Ruggles imitating a leopard in BRINGING UP BABY.

From 1929, Ruggles appeared in talking pictures. His first was Gentleman of the Press in which he played a comic, alcoholic newspaper reporter. Throughout the 1930s, he was teamed with comic actress Mary Boland in a string of domestic farces, notably If I Had a Million, Six of a Kind, Ruggles of Red Gap, and People Will Talk. Ruggles is best remembered today as the big-game hunter in Bringing Up Baby and billionaire Michael J. "Mike" O'Connor in It Happened on Fifth Avenue. In 1944, he had a summer radio series, The Charlie Ruggles Show on CBS.[5] In 1949, Ruggles halted his film career to return to the stage and to move into television. He was the headline character in the TV series The Ruggles (1949–52), a family comedy in which he played a character also called Charlie Ruggles and was again the headline character in the daily sitcom The World of Mr. Sweeney, which ran for 345 episodes in 1954–55. Ruggles returned to the big screen in 1961, playing Charles McKendrick in The Parent Trap and Mackenzie Savage in The Pleasure of His Company. In the latter film, he reprised the role for which he had won a Tony Award in 1959. In 1963 he memorably played the grandfather of the silent film star Corinne Griffith in Papa's Delicate Condition. Griffith had written the book of her early life on which the film is based. Ruggles made guest appearances in episodes of various television series through the 1950s and 1960s, such as a time-traveling librarian in "Man from 1997," a 1956 science fiction episode of the television series Conflict, and a 1961 appearance as a wealthy neighbor who offers to finance a European trip for Hassie McCoy on The Real McCoys, in the season 5 episode "Hassie's European Tour". Ruggles had a recurring guest role on The Beverly Hillbillies in the mid-1960s as Lowell Redlings Farquhar, father-in-law of Milburn Drysdale (Raymond Bailey). Ruggles also played Aunt Clara's (Marion Lorne) old flame, the warlock Hedley Partridge, as well as a Mr. Caldwell, whose company marketed soup, in the television series Bewitched.[6] In Wagon Train, he played, Jameson Hershey, the owner of an elderly horse, Herman, that joins up with the wagon train. He played Congressman John Canfield on an episode of The Andy Griffith Show called "Aunt Bee, The Swinger", and appeared as a driving instructor on The Munsters. Ruggles also lent his voice to the Aesop and Son features in Jay Ward's The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. One of Ruggles' last television appearances before his death was a starring role in the syndicated television special The Wonder Circus, where he played Charlie Wonder, a retired ringmaster who talked about his life leading a circus.[7]