Before he became a character actor, Samuel Hinds spent most of his adult life as a practicing lawyer. A Harvard graduate, he participated in amateur theater for 35 years before turning pro in the early 1930s when he was nearly 60 years old. He made his feature film debut in 1933 and subsequently appeared in over 150 films, including many in the enduring Dr. Kildare series. With his kindly face and sagacious manner, Hinds was frequently cast as a father or amiable gentleman, though occasionally he got to play disreputable lawyers and other good-men-gone-bad. Hinds was also a co-founder of the Pasadena Community Playhouse.