He was born Frederick Henry Kormann in San Francisco, California, the only child of German Americans, Frederick Andrew Kormann (1883–1948) and Ida Ruth Voll (1883–1954). His father was a chemical engineer in the oil fields who moved often.
He attended grade school in Glendale, California. When he completed high school, he rejoined them for good. He attended Stanford University, where he played football.
He worked for a time in the oil fields as a roustabout, then a tool pusher and rig builder. When he was seventeen, they moved back to San Francisco. He then became interested in theatre.
After a brief stay in New York, he went to London, in 1933, where he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Artist
He later went to Hollywood, California and took a job with Columbia Broadcasting System Radio, where he performed in a number of plays on the air. In 1937, a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scout heard him in one of these broadcasts and arranged an interview.
Terry made a screen test and was awarded a contract with the studio. Among his motion picture appearances, he had a bit part in the movie Mannequin starring Joan Crawford.
Two years later he signed with Paramount, where he starred in The Parson of Panamint, The Monster and the Girl.
He then did supporting roles in Wake Island and Bataan, the latter on which was when he was on "loan-out" to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. During World World War II Terry was classified "4F" unfit for military service due to defective vision, with Terry never wearing eyeglasses on camera. When he left Paramount, he signed with Radio-Keith-Orpheum and was in Music in Manhattan, George White"s Scandals, Pan-Americana, Born to Kill and the lead in Seven Keys to Baldpate (1947). Phillip Terry appeared in more than eighty movies over the span of his career.
Many of the early roles were small and often uncredited.
When his career began to slide in the late 1940s he turned his attention to real estate. Terry never completely abandoned acting.
During the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, he took on occasional movie roles. Some of his better B movies from this period include The Leech Woman (1960), with Grant Williams, and The Navy versus the Night Monsters (1966), with Mamie Van Doren.
Sometimes he would accept television roles and was in episodes of The Name of the Game and Police Woman.
He also made five guest appearances on Perry Mason, including the role of murder victim Robert Doniger in the 1960 episode, "The Case of the Gallant Grafter", and he played murderer Lawrence Kent in the 1961 episode, "The Case of the Resolute Reformer". In 1973, he retired and moved to Santa Barbara, California. He suffered the first of a series of strokes in 1978.
Because of the strokes, he lost his mobility and communication and was an invalid for several years before his death at the age of 83.
Terry died at his home in Santa Barbara. His ashes were buried in the Pacific Ocean.
He was a good salesman and investor, and eventually became very wealthy.
