, for another, Robert Stephens as Sir Wilfred Mulrayne who is the dean of a college represented by Exeter College. The Turf Tavern is splendidly seen – which does look much nicer now. Not to forget – Gollum from the Bakshi film was in that episode, too: Peter Woodthorpe. Last, but not least – it was revealed to me that Morse was stationed at Marienplatz in Cologne, my hometown! Weird but informative episode.
And then there is the woman he was married to.
Maggie Smith won her first Oscar with “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969.
Robert Stephens as Germanicus
You can see her standing next to her then husband and father to her two children, Robert Stephens.
Only a few years earlier he played a small role in one of film history’s classics, Cleopatra, as Germanicus.
So, here we are:
How Aragorn is Sherlock Holmes…
…and Germanicus and was…
… married to Minerva McGonagall.
If you feel like watching Cleopatra the Web Archive offers you the opportunity; and if you feel like listening to the BBC radio series…
Photo credits: Robert Stephens (see Wikipedia entry); Germanicus (from Cleopatra [1963]), Twentieth Century-Fox.
