He is best remembered for his law-enforcement roles as Captain Adam Greer and Lieutenant Johnny Russo in two ABC crime drama television series: The Mod Squad, and The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor, respectively.

[6][9] After graduating from the Academy, Andrews made his Broadway debut in the play Hidden Horizons, in which he used his Syrian background to speak Arabic.

[3] He then appeared in the original 1948 cast of Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan's war comedy Mister Roberts, in which he played the roles of Schlemmer and Insigna.

[10] Director John Ford saw the play while visiting New York and, remembering his performance in it years later,[3] cast him in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts.

[9] Back in New York in 1955, Andrews won critical acclaim as The Streetsinger in the long-running revival of Marc Blitzstein's translation of the Brecht-Weill musical, The Threepenny Opera, off-Broadway.

[11] His film career included roles in Onionhead (1958), A Private's Affair (1959), In Enemy Country (1968), The Last Tycoon (1976), and Raid on Entebbe (1977, as Shimon Peres).

His artwork has been shown in Los Angeles art galleries, and some was published in the book Actors As Artists by Jim McMullan and Dick Gautier.

[13] In 1950 he married Norma Thornton, a ballerina who was a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show and appeared in the Broadway play Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.