He was described by The Independent as "one of the country's most distinctive character actors, with ripe articulation and a flair for displaying supercilious arrogance that put him in the Vincent Price class of screen villains".

Stage-struck, after leaving school he applied unsuccessfully to Colchester Repertory to be taken on in any capacity and then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1953.

His aristocratic ancestry was often reflected in casting, he performed roles such as King Charles II in the BBC series The First Churchills (1969), the Earl of Warwick in Saint Joan (1974), and on stage as Lord Thurlow in The Madness of George III.

[1] Nicholas Whittaker, author of Platform Souls and Blue Period, worked in the Belsize Tavern in 1979 and 1980 and claimed to recall Villiers' visits to the pub in the company of local actor Ronald Fraser.

Rupert Everett also claims to have encountered Villiers in an Indian restaurant, some time in 1985, "leglessly drunk, booming orders and insults to the poor long-suffering waiter in a strange breathy vibrato that was pitched for the upper circle".