[2] Performer George “Honey Boy” Evans hired him to appear in a touring production of the Cohan and Harris musical Minstrels in 1911.

In the fall of 1920 he and his girlfriend, Iva Boudry, toured extensively on the Orpheum Circuit through the Dakotas and Indiana, where Joe performed as a blackface singer,[8] using the "skill" he learned in the Cohan and Harris Minstrels show.

Other MBA tours included Frank Harcourt's Red Hot, which featured 6 principals and a chorus of 17 girls in 1924 and 1926, and Dizzy Dames in 1934.

He later toured along the Independent Burlesque Association (IBA) circuit in a show billed as Oriental Girls and Cupid's Carnival in 1935; and Town Tattles and Babes of Broadway with Billy "Cheese and Crackers" Hagan in 1936.

Joe and 12 other performers including Chubby Drisdale, Billy Wallace, and Raymond Paine were held under Section 1140 and tried in court.

He performed at Baltimore's Palace Theater in 1928 with famed burlesque celebrity Mae Dix, who invented the strip tease; the Irving Place Theater in New York City in 1928, 1933, and 1934; the New Gotham in New York in 1932 and 1934; the Parsons Hartford and Shubert New Haven in 1933; the Lyric in Philadelphia in 1935; the Star in Brooklyn in 1935; the Gayety in Washington, D.C., in 1936 in Melody Maid with Billy "Cheese and Crackers" Hagan; the Palace Theater in Buffalo in the summer of 1936 in a show featuring Ginger Sherry and comedy duo Stinky Fields and Shorty McAllister; and the Juno Casino and the Star in Brooklyn in 1936 and 1937.

Joe played Vincent Jones as C. Joseph Devlin in Street Scene at the Ambassador Theater from December 1929 to the show's closing in 1930.

appearing in films such as Held for Ransom, King of the Underworld, Chasing Trouble, Tight Shoes, Murder in the Big House, Sweethearts of the U.S.A. and Shoot to Kill.

[16] He also appeared in TV series like Front Page Detective, My Hero, The Whistler, Damon Runyon Theater and Hey, Jeannie!

[17] Devlin was famous for his resemblance to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, whom he played in three films during World War II.

[16] During his 30 years in film and television, Joe worked with many stars of the Golden Age including Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Ronald Reagan, Boris Karloff, Mickey Rooney, John Wayne, Edward G. Robinson, Van Johnson, Bob Hope, Lou Costello, Ida Lupino, Eddie Cantor, Ralph Byrd, and so many more.