生于密苏里州圣路易市，少时受过美术启蒙。耶鲁大学毕业，获艺术史和英语双学位，后进入伦敦大学获美术史硕士学位。1935年首次登台，演出舞台剧《芝加哥》，接着主演《维克多丽亚．里贾纳》，不久即已是一个知名的戏剧演员。1938年进入电影界，以奸诈或虚伪的反面人物形象给观众留下了深刻的印象。进入50年代，他开始参加了许多恐怖片的演出，主要有《蜡像馆》、《苍蝇》等。其它主要影片有《金殿喋血记》、《新隐身术》、《天国之路》、《三剑客》、《拉斯维加斯的故事》、《蝙蝠》、《尼罗河女王》、《血洗死屋》、《八月的鲸》等。1993年10月死于肺癌。

Aubrey Woods was born on 9 April 1928, in London, and educated at The Latymer School in Edmonton, North London. His first film role was as Smike in Nicholas Nickleby (1947). On stage he played the role of Fagin in Lionel Bart's production of Oliver! at the New Theatre, St Martin's Lane in the 1960s alongside Nicolette Roeg and Robert Bridges. He played Alfred Jingle in the TV musical Pickwick for the BBC in 1969. Woods' best remembered movie to date is Bill the Candy Store Owner in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), singing "The Candy Man" near the beginning of the film, the single was later a hit for entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. During the early 1970s he collaborated on the musical, Trelawny with friend Julian Slade.[2]

His television credits include Z-Cars, Up Pompeii!, Doctor Who (in the serial Day of the Daleks where he played a Controller in an alternate 22nd Century), Blake's 7, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Ever Decreasing Circles. He also appeared as Jacob and Potiphar in the 1991 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium, the soundtrack of which topped the British albums chart in August 1991. Radio credits include the original radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, appearing in Fit the Sixth. He dramatised E. F. Benson's 1932 comic novel "Secret Lives" in three parts for BBC radio, and was also the narrator.