He also participated in the following radio shows: Mandrake the Magician (opposite Raymond Edward Johnson and Jessica Tandy), The Shadow, Tennessee Jed, and Against the Storm.

He also has a speaking part, although uncredited, as a police officer in the 1932 crime drama and musical Harlem Is Heaven, which stars Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

In 1949, he acted in his first mainstream film, based on William Faulkner's novel, Intruder in the Dust, in which he played the role of Lucas Beauchamp, a poor Mississippi farmer unjustly accused of the murder of a white man.

[8] He is also memorable in Young Man With a Horn as Art Hazzard, a jazz trumpet player who mentors fellow musician Kirk Douglas.

"[9] He also received favorable notices for his performances in Trial (1955), about a politically charged court case, in which he played the judge, and Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker (1965).

In 1959, he starred in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents production of the Ambrose Bierce short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

[3] In the last two years of his life he appeared in three films, The Extraordinary Seaman (1969) with David Niven, The Reivers (1969) with Steve McQueen, and They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

He died in San Juan on July 17, 1970, of a cerebral hemorrhage 2 days before his 74th birthday, and was interred at Cementerio Buxeda Memorial Park, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.