Hardy worked in television, in films and on stage, including on Broadway as understudy for John Cullum opposite George C Scott in the two-man play The Boys in Autumn,[9] and Off-Broadway in the musical To Whom it May Concern by Best Little Whorehouse songwriter Carol Hall and directed by Geraldine Fitzgerald[10] in which he again appeared with Shofner.
[13] In 1991 he joined Sidney Poitier and Burt Lancaster in the cast of the Emmy winning mini-series Separate But Equal, playing Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark, one of his favorite assignments.
While working with Masterson to that end, Hardy returned to the Alley in The Front Page as the crooked Mayor[15] and in Keely and Du as the patriarchal leader of underground Christian kidnappers.
At Stages he not only directed The Moon is Blue[19] but played the Marquis de Sade in Quills and the desperate professor mentoring the troubled young pianist in Old Wicked Songs, where Hardy and Daniel Magill created "the sort of chemistry that makes for magic.
"[20] In 2002 Hardy "plowed right in" to portray "the awful truth" of Alzheimer's in Nagle Jackson's Taking Leave,[21] and in 2003 he played the comic, good, old shepherd in Houston Shakespeare Festival's The Winter's Tale.