- In two movies he was the French voice of Oliver Hardy (from Laurel & Hardy).
- Lived in Paris during World War II. After the Nazis occupied France, Vernon was conscripted as an on-air presenter for the regime-controlled TV station Fernsehsender Paris, since he was of a neutral nationality (Swiss) and bilingual.
- Was an avid photographer, and sometimes worked as a behind-the-scenes and stills photographer on film sets.
- Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Silence de la mer, in which he played a gentle anti-Nazi German officer, made him somewhat famous but, in part due to his rough-hewn looks and Swiss accent, he was subsequently relegated to playing gangsters and heavies.
- In 1961, he became a favorite actor of Spanish film director Jesús Franco and began starring in many low-budget horror and erotic films produced in Spain and France.
- Originally a stage and radio actor, he worked primarily in France and became a well-known supporting actor after 1945 by playing villainous Nazi officers in post-war French films.
- He was born to a Swiss father and an American mother, and was fluent in German, English and French.
- Jesus Franco considered Revenge in the House of Usher (1982) to be one of Vernon's greatest roles.
- After portraying Jesus Franco's mad doctor character Dr. Orloff, he eventually appeared in a total of 40 Franco films, in addition to his roles for numerous other directors.
- Horror film fans consider his three greatest horror roles to be The Awful Dr. Orloff (1961) which introduced Jesus Franco's famed mad doctor character, Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971) in which he actually played Count Dracula, and The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1972) in which he played the insanely evil Count Cagliostro. He continued to make increasingly small appearances in high-profile films while often getting top billing in many Grade-Z low budget films.
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