On one trip, the company manager absconded with the box office receipts, leaving Snitz and the rest of the marooned troupers to find their way across Panama to catch a steamship back to New York City.

With his expressive and "homely" face, he was considered by many directors to be well suited to light, comedic roles and often played characters written as a comic foil opposite starring actors.

At his peak in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Edwards appeared with some of the most famous actors of the era, including Mary Pickford, Clara Kimball Young, Barbara La Marr, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Wallace Reid, Lila Lee, Colleen Moore, Lionel Barrymore, Conrad Nagel, Mildred Harris, Rod La Rocque, Ramón Novarro, Marion Davies, and countless others.

In 1925 he was cast in one of his most memorable roles, that of Florine Papillon in the Rupert Julian directed box-office hit The Phantom of the Opera, opposite Lon Chaney, Sr. and Mary Philbin; and he co-starred with Douglas Fairbanks in Thief of Bagdad.

By the early 1930s and the advent of talkies, Edwards was already in his 60s, suffering from crippling arthritis but remaining active until his last role, a part in the 1931 William A. Wellman-directed crime drama The Public Enemy opposite actors Jean Harlow, James Cagney, and Joan Blondell.