He starred as the leading actor in the hit MGM movie, The Broadway Melody (1929), the first all-talking film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

[4] In the 1910s his most frequent partner was Elizabeth Brice with whom he appeared in The Slim Princess, A Winsome Widow, Watch Your Step and Miss 1917.

[5] King continued to appear in many major Broadway successes during the 1920s, including George White's Scandals (1921 edition), Little Nellie Kelly, Keep Kool, Hit the Deck and Present Arms, before turning his attention to Hollywood and the nascent genre of film musicals.

King introduced such other hits as "Orange Blossom Time" in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)[7] and "Happy Days Are Here Again" in Chasing Rainbows (1930), but could not sustain the initial momentum of his film popularity as musicals saturated the market, many failed at the box office and studios ended their contracts with musical performers.

Between January 1911 and April 1930, Charles King made a series of commercial recordings for Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick including several of his stage and film hits.