Robards appeared in many films, initially as a leading man, then in character roles and occasional bit parts.

Robards's connection to the part caused his son to equate him to the character of James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night, which Jason Jr. played on Broadway in 1956 and on screen in 1962.

In the play, Tyrone is an actor whose career is limited by his identification with a single role as The Count of Monte Cristo.

"[4] In one of his television appearances, Robards played Judge Hesby in the 1958 episode "Dead Reckoning" of the TV series Colt .45.

The Robardses, father and son, acted on stage together only once, in Budd Schulberg's The Disenchanted, a play inspired by the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald.