British director Walter Forde started his show-business career on the stage of the music halls of northern England. He entered the film business as a screenwriter but became an actor in 1920, in a series of two-reel comedies he wrote himself. He spent some time in Hollywood, but not much happened and he came back to Britain in 1925. He went to work for Gainsborough and began directing. The studio was impressed with the results, and began to hand him its "A"-list projects. Several of his films, such as The Ghost Train (1931) and The Ringer (1931), were well received by critics. He worked in a variety of genres, mostly comedies, but he turned out the occasional thriller or mystery. His star began to wane during the war years, and his postwar films didn't live up to his pre-war ones. He made his last film in 1949.

He died in 1987 at age 84 in Los Angeles, California.