[6] Norton's first film work was for a musical short, School for Romance, in 1934, in which a young Betty Grable appeared, but his scenes were deleted.

His work survived to reach the screen in his next assignment, The Super Snooper, a comedy short, and in his third film, his first full-length movie, Finishing School, which featured Frances Dee, Billie Burke, Ginger Rogers and Bruce Cabot, Norton played a drunk, setting the pattern for many of his future performances.

Although he also played stone sober characters as well, he was best known for his inebriated characterizations, and he improved his work by following genuine drunks around, picking up behavioral tips.

[8] He is perhaps best known to modern audiences as A. Pismo Clam, the drunken film director whom W.C. Fields is hired to replace in The Bank Dick (1940).

Norton's final appearance would have been in the 1956 episode of The Honeymooners entitled "Unconventional Behavior", but age and infirmity had so overwhelmed him that he was literally written out of the show as it was being filmed, though Jackie Gleason saw to it that Norton was paid fully for the performance he was ready, willing, but unable to give.