Catherine Burns

American actress (1945–2019)

the Malcolm in the Middle actress

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 for her performance in Last Summer (1969).

Burns was born and raised in Manhattan. She attended Hunter College High School, Hunter College and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She made her Broadway debut in 1968 in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, for which she received the Clarence Derwent Award. as sensitive, conservative Rhoda, receiving critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. 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 (1969) and Red Sky at Morning (1971).

Burns's television debut was the role of Mary Warren in Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1967). She went on to appear as the original Cathy Craig on One Life to Live in 1969. Her other TV credits include the adaptation of Arthur Miller's play A Memory of Two Mondays (1974), the miniseries The Word (1978), and guest appearances on Love, American Style; Adam 12; Emergency! ; The Mod Squad; Police Woman; The Waltons; and The Bionic Woman. She continued on television throughout the 1970s and into the mid 1980s when she turned from acting to writing.

Burns's children's book, The Winter Bird, was published by Windmill Books 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 soap opera Guiding Light in 1989.

In June 1989, Burns married Kenneth Shire. At the time, she lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Later in her life, she and Shire resided in a retirement community in Lynden, Washington. 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]  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 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 listed as a contributing factor.