British actor Percy Herbert was launched on a stage career through the auspices of theatrical legend Dame Sybil Thorndike. In his earliest screen appearances, Herbert specialized in talkative cockneys; as he grew older, the Bow-Bells dialect lapsed and he often as not was seen as a Scotsman or American. An ideal "military" type, Herbert was well cast in such films as The Baby and the Battleship (1955), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and, best of all, Tunes of Glory (1960). He was also a perennial in British-based horror and fantasy films, notably Curse of the Demon (1957), Enemy from Space (1957) and a brace of Harryhausen pictures, Mysterious Island (1961, as a hammy Confederate soldier) and One Million Years BC (1966). In 1967, Percy Herbert was seen as deputy McGregor on the 90-minute TV western Cimmaron Strip.