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).