The Biography

Hector William “Harry” Cording was a British character actor. Cording was brought up and educated in his native England, and later settled permanently in Los Angeles, where he began a film career in 1925. He appeared in many Hollywood films from then to the 1950s. With an imposing six-foot height and stocky build, Harry the Henchman usually portrayed thugs, villains' henchmen and policemen. Cording's most notable roles were probably as the villainous Dickon Malbete, Captain of the Guard in Errol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood and as Thamal, the hulking henchman to Bela Lugosi's character in 1934's Black Cat. As a contract player at Universal Pictures in the 1940s, he turned up in tiny parts in many of their horror films, such as The Wolf Man. Having appeared in a bit role in 20th Century-Fox's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone (1939), he went on to appear in supporting and bit parts in seven of the twelve Universal Studios Sherlock Holmes films in which Rathbone starred.