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
Basil Rathbone Basil Rathbone Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films. Rathbone frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Mr. Murdstone in "David Copperfield" (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). His most famous role, however, was heroic—that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946