After having worked at the Drawing Office of the Surveyor's Department at the Coulsdon and Purley Urban District Council at the age of twenty for three years, he finally enrolled in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and received his first stage credit in 1936, a non-speaking role at the Connaught Theater in Worthing. On January 18, 1939, he left England for New York, where he got cast for "The Man In The Iron Mask". Returning home to England after WW II, his first British film was an adaption of "Hamlet" (1948). When paired together with Christopher Lee for the first time ("The Curse Of Frankenstein" 1957), he finally got his break-through. The two actors then worked together on several horror-pictures, mainly for British Hammer Film, and helped revive the vampire-film genre and established the fame of the Hammer Film studios.