Coulouris made his stage debut in 1926 with
Henry V at the
Old Vic. In 1928 and 1929 he appeared in several productions at the
Cambridge Festival Theatre including Eugene O'Neill's
The Hairy Ape.. By 1929, he made his first
Broadway appearance, followed by his first
Hollywood film role in 1933. A major impact on his life was
Orson Welles, whom he met in 1936 when they both had roles in the Broadway production of
Sidney Kingsley's
Ten Million Ghosts. Welles invited Coulouris to become a charter member of his
Mercury Theatre, and in 1937 Coulouris performed the role of Mark Antony in the company's debut production,
Caesar, an innovative modern-dress production of Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar. In 1938, he appeared in the Mercury stage productions of ''
The Shoemaker's Holiday and Heartbreak House'', and became part of the repertory company that presented CBS Radio's
The Mercury Theatre on the Air and its sponsored continuation,
The Campbell Playhouse (1938–40). Also for CBS, in 1943 he appeared in the radio series
Suspense, in the episode "The Last Letter of Dr. Bronson" with
Laird Cregar and in 1944, "Portrait without a Face". In
Citizen Kane (1941), Coulouris played Walter Parks Thatcher, a financier similar to
J. P. Morgan. Coulouris and Welles each received a
1941 National Board of Review Award for their performances. During the 1940s, Coulouris remained a regular figure on the stage and screen, starring in his own Broadway production of
Richard III in 1943. His films in this period included
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943),
Between Two Worlds (1944),
Mr. Skeffington (1944) and
Watch on the Rhine (1943), in which he repeated the role he originated in the
Broadway production. He also performed as
Robert de Baudricourt in
Joan of Arc (1948), starring
Ingrid Bergman. Coulouris was the first actor to star in the title role of the
Bulldog Drummond radio program on the
Mutual Broadcasting System. ==Return to Britain==