Bryant Haliday was born in Rhode Island and spent time in an English Benedictine monastery. Entering Harvard to study international law, he became involved with a group of students who were interested in putting on plays. He caught the acting bug and abruptly gave up law to become a man of the theater. They bought an abandoned church, converted it into the Brattle Theatre (Haliday called the Cambridge, Massachusetts, landmark "an unashamed imitation of the Bristol Old Vic") and produced 64 plays, joining the cast of over 50. He later opened a small movie revival house and began hunting in Europe for film acquisitions; picking up the rights to classics like Det sjunde inseglet (1957) and I vitelloni (1953). Haliday and partner Cyrus Harvey founded Janus Films. Haliday was also a movie actor, turning up most regularly in the horror thrillers of his producer friend Richard Gordon (Devil Doll (1964), Curse of the Voodoo (1965), The Projected Man (1966)), among others). Late in life he lived in France, where he worked as a producer, writer and actor in Paris theater and on French TV.