[1] He was an original member of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, where he was a notable Shylock and Caliban.

In 1929 he appeared on stage as Blanquet, in "Bird in Hand" at the Morosco Theatre in New York, after a successful run in London's West End (Laurence Olivier was the juvenile).

The part had been specially written for him by John Drinkwater.

In 1943, he played the stationmaster in the Ealing war film Undercover.

One of his last film appearances was as the murderer Major Jack Ross in John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953) with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre.