Andrews was wounded in Sicily while serving in the United States Army during World War II and after returning home, graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1946.
In 1955, Andrews won critical acclaim in the off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera, as the Streetsinger. He reprised the role in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Andrews went on to direct The Threepenny Opera in Arizona. While in New York, Director John Ford cast him in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts after seeing his Broadway performance.
His film career included roles in Onionhead (1958), A Private's Affair (1959), In Enemy Country (1968), The Last Tycoon (1976), and Raid on Entebbe (1977, as Shimon Peres). He retired from acting in the early 1990s after having appeared in more than one hundred acting roles onstage, on film and on television.
Andrews made frequent appearances on television in the 1960s. In addition to being a cast member of The Phil Silvers Show (1955–1957, as Tiger Andrews), Andrews appeared in such series as U.S. Marshal, The Lawless Years, Mr. Novak, Dundee and the Culhane, The Big Valley, The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., and Star Trek (as Kras in the episode "Friday's Child", in which he was the first Klingon ever to die in that series).
His best known roles were Lieutenant Johnny Russo on The Detectives and as Captain Adam Greer on The Mod Squad. For the latter role, he received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe award nomination and won a Logie Award. Andrews reunited with his fellow Mod Squad cast members for a 1979 made-for-television film, The Return Of Mod Squad; it was their last appearance together. After The Mod Squad ended, Andrews continued to make guest appearances on various television series, such as Kojak, Marcus Welby, M.D., Police Story, CHiPs, and Murder, She Wrote.
Before moving to California, Tige married Norma Thornton, a ballerina who was a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show. Norma Thornton Andrews died in 1996.
Andrews died of cardiac arrest at his home in Encino, California, on January 27, 2007, aged 86.
