[1] Born in the southwestern Ontario city of St. Thomas, Dell Henderson started his acting career on the stage, but appeared in his first movie Monday Morning in a Coney Island Police Court in 1908.

[3] Most of those films are forgotten or lost, but he also directed movies with silent stars like Harry Carey and Roscoe Arbuckle.

[citation needed] After retiring from directing in 1927, Henderson returned to acting full time and played important supporting roles in King Vidor's The Crowd (1928) and as General Marmaduke Pepper in Show People (1928).

[citation needed] In the 1930s, he appeared on several occasions as a comic foil for such comedians as The Three Stooges, Charley Chase, W. C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy.

He also appeared as a night court judge in Laurel and Hardy's Our Relations (1936) and as a friendly car salesman in Leo McCarey's drama Make Way for Tomorrow (1937).