To support his second wife's lavish tastes, he appeared as a panelist on the television game show "The Name's the Same" (in 1954), and he also took roles in cheap film thrillers of far lesser quality, such as "The Black Sleep" (1956), "Queen of Blood" (1966), "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" (1966, with comic Harvey Lembeck joking, "That guy looks like Sherlock Holmes"), "Hillbillys in a Haunted House" (1967, also featuring Lon Chaney Jr and John Carradine.
Leta 1948 je osvojil tonyja za najboljšega glavnega igralca, nagrado mu je prinesla njegova upodobitev dr. Austina Sloperja v originalni produkciji predstave "The Heiress", v kateri je vlogo njegove hčerke odigrala Wendy Hiller.