[3] Warde started his Hollywood career in Escape by Night,[1] appearing in a handful of undistinguished feature films before gaining popularity as one of the hardest working henchmen in the 1930s and 1940s serials.

Warde first appeared in his first film bow in 1936, but he spent most of his time bothering serials heroes as a vicious bodyguard, underground leader or infamous rustler, but also was satisfactory in character roles and the occasional sympathetic part.

He also appeared in popular serials such as Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), for Universal; The Spider Returns (1941) and Batman (1943) for Columbia, as well as in The Masked Marvel (1943), The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) and The Black Widow (1947) for Republic.

[citation needed] But Warde is probably best remembered for playing Killer Kane, gangster ruler of the Earth in Universal's adaptation of Buck Rogers (1939).

[citation needed] Warde made his last screen appearance in The Carpetbaggers, a 1964 film adaptation of Harold Robbins' best-seller novel.