Born in England in 1891, Stanley Ridges would become a protégé of Beatrice Lillie, a star of musical comedies, and spent a great many years learning and honing his craft on the stage. He eventually would make his way over to America, and become a romantic leading man on Broadway. His first film appearance was in Success (1923), but his film career would not begin to take off until he was 43 in Crime Without Passion (1934) opposite Claude Rains. Stanley found himself cast in character roles, as his graying hair put his romantic leading man days at an end. Despite this he was well cast in the horror film Black Friday (1940) opposite Boris Karloff as a beloved professor who becomes the innocent victim of a shooting. To save him Karloff's character transplants part of the brain of the criminal who shot Stanley's character. Stanley goes on to steal the film, doing a Jekyll-and-Hyde act going from the beloved professor to the crass and uncouth criminal.

Ridges would be cast in other memorable films, including The Sea Wolf (1941), Sergeant York (1941), To Be or Not to Be (1942) and The Suspect (1944). His last film would be The Groom Wore Spurs (1951) with Ginger Rogers, before passing away in April of that year.