He appeared in scores of feature films with directors including Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Michael Powell and Laurence Olivier, generally playing memorable small or supporting roles.

He attended grammar school at Dumfries Academy, then abandoned a career in architecture to serve in the First World War as a member of the Honourable Artillery Company.

[8] Soon after joining the Old Vic Laurie became involved with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon where he played such roles as Richard III, Othello and Macbeth.

In the next decade, he played the psychiatrist Dr. James Garsten in Mine Own Executioner (1947), the repugnant Pew in Disney's Treasure Island (1950), Angus in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), and Dr. MacFarlane in Hobson's Choice (1954).

[14] In 1954, Laurie joined the Edinburgh Gateway Company to play the leading role in Robert Kemp's The Laird o' Grippy, a translation into Scots of Molière's L'avare.

[16] Dad's Army co-star Frank Williams noted in his autobiography that Laurie had ‘a sort of love-hate relationship with the show’, as despite earning him a lot a money he felt that a sitcom was beneath him.

[17] Said Graham McCann in his book Dad's Army: The Story of a Very British Comedy: "John Laurie was cantankerous, he was rather mischievous, he was someone who enjoyed playing a kind of a professional pessimist.