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
Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. Livanov earned honorary membership Order of the British Empire for a performance ambassador Anthony Brenton described as "one of the best I've ever seen". In 1983, Ian Richardson portrayed Sherlock Holmes in "The Sign of Four" with David Healy as Dr. John H. Watson. Later that same year, Richardson again played Holmes in a version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" with Donald Churchill as his Watson. In 1986, a TV movie called "My Tenderly Loved Detective" was made in Soviet Union about the adventures of the female Sherlock Holmes, called