He appeared in a number of classic British films in the late 1930s and 1940s including Sabotage (1936), The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940), Let George Do it (1940), Major Barbara (1941), The Captive Heart (1946), I See A Dark Stranger (1946), When the Bough Breaks (1947), and The Fallen idol (1948).
Two of the films that he appeared in during this period were alongside Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne – in 1940 he had an uncredited role in Night Train to Munich and in 1942 he played the part of a German General (pictured) in Next of Kin.
In Hollywood from the 1950's onwards, his looming figure and baleful countenance were constantly called upon including roles in The Crimson Pirate (1952), as reformed pirate Sir Henry Morgan in The Robe (1953), Helen of Troy (1956) as the Duke of Wellington in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and Hawaii (1966).
Also a steady fixture on TV, he appeared in productions such as The Great Adventure (1963), Star Trek (1967), Mission: Impossible (1968-1969), The Land of the Giants (1970) and made-for-TV films such as the Jack Palance version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Brenda Starr.
Torin Thatcher died of cancer on March 4, 1981 in Los Angeles.