Walter Hudd
British actor (1897-1963)

Walter Hudd (20 February 1897 – 20 January 1963) was a British actor and director.
Stage career
Hudd made his stage debut in The Manxman in 1919, and later toured as part of the Fred Terry Company; first attracting serious attention playing Guildenstern in a 1925 modern dress Hamlet. He also later directed plays at Stratford-on-Avon, including Richard II, Twelfth Night (also appearing as Malvolio) and Doctor Faustus (all 1947).
His West End appearances included The Way Things Happen (Ambassadors Theatre 1923), The Ghost Train (Prince of Wales Theatre 1925), The Grain of Mustard Seed (Ambassadors Theatre 1930), Mile Away Murder (Duchess Theatre 1937), Geneva (Saville Theatre 1938), Thunder Rock (St Martin's Theatre 1941), A Month in the Country (New Theatre 1949), The Waltz of the Toreadors (Criterion Theatre 1956) and The Potting Shed (Globe Theatre 1958).
He made his sole Broadway appearance in the Theatre Guild revival of You Never Can Tell (Martin Beck Theatre 1948). He was also a member of the Malvern Festival, Stratford Memorial and Old Vic theatre companies, and in later life became Head of Drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Film career
His film career began in 1935 with Anthony Asquith's Moscow Nights. The following year he was cast as T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) in Alexander Korda's proposed biopic of the celebrated soldier/author, but the production was abandoned. He had previously played a character based on Lawrence in Bernard Shaw's play, Too True to be Good, a performance that had been highly praised by Lawrence himself.
His last two films, The Punch and Judy Man and It's All Happening, were released posthumously.
The public source identifies “Walter Hudd” as british actor (1897-1963). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Walter, Hudd and British.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7965181. VIAF identifies the subject as 17423119. The Library of Congress control number is no90018170. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1897, 1963, 1919 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walter Hudd” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.