Dr. Gregory House's descent from Sherlock Holmes
By Andrea Johnson
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Dr. Gregory House of the Fox television program "House" may be a descendant of the Great Detective Sherlock Holmes.
Like Sherlock Holmes, House is a brilliant detective. Where Holmes solves crimes, House diagnoses unusual diseases in his patients and is equally unrelenting in his pursuit of cures. He views each case as a puzzle to solve and prefers only the most unusual cases that no other doctor could untangle.Also like the Great Detective, Dr. Gregory House displays considerable appreciation for music. He is a fan of blues and jazz and is a talented piano player, as has been demonstrated in at least two episodes of the series. In one episode he broke into a song from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.
House also displays several of Holmes' less positive traits, including arrogance, impatience with those who are less intelligent than himself, and disregard for authority figures. His addiction to the drug Vicodin and use of heroin in one episode, in his case to treat pain in a crippled leg, also mirrors Holmes' use of cocaine.
House also displays physical traits similar to that of the Great Detective. Like Holmes, he is unusually tall and slender with aquiline features. His eyes are a bright blue rather than gray like those of so many members of the Wold Newton Family, but that trait could come from elsewhere in his family.
The similarity of the surnames House and Holmes, which mean much the same thing, is also noteworthy. David Shore, television producer and biographer of Dr. House, has also remarked on several similarities between House and the Great Detective Sherlock Holmes. House's apartment number is 221B and his relationship with his best friend Dr. James Wilson is similar to Holmes' relationship with his friend Dr. John Watson.
My theory is that House is a grandson of Holmes and his blue-eyed wife, Mary Russell, whose adventures have been chronicled by Laurie R. King. Holmes and his much younger wife met in April 1915 and were married in February 1921, as was recorded by Laurie R. King in "Monstrous Regiment of Women." No children have yet been documented from the union of Holmes and Russell, but I postulate that the detective couple had at least one son, who could have been born at any time after 1925, according to the current timeline of King's Mary Russell books.
Dr. Gregory House, who is currently in his mid forties, was born circa 1959. His father, John, and mother, Blythe, were seen in a second season episode of the program entitled "Daddy's Boy." In that episode it was revealed that John House was formerly a Marine Corps pilot and was once stationed in Egypt.
I theorize that Sherlock Holmes and his American wife Mary Russell named their son John after their good friend, Dr. John Hamish Watson. As the son of an American citizen, John Holmes was entitled to American citizenship and later chose to join the U.S. Marine Corps as an adult. At that time John Holmes chose to change his surname to the similar House to avoid comparisons with his famous father as he made his way up the military ranks or, perhaps, to protect his family from the enemies of his famous parents.
It is, of course, also possible that either John Holmes or his son Gregory insisted that David Shore change their surname to "House" when producing a television program based on the often embarrassing and outrageous, though always brilliant, exploits of Dr. Gregory House.