Question: What year was the actor who played Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock born?
Context: Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed literary character in film and television history, having appeared on screen 254 times as of 2012.  The list of actors who have played Sherlock Holmes in film, television, stage, or radio includes: "The Empty Hearse" is the first episode of the third series of the BBC television series "Sherlock".  It was written by Mark Gatiss and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson, and Mark Gatiss as Mycroft Holmes.  It also marks the first appearance of Amanda Abbington as Mary Morstan and Lars Mikkelsen as Charles Augustus Magnussen. Sherlock Holmes was a detective television series aired in syndication in the fall of 1954, based on the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.  The 39 half-hour mostly original stories were produced by Sheldon Reynolds and filmed in France by Guild Films, starring Ronald Howard (son of Leslie Howard) as Holmes and Howard Marion Crawford as Watson.  Archie Duncan appeared in many episodes as Inspector Lestrade (and in a few as other characters).  Richard Larke, billed as Kenneth Richards, played Sgt. Wilkins in about fifteen episodes.  The series' associate producer, Nicole Milinaire, was one of the first women to attain a senior production role in a television series. Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch CBE (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor who has performed in film, television, theatre and radio.  He is the son of actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham.  Cumberbatch graduated from the University of Manchester and continued his training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, obtaining a Master of Arts in Classical Acting.  He first performed at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in Shakespearean productions and made his West End debut portraying George Tesman in Richard Eyre's revival of "Hedda Gabler" in 2005.  Since then he has starred in the Royal National Theatre productions "After the Dance" (2010) and "Frankenstein" (2011).  In 2015, he played William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" at the Barbican Theatre. Alan Wheatley (19 April 1907 – 30 August 1991) was an English actor and former radio announcer.  He is perhaps best known for playing the polished villain the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1950s TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood", with Richard Greene playing Robin Hood.  In 1951, Wheatley had played Sherlock Holmes in the first TV series about the fictional detective, but no recordings of it are known to exist. The Hound of the Baskervilles (Russian: "Приключения Шерлока Холмса и доктора Ватсона: Собака Баскервилей" , English: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles ) is a 1981 Soviet film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles".  It was the third installment in the TV series about adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.  A potent streak of humour ran through the film as concerns references to traditional British customs and stereotypes, ensuring the film's popularity with several generations of Russophone viewers.  Other features of this best entry in the series include excellent exterior shots which closely match the novel's setting in the Dartmoor marshland, as well as an all-star cast: in addition to the famous Livanov -Solomin duo as Holmes and Watson, the film stars the internationally acclaimed actor/director Nikita Mikhalkov as Sir Henry Baskerville and the Russian movie legend Oleg Yankovsky as Jack Stapleton. Roger Llewellyn is a British actor.  He played Sherlock Holmes in 1997, 2007 and 2008 in stage versions of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "Sherlock Holmes The Last Act" and "The Death and Life of Sherlock Holmes". Charles Gray (29 August 1928 – 7 March 2000) was an English actor who was well known for roles including the arch-villain Blofeld in the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever", Dikko Henderson in a previous Bond film "You Only Live Twice", Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft Holmes in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and as the Criminologist in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in 1975. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes is a series of three annotated books edited by Leslie S. Klinger, collecting all of Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories and novels about Sherlock Holmes.  The books were originally published by W. W. Norton in oversized slipcased hardcover editions.  The first two volumes containing the short stories were published on November 17, 2004, with the third volume containing the novels following a year later on November 17, 2005.  Each volume was subsequently published separately on November 5, 2007 without a slipcase.  This publication of the Sherlock Holmes canon has been called "definitive" Sherlock Holmes is a 1932 American Pre-Code film starring Clive Brook as the eponymous London detective.  The movie is based on the successful stage play "Sherlock Holmes" by William Gillette, in turn based on the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, and is directed by William K. Howard for the Fox Film Corporation.  Brook had played Holmes three years previously in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".
Answer: 1976