From the age of 17, he augmented these activities with a role as a part-time radio announcer, after successfully auditioning at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in Brisbane.
Thiele's career as a professional actor commenced in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in radio serials; his roles included that of Superman/Clark Kent and Tarzan.
Thiele was a co-compère of the radio ABC Children's Session, as "Chris" from 1951 to 1954 (also playing the title role in its Muddle-Headed Wombat serial), his involvement possibly cut short by management for political reasons.
[4] He also made regular appearances in radio variety programs such as the Bonnington's Bunkhouse Show, and voiceovers in countless commercials.
In the early 1950s, with Raymond Hanson, Roland Robinson and others, Thiele helped form the short-lived Australian Cultural Defence Movement, aimed at protecting local arts and crafts production from the perceived inroads being made by imported content, particularly from the US.
Other leading television roles included Captain Woolcott in Seven Little Australians (1973), and headmaster Charles Ogilvy in school-based soap opera Class of '74 (1974–75).
Teale narrated for ABC audio recordings, including the Banjo Paterson poem The Man from Snowy River, and a spoken-word version of the Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" on ABC-TV's The Money or the Gun.