Sherlock Holmes early 1900s, H. A. Saintsbury took over the role from Gillette for a tour of the play. Between this play and Conan Doyle's own stage adaptation of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", Saintsbury portrayed Holmes over 1,000 times. Basil Rathbone played Holmes and Nigel Bruce played Watson in fourteen U.S. films (two for 20th Century Fox and a dozen for Universal Pictures) from 1939 to 1946, and in "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" on the Mutual radio network from 1939 to 1946 (before the role of Holmes passed to Tom Conway). While the Fox films were period pieces,
Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature." Three "Sherlock Holmes" adaptations have appeared in American newspapers. The first, titled "Sherlock Holmes", ran from 1930 to 1931. "Sherlock Holmes" was drawn by Leo O'Mealia (who later drew covers for "Action Comics") and distributed by the Bell Syndicate. A short-lived half-page Sherlock Holmes comic strip appeared daily and Sunday in the 1950s, written by radio scriptwriter