Burt Kearns

Burt Kearns is an American author, journalist, and television and film producer, writer and director, whom Vanity Fair referred to as "a show business and pop culture savant."

Kearns's first book, the television memoir Tabloid Baby, was published in 1999. The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage, which he wrote with Jeff Abraham, was published in 2019. His biography of actor Lawrence Tierney, Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood's Real-Life Tough Guy, was published in December, 2022 by the University Press of Kentucky. Applause published Kearns’ book, Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel, on April 2, 2024. Kearns's book, Shemp! The Biography of the Three Stooges' Shemp Howard, The Face of Film Comedy, was published on October 1, 2024, by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. [ 11]

In 2018, he became a contributor to the literary pop culture website, PleaseKillMe.com.[ 12] In December 2021, he began to contribute written and video pieces to Legs McNeil’s literary pop culture website, Legsville.com.[ 13]

After graduation from Fairfield University,[ 14] Kearns worked as a reporter and editor for the Acorn Press, a chain of newspapers in southern Connecticut and Westchester, New York. He then moved to Manhattan, where in 1981 he reported and wrote for neighborhood newspapers including The Westsider, East Side Express and Chelsea-Clinton News,[citation needed ] before being hired on the assignment desk at WNEW-TV's 10 O'Clock News. Kearns also wrote for CBS News' Nightwatch and CBS Morning News and later became a producer for WNBC-TV's News 4's Eleven O'clock News.[ 14] He also worked as a writer for Spin magazine.[ 15] [ 16] [ 17]

Kearns was a creator and executive producer of Breaking the Ice, a docuseries following the first diverse, competitive synchronized ice skating team.[ 18] [ 19] The series premiered on WE tv and streams on AMC's ALLBLK platform.[ 20]

He appeared on-camera in, the Reelz nonfiction special program, Kardashian: The Man Who Saved OJ Simpson.[ 21] He was executive producer of the Reelz nonfiction specials, Time Presents: Celebrities On Trial[citation needed ] and El Chapo & Sean Penn: Bungle In The Jungle.[ 22] Kearns also produced the documentary films Death of a Beatle (2000) and Bin Laden's Escape (2005) (with Parco Productions). Directed and produced the documentary, Boxing: A Different Look for Showtime and Hollywood Animal Crusaders for Animal Planet. Co-producer of the HBO documentary Panic.[citation needed ] Producer of Fox Television special, When Good Pets Go Bad 2’’,[ 23] and producer of the syndicated series, Strange Universe.[ 24]

Kearns directed and produced the nonfiction film Telethon[citation needed ]and produced the nonfiction film comedy High There.[ 25] [ 26] Kearns directed the nonfiction film, El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story, which opened on August 15, 2009 at the 35th annual The Fest For Beatles Fans in Chicago.[ 27] High There and the Montez film were produced through his Good Story Productions production company.[ 28]

In 2000, Kearns formed the production company Frozen Television (later Frozen Pictures) with producer Brett Hudson.[citation needed ] Kearns was an executive producer on All the Presidents' Movies.[ 29]

He directed and produced the 2008 Frozen Pictures documentary musical film, The Seventh Python, about the career and influence of Monty Python collaborator and Bonzo Dog Band member Neil Innes,[citation needed ] and directed and produced Basketball Man, the 2007 Frozen Pictures documentary film that featured basketball stars and legends telling the story of the life and legacy of the game's inventor, Dr. James Naismith. The film was released on DVD on May 8, 2007.[ 30]

Kearns founded the website, Saintmychal.com that chronicled and promoted the canonization of 9/11 victim Mychal Judge.[ 31] [ 32] [ 33]

Kearns joined the show A Current Affair in 1989.[ 34] Kearns later helped create the show Hard Copy,[ 35] where he was a producer and managing editor, along with Premier Story.[ 36]

Kearns (and his coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall) was featured in Maury Povich's 1991 memoir, Current Affairs: A Life on the Edge.[ 37]

Kearns left tabloid television and began writing Tabloid Baby in 1996. A combination memoir and exposé, the book was published in November 1999 by Hambleton-Hill's Celebrity Books imprint.[ 34] [ 38] The book was praised by Mike Wallace of CBS News' 60 Minutes as "sad, funny, undeniably authentic" and by tabloid television host Maury Povich as "The Bible". [ 39]