His movie career started in silent films and extended until his death.

He was not named Jeremiah Schwartz at birth, this was a pseudonym during his college football years.

Devine was born in Flagstaff, Arizona. He grew up in Kingman, Arizona, where his family moved when he was a year old. He appeared in more than 400 films and shared with Walter Brennan the rare ability to move with ease from B Westerns to A pictures.

He was a star football player at Santa Clara University, which led to his first film role in the silent The Collegians.

Although it was at first thought that his peculiar voice would prevent him from moving to the talkies, it became his trademark and strongest selling point. Devine's speech was the result of a childhood accident. He had been running with a stake in his mouth and fell, the instrument piercing the roof of his mouth.

His notable roles included ten films as sidekick, "Cookie", to Roy Rogers, a Shakespeare performance in Romeo and Juliet in 1937, and several appearances with John Wayne, including Stagecoach in 1939, Island in the Sky in 1953, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in 1959. He also played "The Cheerful Soldier" in The Red Badge of Courage.

Devine is well-remembered for his role as "Jingles", Guy Madison's sidekick in the US radio and TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951). He often appeared on the on Jack Benny's radio show, sometimes appearing on Benny's semi-regular western series of sketches "Buck Benny Rides Again".

He also had a part as "Hap" on Flipper and hosted a children's TV show, Andy's Gang, and performed voice parts in animated films, including "Friar Tuck" in Disney's Robin Hood. He starred in a Twilight Zone episode as "Frisby", a talkative braggart faced with an alien invasion called "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby". He also appeared in the Over-the-Hill Gang, and as Coyote Bill in Myra Breckenridge.

He died of leukemia in 1977, aged 71.