Nigel Bruce

His last movie, World for Ransom, was released in 1954. He has been inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Bruce died in 1953, aged 57, in Santa Monica, California. His autobiography "Stuntman" was published in 1979. There were 14 films made and he also played Watson on the radio. His sons Joe Canutt and Tap Canutt also worked as stuntmen. But for millions of fans, Bruce was the definitive Watson. He staged some of the most memorable action scenes ever committed to film, including the heart-stopping chariot race segment in the 1959 film Ben-Hur.

Holmes purists objected that Watson in the books was an intelligent and capable person, just not a super detective, and that the Bruce portrayal made him seem dimmer and more bumbling than he was. He had some success as an actor, primarily playing "heavies," but his real talent was as a stuntman and stunt coordinator. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series beginning in 1939 with his good friend Basil Rathbone. He met actor Tom Mix at a rodeo in Los Angeles, and was persuaded to work as a cowboy in films. He played buffoonish, fuzzy-minded gentlemen and his signature role was that of Dr. There he gained fame as a very successful rodeo rider. During his career he worked on 77 movies, including Treasure Island, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lassie Come Home, The Corn is Green, and Bwana Devil. Born Enos Edward Canutt in the rough ranchlands near Colfax, Washington, "Yak" Canutt moved as a young man to Yakima, Washington (the town from which he borrowed his nickname).

In 1934 he moved to Hollywood. Yakima Canutt (November 29, 1896 - May 24, 1986) was an actor and stunt man in Hollywood movies of the 1920s through the 1950s. In 1920 he began his career on stage and eight years later started working in silent films. He was severely wounded in World War I and spent most of the war in a wheelchair. The son of a baronet, he was born in Ensenada, Mexico, where his parents were on vacation.

Watson in a series of films starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. William Nigel Bruce (September 4, 1895 - October 8, 1953), usually credited as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor, best known as Dr.