Michael Burns (born December 30, 1947) is an American professor emeritus of
history at
Mount Holyoke College.
He is also a former
television and
film actor, particularly known for his role as the teenager "Barnaby West" on the
NBC and
ABC television series Wagon Train from 1960-1965.
Background
Burns was born in Mineola,
Long Island,
New York. He graduated
summa cum laude in 1976 from the
University of California, Los Angeles, with a
B.A. and earned his
M.A. in European
history at the same institution. He entered
Yale University in
New Haven, Connecticut, in 1977, and earned his
Ph.D. in Modern European history.
Career
Actor
Burns was a well-known
child actor, starring on the television program
Wagon Train, as orphaned "Barnaby West" during seasons 4-8. He also co-starred with
Glenn Corbett,
Ted Bessell, and
Randy Boone in a 19-episode
NBC comedy/
drama It's a Man's World in the 1962-1963 season. Burns played 14-year-old Howie Macauley, who lives on a
houseboat called the
Elephant on the
Ohio River with his older brother Wes, played by Corbett. Bessell and Boone were the two other young men living with them. The program was hailed by its viewers and critics for its portrayal of restless youth but was quickly cancelled because of low
Nielsen ratings.
Burns appeared with
James Stewart in the film,
Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. He appeared as a guest star in over thirty-five series in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly
Westerns, including
CBS's
Gunsmoke, NBC's
The Road West, and ABC's
The Legend of Jesse James and
The Big Valley. During his twenties, Burns appeared in several films, most notably in
That Cold Day in the Park in 1969, and Journey to Shiloh in 1968.
Historian
He became a professor of history at
Mount Holyoke College in 1980 and authored books on the
Dreyfus affair of the 1890s. Upon his retirement in 2002, he was honored by Mount Holyoke as Professor Emeritus.
["Three faculty members retire as emeriti", College Street Journal, Mount Holyoke College, May 24, 2002.]
Later life
While on the faculty at Mount Holyoke College, Burns married the college's then-president,
Elizabeth Topham Kennan. He and his wife presently reside near
Danville, Kentucky, where they have restored the
Cambus-Kenneth Estate, a
thoroughbred horse farm listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Scholarship
Books
- France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History (1998) [1]
- Dreyfus : a family affair, 1789-1945 (1991) [2]
- Rural society and French politics : Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair, 1886-1900 (1984) [3]
Reviews
Select filmography
Notes
Reflist
External links
DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Michael
