BURT KEARNS is an award-winning producer, director, writer, journalist and author. His latest book, SHEMP! The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, The Face of Film Comedy, was published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books on October 1, 2024.
Publication of this acclaimed work came on the heels of kearns’ MArlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel, which Applause published on April 2, 2004.
His book, Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood’s Real-Life Tough Guy, the first biography of the notorious screen legend, was published in December 2022 by the University Press of Kentucky. The Show Won’t Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage, was written with Jeff Abraham and published in 2019 by Chicago Review Press. The work received acclaim from sources as varied as National Public Radio, the Daily Mail and Jerusalem Post. Kearns is also author of the controversial memoir, Tabloid Baby (TV Guide: “Hilariously scandalous”; SeekBooks: “As much high-octane entertainment as any Hollywood exposé”; Maury Povich: “The Bible”), and a regular contributor to the literary pop culture website, Legsville.com.
Kearns is perhaps best known for his work in nonfiction television and film — most recently as a creator and executive producer of Breaking the Ice, a sports docuseries that premiered on WE tv and ALLBLK streaming in July 2023. He and his work can be seen on Netflix, as he appears in the documentary, Kardashian: The Man Who Saved OJ Simpson, which he wrote, produced and executive produced for the Reelz network. He was also executive producer of (and wrote and produced) the one-hour documentary specials: TIME Presents: Celebrities on Trial; TIME Presents: Milestones 2016 -- A Tribute to the Stars We’ve Lost; Entertainment Weekly Presents: 80s TV Stars -- Where Are They Now?; and El Chapo & Sean Penn: Bungle In the Jungle for Reelz. Long in demand as a nonfiction television producer, writer, showrunner and consultant, he’s worked with series and shows as diverse as Who Do You Believe?, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, Guinness World Records Unleashed, Joe Rogan Questions Everything, L.A. Hair and True Tori. His many television credits include helming The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll with Gene Simmons, Adults Only: The Secret History of The Other Hollywood, My First Time for Showtime, Bravo's All The Presidents’ Movies and Panic for HBO. His film credits include producing Transition: The Original Production (the filmed version of Ray Richmond’s landmark Trump-Obama stage play), the award-winning nonfiction comedy High There, and the internationally-distributed documentaries Death of A Beatle and Bin Laden's Escape; directing and producing the nonfiction films The Chris Montez Story, Basketball Man, and the award-winning film festival favorite, The Seventh Python and, along with two-time Academy Award® winner Albert S. Ruddy, writing and producing the 20th Century Fox feature film, Cloud 9, starring Burt Reynolds. Burt got his start as a print and television journalist in New York City, was an Emmy-winning newswriter, and achieved some notoriety for Tabloid Baby, his controversial 1999 television memoir which detailed his role in the evolution of the tabloid television genre -- and is the basis for a future dramatic television series.
