Nouri was born in Washington D.C. to Gloria (née Montgomery) and Edmond Nouri. Edmond was an Iraqi immigrant from Baghdad who arrived in the United States on a Georgetown University scholarship, enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, and became a writer for Stars and Stripes and The New Yorker.
Nouri grew up in New York City and Alpine, New Jersey. At age 14, after repeatedly getting into fights at school, he was transferred to an all-boys boarding school in Connecticut, Avon Old Farms School, where he became student-body president, and decided to be an actor after starring in a Gilbert and Sullivan play. He attended Rollins College and Emerson College, worked as a waiter, then landed his first role on Broadway in 1967. He was briefly a student under Prem Rawat and was involved in his three-day festival Millennium '73.[citation needed]
After starring in an off-Broadway production of The Crucible, Nouri landed his first Broadway role in Forty Carats, which ran for two years. He made his film debut in 1969, with an uncredited role in Goodbye, Columbus. He appeared on several television soap operas, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for his role as Steve Kaslow on Search for Tomorrow. He portrayed Lucky Luciano in the miniseries The Gangster Chronicles and its theatrically released feature film Gangster Wars. In 1979, he appeared in the episode "The Curse of Dracula" of the series Cliffhangers.

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