[6] He appeared in the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film The Big Sleep as blackmailing gangster Eddie Mars and had a pivotal role as a suffering heart patient in the film noir Nora Prentiss (1947).

His most prominent other roles were his top-billed part as the bomber captain in Howard Hawks's Air Force and as real-life fighter pilot Tex Hill in 1945's God is My Co-Pilot.

The Chicago-born actor appeared in a large number of other films, particularly for Warner Bros., in the 1930s and 1940s.

[7] Freelancing after 1948, Ridgely continued to essay general-purpose parts until he left films in 1953.

He worked in summer-theater productions and television until his death from a heart attack at the age of 58 in 1968.