Stage-trained character actor Norman Lloyd apprenticed at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theater (NYC) and first stepped on the boards in that group's production of "Liliom" (1932). He later made his Broadway debut as Japhet in "Noah" (1935) and appeared as the leading actor of "The Living Newspaper" (1936-37) Unit of the Federal Theatre under Joseph Losey's direction. In 1937, along with Orson Welles and John Houseman, Lloyd founded The Mercury Theater, where he acted in productions of "Julius Caesar" (1937) and "The Shoemaker's Holiday" (1938). During the next 20 years, the actor appeared in dozens of plays both on Broadway and around the USA, receiving acclaim for roles like Johnny Appleseed in the Marc Connelly-Robert Edmund production of "Everywhere I Roam" (1938) and The Fool opposite Lewis Calhern's "King Lear" (1950). He also began a long association with the La Jolla Playhouse which would see him make his directorial debut ("The Road to Rome" 1948), not to mention directing and acting in many more productions for the company.
Lloyd made his impressive film debut as the furtive, sharp-featured villain with a memorable death scene (falling from The Statue of Liberty) in Alfred Hitchcock's "Saboteur" (1942) and reteamed with the director for "Spellbound" (1945). He would act in 20 films between 1945 and 1952, but no other director provided Lloyd with memorable roles like Hitch had. After appearing in such offerings as "The Unseen" and "A Walk in the Sun" (both 1945), "No Minor Vices" (1948), "The Flame and the Arrow" (1950) and "Rawhide" (1951), he left the screen after a small role in Chaplin's "Limelight" (1952). Engaged by the fledgling medium of TV, he had already directed for CBS' "Revue" series and the "Mr. Lincoln" episodes written by James Agee for the first season of "Omnibus" (NBC) when he became associate producer of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (CBS) in 1957. He directed many episodes (including the famous "Man From the South" with Peter Lorre and Steve McQueen) of the popular series, for which he eventually became executive producer.
Following the demise of the Hitchcock series, Lloyd produced and directed the NBC-TV movies "The Smugglers" (1966) and "Companions in Nightmare" (1967) before producing and directing five episodes of the British TV series "Journey to the Unknown" in 1968. He also produced the TV-movies "What's a Nice Girl Like You . . .?" (ABC, 1971) and "The Bravos" (ABC, 1972), directed during the first season of "Columbo" (NBC) and produced and directed for "Hollywood Television Theatre" (1972-74). Lloyd returned to acting with two feature roles in 1977 ("FM" and "Audrey Rose") and appeared soon after on the small screen in the NBC miniseries "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home" (1978), starring Bette Davis, followed by "Beggarman, Thief" (NBC, 1979). Best known to modern audiences for his stint as the avuncular Dr. Daniel Auschlander on the popular medical series "St. Elsewhere" (NBC, 1982-88), he delivered solid turns as the no-nonsense headmaster in Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society" (1989) and as the lawyer Letterblair in Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" (1993). Lloyd resurfaced as a scientist working to send a former CIA agent back in time on the action adventure series "7 Days" (UPN, 1998-2001).