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The younger brother of matinee idol Donald Houston attended elementary school in Wales but was mostly self-taught, with a passion for sports and a strong interest in the arts and humanities. Glyn began his working life delivering milk on his grandmother's route in Tonypandy. After leaving the Rhondda Valley, he took on various short-term jobs and wartime roles: working for the Bristol Aeroplane Company, serving as a gunner with the Fleet Air Arm, laboring at the Cardiff docks, and joining the Military Police. Eventually stationed in Singapore, Glyn served with the Royal Signals Regiment, where his talent for comedy was first noticed. After joining the Entertainments National Service Association and being promoted to Acting Sergeant, he organized a variety show for troops that toured India.
Following demobilization at the end of the war, his brother Donald helped him secure a job as assistant stage manager at the Guildford Repertory Theatre. This hands-on experience in touring productions laid the groundwork for his screen career, which began when director Basil Dearden created a role specifically for him in Ealing Studios' The Blue Lamp (1950). Over the next six years, Glyn appeared regularly in films, often portraying working-class characters, sailors, and soldiers (frequently Cockneys) in dramas with crime, naval, or military themes. These included classics like The Clouded Yellow (1950), The Cruel Sea (1953), Turn the Key Softly (1953) — notably as Joan Collins's first onscreen lover — and The One That Got Away (1957). Many of these were minor or cameo roles, but he eventually landed leading parts. In Solo for Sparrow (1962), Glyn starred as a Scotland Yard inspector turned private detective who takes down a gang of criminals, including a young Michael Caine. He also had a leading role as a policeman in Emergency (1962), appeared in several Hammer horror films, and played the comic foil in four Norman Wisdom comedies, starting with A Stitch in Time (1963). From 1958 onward, Glyn was a regular presence on television, appearing in a wide range of shows, live broadcasts, anthologies, soap operas, and classic adaptations—most notably as Lord Peter Wimsey's meticulous manservant Mervyn Bunter in Clouds of Witness (1972) and as Rosa Bud’s guardian Grewgious in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1993).
His most frequent roles remained serious professionals, often uniformed officers such as Colonel Wolsey in Doctor Who (1963) episode "The Awakening," or more commonly police inspectors and superintendents in productions like Outbreak of Murder (1962), Gideon C.I.D. (1964), Z Cars (1962), and Softly Softly (1966). While maintaining a prolific stage career in plays by Chekhov, Shaw, Miller, and others, his sole regret was not becoming a prominent figure on the Shakespearean stage. In 2008, Glyn Houston received a Bafta Cymru special award for outstanding contribution to film and television. His autobiography, Glyn Houston: A Black and White Actor, was published the following year.
