After he lost a job with the Post Toasties company, he decided to try acting as a profession.

Burn's first film appearance was an uncredited role as an extra in The Birth of a Nation (1915).

Other films include The Country Kid (1923), The Farmer from Texas (1925), Ransom (1928), The Adorable Outcast (1928), Hard to Get (1929), The Shadow of the Eagle (1932), Hollywood Boulevard (1936), and his last film, Charles Barton's Murder with Pictures (1936) for Paramount Pictures.

Burns was married to Ruth Curry, whom he met at Camp Baldy resort.

This article about a United States film actor born in the 1890s is a stub.