He appeared in a number of Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre productions such as Gypsy and Hair.

[2] He played the role of Eddie Dorrance #3 on All My Children from 1978 to 1979 and won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor at the 1980 awards broadcast.

[2] Other daytime roles included Jason Dunlap on Another World (1980-82); Warren Andrews on Guiding Light (1983-87); Phillip Hamilton on Santa Barbara (1988-89) and Dr. Hepler on The Bold And the Beautiful (1995).

Burton portrayed Confederate general Henry Heth in the 1993 film Gettysburg.

[2] Since the late 1990s, Burton was a voice actor for numerous video games, including the Jak and Daxter series, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Psychonauts, Age of Mythology, Battlezone II: Combat Commander, and Nox, among several others.