Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#25099
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ted Billings works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ted Billings appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ted. Stagecoach is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for horror, thriller, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Wise, John Brahm, Ford Beebe and others, Ted Billings helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Stagecoach (1939) as Bit Part (uncredited) · Bride of Frankenstein (1935) as Ludwig · Frankenstein (1931) as Villager (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #25099 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1931–1945
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Stagecoach
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Stagecoach
Most frequent director
James Whale
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With James Whale
Most common genre
Horror
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.4
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1930s
6.7 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Stagecoach, Tower of London — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.7
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Stagecoach, Tower of London.
Most productive era
1930s
9 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.54 films | 6.73 films |
| Thriller | 6.52 films | 6.63 films |
| Crime | 6.42 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.82 films |
| Horror | 6.85 films | 6.44 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1931Frankenstein
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Villager (uncredited). 7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Townsman (uncredited).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
16 of 16 films
as Bit Part (uncredited)
Directed by John Ford
as Villager (uncredited)
Directed by James Whale
as Villager Playing Darts (uncredited)
Directed by James Whale
as Townsman
Directed by Robert Stevenson
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Bit Part (uncredited)
Stagecoach (1939)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bit Part (uncredited) gives Ted Billings a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ludwig
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Performance score7.2
Bride of Frankenstein asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ludwig is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Villager (uncredited)
Frankenstein (1931)
Performance score7.2
Frankenstein asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Villager (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Villager Playing Darts (uncredited)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Performance score7.1
The Invisible Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Villager Playing Darts (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Bit Part (uncredited)
Start here. Stagecoach is the clearest statement of what Ted Billings does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ted at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Frankenstein (1931)
A deliberate change of key after Stagecoach — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Invisible Man (1933)
Same director as Frankenstein, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Same director as The Invisible Man, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Jane Eyre (1943)
A deliberate change of key after Bride of Frankenstein — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
James Whale
Director
3 films together
Notably Bride of Frankenstein
William A. Wellman
Director
1 film together
Notably Safe in Hell
Robert Florey
Director
1 film together
Notably Murders in the Rue Morgue
Frank Lloyd
Director
1 film together
Notably Cavalcade
Rowland V. Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Tower of London
John Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably Stagecoach
Alfred L. Werker
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably Man Hunt
William Wyler
Director
1 film together
Notably Mrs. Miniver
Robert Stevenson
Director
1 film together
Notably Jane Eyre
Ford Beebe
Director
1 film together
Notably The Invisible Man's Revenge
John Brahm
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lodger
Robert Wise
Director
1 film together
Notably The Body Snatcher
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
James Whale
Director
3 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Bride of FrankensteinJohn Ford
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
StagecoachRobert Stevenson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jane EyreWilliam Wyler
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mrs. MiniverRobert Wise
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Body SnatcherFritz Lang
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Man HuntAlfred L. Werker
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesVictor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeJohn Brahm
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The LodgerWilliam A. Wellman
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Safe in HellRowland V. Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tower of LondonRobert Florey
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Murders in the Rue MorgueFord Beebe
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Invisible Man's RevengeFrank Lloyd
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CavalcadeSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Stagecoach
as Bit Part (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Jane Eyre
as Townsman
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Frankenstein
as Villager (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
as Bar Patron (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Stagecoach
as Bit Part (uncredited)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Ted Billings has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Horror Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in horror, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
as Pub Customer (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Body Snatcher
as Townsman (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Jane Eyre
as Townsman
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Murders in the Rue Morgue
as Sideshow Spectator (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Stagecoach
as Bit Part (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Stagecoach
as Bit Part (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Mrs. Miniver
as Man in Tavern (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Cavalcade
as Newspaper Peddler (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Morgan Freeman
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Zach Grenier
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Have your say
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Reference
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