Basil Rathbone appeared in a series of TV commercials for Getz Exterminators ("Getz gets 'em, since 1888!'"). Rathbone also brought Holmes to the stage in a play written by his wife Ouida. Thomas Gomez, who had appeared as a Nazi ringleader in "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror", played the villainous Professor Moriarty. Nigel Bruce was slated to portray Dr Watson once more but became too ill and the part was played by character actor Jack Raine. Bruce's absence depressed Rathbone, particularly after Bruce died on 8 October 1953, while the play was in rehearsals. The play ran for only three
Dr. Watson Alan Cox played a teenage Watson in the 1985 film "Young Sherlock Holmes", narrated by Michael Hordern as an older Watson. Ian Hart portrayed a young, capable, and fit Watson twice for BBC Television, once opposite Richard Roxburgh as Holmes (in a 2002 adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles") and for a second time opposite Rupert Everett as the Great Detective in the new story "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (2004). In the Soviet Sherlock Holmes film series, directed by Igor Maslennikov, Dr Watson was played by Vitaly Solomin. He is portrayed as a brave