Catherine Burns

Catherine Burns (September 25, 1945 – February 2, 2019) was an American actress of stage, film, television, and radio, born and raised in Manhattan, New York. She received her education at Hunter College High School, Hunter College, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Burns entered professional acting through television, making her debut as Mary Warren in a David Susskind production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible in 1967. Her Broadway career began the following year with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968), a role that earned her both the Clarence Derwent Award and the Theatre World Award. She returned to Broadway in 1970 with Operation Sidewinder, rounding out a stage career that spanned those two years.

Her screen debut came in 1969 with the film Last Summer, in which she portrayed Rhoda, a sensitive and conservative young woman. The performance drew significant critical attention and resulted in a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Despite that recognition, Burns did not appear in another theatrically released film after 1971, by which point she was 26 years old. Her film credits also include Me, Natalie (1969) and Red Sky at Morning (1971).

On television, Burns played the original Cathy Craig on the daytime drama One Life to Live in 1969. Her subsequent television work included an adaptation of Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays (1974), the miniseries The Word (1978), and guest appearances on programs such as The Waltons, The Mod Squad, Adam-12, Emergency!, Police Woman, The Bionic Woman, and Love, American Style. She remained active in television throughout the 1970s and into the mid-1980s.

Burns later shifted her focus to writing. Her children's book The Winter Bird, about a bird that remains behind when others migrate south and discovers life among carousel horses, was published by Windmill Books in 1971. She also wrote stage plays and film scripts alongside her husband, Kenneth Shire, whom she married in June 1989, and sold scripts to the CBS soap opera Guiding Light that same year. The couple lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan before eventually relocating to Bellingham, Washington. Burns died on February 2, 2019, at the age of 73, from complications following surgical treatment for aortic stenosis.