Discovered on Broadway by director Howard Hawks, La Rue was originally brought to Hollywood to play a gangster in Scarface (1930). However he lost that role to George Raft, and similarly was replaced by Humphrey Bogart in the film version of The Petrified Forest (1936). Eventually he became well-known to movie-goers - aa a mean and sexy gangster type inhabiting such sadistic parts as Miriam Hopkins` abductor in The Story of Temple Drake (1933). He appeared in hundreds of films and audiences, who loved to loathe him on-screen, were occasionally surprised by his being cast against type in such movies as A Farewell to Arms (1932. His final film was in the "Rat Pack" comedy Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964).