Derr was the star of the 1951 science fiction classic When Worlds Collide, co-starring John Hoyt. His other films include Man at Large (1941, with Elisha Cook, Jr.), Castle in the Desert (1942), Joan of Arc (1948, with Jeff Corey), Three in the Attic (1968), The Drowning Pool (1975, with Andrew Robinson and Gail Strickland), American Gigolo (1980), and Firefox (1982, with Ward Costello, Ralph Maurer, and Tony Papenfuss).