[4] Hardwicke made his first appearance on stage at the Lyceum Theatre, London in 1912 during the run of Frederick Melville's melodrama The Monk and the Woman, when he took over the part of Brother John.

[2] During 1914 he toured with Miss Darragh (Letitia Marion Dallas, d. 1917) in Laurence Irving's play The Unwritten Law, and he appeared at the Old Vic in 1914 as Malcolm in Macbeth, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew, the gravedigger in Hamlet, and other roles.

In January 1922, he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company, playing a range of parts from the drooping young lover Faulkland in The Rivals to the roistering Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night.

[6] In 1928, whilst appearing with Edith Day, Paul Robeson and Alberta Hunter in the London production of Show Boat, he married actress Helena Pickard.

[6][9] In 1948, he joined the Old Vic Company at the New Theatre to play Sir Toby Belch, Doctor Faustus, and Gaev in The Cherry Orchard, but according to critic and biographer W.A.

[10] He appeared in a 1956 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents titled Wet Saturday in which he portrayed Mr. Princey, an aristocratic gentleman who tries to cover up a murder to avoid public scandal.

Hardwicke played the titular role in a short-lived revival of the Bulldog Drummond radio program on the Mutual Broadcasting System, which ran 3 January 1954 to 28 March 1954.

[citation needed][13] A lifelong heavy smoker, he suffered from emphysema[14] and died 6 August 1964 at the age of 71 in New York from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

[15][16] Hardwicke's body was flown back to England; after a memorial service he was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in north London, where his ashes were scattered.

The memorial takes the form of a giant filmstrip, the illuminated cut metal panels illustrating scenes from some of Hardwicke's better-known roles, which include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Things to Come, and The Ghost of Frankenstein.