John Albright started out in films in 1935 playing bellboys, students, and dancers but like most actors, his career was interrupted by World War II when he joined the Air Force. Upon returning, he resumed his career where he was made a contract player at MGM during the height of the musical era because of him his youthful looks and his ability to dance.

By the late 1940s, Albright started appearing in more and more sequences that required your generic looking townsman. He transitioned into courtroom scenes in dramas, townsman in westerns, and he would still occasionally play a bellboy or a bellhop because of his youthful appearances. In the 1950s, he turned his sights towards the more political aspects of the Screen Extras Guild and got elected to their board.