His next big role came as the vulnerable man on the verge of divorce in the 1952 film ‘The Marrying Kind’ opposite Judy Holliday. The same year he was nominated for a 1952 Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Male Newcomer of the year for his work as Davie Hucko in the Tracy-Hepburn flick ‘Pat and Mike’. In the quest for the Golden Globe along he was nominated along with Richard Burton and Robert Wagner --- but lost ultimately out to Burton. The following year (1953) he divorced his first wife Shirley Green whom he’d married in 1947. The marriage produced one child. The following year he married up-and-coming actress Jeff Donnell (‘The Sweet Smell of Success’, ‘The Blue Gardenia’ etc.) and they were subsequently divorced two years later. The remainder of the 1950s gave Mr. Ray an array of solid and noteworthy roles in a number of films -- as Sgt. O’Hara in ‘Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), as trashy Bill Thompson in the highly touted ‘God’s Little Acre’ (1958), ‘Three Stripes in the Sun’ (1955). ‘The Naked and The Dead’ (1958), ‘Men in War’ (1957), ‘Battle Cry’ with Tab Hunter and Dorothy Malone (1955), ‘Let’s Do It Again’ (1953), and one of his best and most arresting performances in ‘We’re No Angels’ (1955) where he held his own amongst Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Basil Rathbone, and Joan Bennett.

By the time the sixties began to develop his roles evolved into decidedly less colorful roles. He had become more type-cast and his roles reflected stock character work – ‘Sylvia’ (1965), ‘The Day They Robbed the Bank of England’ (1960), ‘The Violent Ones’ (1967), ‘Silent Treatment’ (1968), ‘What Did You Do In The War Daddy?’ as sergeant Rizzo (1966), ‘The Power’ (1968), ‘Nightmare in the Sun’ (1965), ‘Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round’ (1966) (which is also the film debut of Harrison Ford). Staunch Republican actor Mr. Ray was also unforgettable as the drill sergeant Muldoon in the John Wayne mega-opus ‘The Green Berets’ (1968). On a comparatively positive note during the sixties Aldo Ray married for the final time to Johanna Ray and the marriage lasted 7 years and produced 3 offspring.

The seventies proved significantly tougher time for casting the macho actor – Hollywood had branched out, evolved, and significantly changed a great deal over the past decade. Still working with studio projects Aldo Ray found little challenge or variation in his work – he was primarily the mean tough guy --- a gruff police sergeant, a gruff army officer, a crusty cop, and a gruff redneck. Abrasive seemed the key work in his casting. He was the personification of gruff and gravelly establishment ethics – the macho equivalent of “the man”. Films in that decade found him a bit more desperate for work and the desperation was woefully apparent. He even performed (in a non-sexual role) in a XXX porno opposite Carol Connors in ‘Sweet Savage’. He also began doing periodic TV guest starring work -- ‘CHIPS’, ‘ S.W.A.T.’, ‘Marcus Welby’, etc. At the time same time he began delving more into some serious racksandrazors territory with his work in ‘The Haunted’ (1979) with Virginia Mayo, ‘Haunts’ (1977) with Cameron Mitchell and May Britt, ‘The Death Dimension’ (1978), ‘The Lucifer Complex (1978) with Robert Vaughn, and ‘The Psychic Killer (1975) with Jim Hutton, Julie Adams, Neville Brand, Whit Bissell, and Paul Burke, ‘The Centerfold Girls’ (1974) with Andrew Prine and Tiffany Bolling --- etc.

In the 1980s Aldo Ray’s career took a different spin. Things became a bit more desperate. Diagnosed with throat cancer Also Ray accepted virtually any role that managed to come his way in order to maintain his costly health insurance. He appeared in a segment of the nighttime soap ‘Falcon Crest’ late in 1985 as Mr. McLish. In films he was in ‘The Bog’ (1983) with Gloria DeHaven, ‘Mongrel’ (1982), ‘Vultures’ (1983) with Stuart Whitman and Yvonne DeCarlo, ‘Sanctuary for Evil’ with Linnea Quigley, ‘Prison Ship (1984), ‘Evils of the Night’ (1985) with the uber-campy cast of Tina Louise, Julie Newmar, Neville Brand, and John Carradine, ‘Star Slammer’ (1988), ‘Bloody Movie’ (1987) with Michelle Bauer, Dan Haggerty, Cameron Mitchell, and John Ireland, the Fred Olen Ray opus ‘Biohazard’ (1984), ‘Crime of Crimes’ (1989) with David Carradine, ‘Frankenstein’s Great Aunt Tillie’ (1984) with Donald Pleasance and Zsa Zsa Gabor, ‘Crime of Crimes’ with David Carradine, ‘Blood Red’ (1989) with Eric Roberts, Giancarlo Giannini, Julia Roberts (!!!), and Dennis Hopper, ‘Flesh and Bullets’ (1985) with Yvonne DeCarlo, Cornel Wilde, and Caesar Romero…and many more. Sadly his SAG membership was revoked in the 1980s when it was found out he was acting in non-union productions. The only film Aldo Ray managed to churn out in the 1990s was ‘Shock Em Dead’ (1991) with campy veterans Traci Lords and Troy Donahue.

Sadly, Racks and Razors cop/tough-guy-extraordinaire Aldo Ray eventually passed away on March 27^th 1991 in Martinez California from throat cancer combined with typically awful complications from pneumonia. His passing came a mere two months after the release of his final film, 1991’s ‘Shock Em Dead’. He also passed shortly after completing his scenes for ‘Shooters’. As ad end to a true to a horror film regular.

However, in whatever format the legacy of Aldo Ray lies on --- both in his own significant body of work and also through his son Eric DaRae who played wife-beater Leo Johnson in the TV series ‘Twin Peaks’ as well as the subsequent ‘Walk With Fire’ theatrical film.