Catherine Burns (September 25, 1945 – February 2, 2019) was an American actress of stage, film, radio and television. She was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performanc ...

for her performance in '' Last Summer'' (1969).

Early years

Burns was born and raised in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. She attended

Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a public academic magnet secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered and funded by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and no t ...

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

and the

American Academy of Dramatic Arts The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) is a Private college, private drama school with two locations, one in New York City and one in Los Angeles. The academy offers an associate degree in occupational studies and teaches drama and related ...

Career

Burns's professional acting debut occurred in

David Susskind David Howard Susskind (December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987) was an American producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a TV talk show host. His talk shows were innovative in the genre and addressed timely, controversial topics beyond th ...

's TV production of ''

The Crucible ''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1692 to 1693. Miller wrote ...

'' (1967). She made her

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

debut in 1968 in '' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'', for which she received the Clarence Derwent Award. She also appeared in ''Operation Sidewinder'' (1970) on Broadway. Burns made her screen debut in 1969, appearing in '' Last Summer'' as sensitive, conservative Rhoda, receiving critical acclaim and a nomination for the

. Despite the recognition, Burns never appeared in another theatrically released film after 1971, when she was just 26 years of age. Her other film credits include ''

Me, Natalie ''Me, Natalie'' is a 1969 American comedy-drama film directed by Fred Coe about a young woman from Brooklyn who moves to Greenwich Village and finds romance with an aspiring artistic painter. The screenplay by A. Martin Zweiback is based on an o ...

'' (1969) and ''

Red Sky at Morning Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

'' (1971).

Television

Burns's television debut was the role of Mary Warren in

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

's ''

'' (1967). She went on to appear as the original

Cathy Craig Cathy Craig is a fictional character on the American soap opera ''One Life to Live''. Introduced onscreen in January 1969, the character role is the first ongoing antagonist to lead heroine Victoria Lord and last appears in November 1978. Castin ...

on ''

One Life to Live ''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as ...

'' in 1969. Her other TV credits include the adaptation of

's play ''

A Memory of Two Mondays ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' is a one-act play by Arthur Miller. He began writing the play in 1952, while working on ''The Crucible'', and completed it in 1955. Based on Miller's own experiences, the play focuses on a group of desperate workers ...

'' (1974), the miniseries '' The Word'' (1978), and guest appearances on ''

Love, American Style ''Love, American Style'' is an American anthology comedy television series that aired on ABC from September 29, 1969, to January 11, 1974. The series was produced by Paramount Television. During the 1971–72 and 1972–73 seasons, it was a pa ...

''; ''

Adam-12 ''Adam-12'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created by Robert A. Cinader and Jack Webb and produced by Mark VII Limited and Universal Television. The series follows Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers Pe ...

''; ''

Emergency! ''Emergency!'' is an American Action fiction, action-adventure medical drama television series jointly produced by Mark VII Limited and Universal Television. Debuting on NBC as a midseason replacement on January 15, 1972, replacing two situatio ...

''; ''

The Mod Squad ''The Mod Squad'' is an American crime drama series, originally broadcast for five seasons on ABC from September 24, 1968, to March 1, 1973. It starred Michael Cole as Peter "Pete" Cochran, Clarence Williams III as Lincoln "Linc" Hayes, Pegg ...

''; '' Police Woman''; ''

The Waltons ''The Waltons'' is an American historical drama television series about a family in rural mountainous Western Virginia of the Appalachian Mountains / Allegheny Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemp ...

''; and ''

The Bionic Woman ''The Bionic Woman'' is an American science fiction film, science fiction Action-adventure fiction, action-adventure television series created by Kenneth Johnson (producer), Kenneth Johnson based on the 1972 novel Cyborg (novel), ''Cyborg'' by ...

''. She continued on television throughout the 1970s and into the mid-1980s when she turned from acting to writing.

Writing

Burns's children's book, ''The Winter Bird'', was published by

Windmill Books Robert Kraus (June 21, 1925 – August 7, 2001) was an American children's author illustrator, cartoonist and publisher. His successful career began early at the New Yorker Magazine, producing hundreds of cartoons and nearly two dozen covers ...

in 1971. Staying behind when other birds go south for the winter, a little bird discovers a new way of life in the unusual world of carousel horses. She also wrote screenplays and stage plays, and sold scripts to the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

soap opera ''

Guiding Light ''Guiding Light'' (known as ''The Guiding Light'' before 1975) is an American radio and television soap opera. ''Guiding Light'' aired on CBS for 57 years between June 30, 1952, and September 18, 2009, overlapping a 19-year broadcast on radio ...

'' in 1989.

Personal life and death

In June 1989, Burns married Kenneth Shire. At the time, she lived on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...

of Manhattan. Later in her life, she and Shire resided in a retirement community in

Lynden, Washington Lynden is a city in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. It is located 15 miles (24 km) north of Bellingham, the county seat and principal city of the Bellingham, Washington, Bellingham Metropolitan Area. It is the second largest city ...

. Little is known about Burns's life following her acting career; Shire said that she had resented the publicity and scrutiny from it, saying "She hated the movie 'Last Summer''nbsp;... and most everything that came with it. She wanted to be remembered as a published writer of novels." A 2020 article in ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' found that, according to Washington state health records, Burns died at age 73 on February 2, 2019, from complications of a fall she had suffered at home, with

cirrhosis Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, chronic liver failure or chronic hepatic failure and end-stage liver disease, is a chronic condition of the liver in which the normal functioning tissue, or parenchyma, is replaced ...

listed as a contributing factor.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Catherine 1945 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American women writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in Washington (state) Actresses from Manhattan American film actresses American people of Irish descent American people of Polish descent American television actresses Deaths from cirrhosis People from Lynden, Washington People from the Upper West Side Writers from Manhattan