He played another barkeep in The Gene Krupa Story and a safecracker in Roger Corman's High School Big Shot (1959).

His 1959 portrayal of Chicago gangster/gambler Nick Popolous in Mr. Lucky ("That Stands For Pool") is especially good as he deftly shifts from bumpkin to killer multiple times.

He played political boss Frank Templeton in the final episode of McHale's Navy (1962–1966) "Wally for Congress."

He had two roles in the syndicated western series Death Valley Days in the episodes "The Holy Terror" (1963) and "The Lady and the Sourdough" (1966).

In genre television he appeared on The Twilight Zone as a time-traveling scientist—opposite Buster Keaton—in "Once Upon a Time" and as a bartender ("Mr Garrity and the Graves") and as Ilya Klarpe on The Addams Family (1964).

In the 1962 theatrical film adaptation of Rod Serling's teleplay Requiem for a Heavyweight he played the supporting role of Perelli, a sleazy promoter who offers a washed-up boxer a degrading job as a professional wrestler.

He played the Chicano café owner in Lilies of the Field and portrayed Rutherford "Rusty" Trawler, "the 9th richest man in America under 50" in the Audrey Hepburn film Breakfast at Tiffany's.