When We Lost Catherine Burns Last Winter
I was watching the Oscars two weeks ago feeling bad that I hadn’t seen Parasite yet (I’m on the list for it at the library. Honest). Still, during the In Memoriam clips, I found myself getting misty seeing the clips of Diahann Carroll, Buck Henry, John Singleton, but then was gobsmacked. Catherine Burns was in the reel. Wait a minute, Catherine Burns died? Am I the only one that remembered her? As Billie Ellish sang “Yesterday,” I remembered Catherine Burns. She was like a firefly, lighting up the sky then disappearing into the night.
In the Bay Area, KTVU was the channel that showed movies that went there before that was a thing. They didn’t hesitate to show the love scene of Ryan’s Daughter. I accidentally caught Kathleen Turner’s Crimes of Passion with her having sex with a police officer and it scared the heck of me. But one night I watched Last Summer. Made in 1969, it had three teenagers bored on Fire Island. They do drugs, experiment sexually, and run around the beach. I recognized the actors immediately. There was Barbara Hersey before her puffed up lips, Bruce Davidson before X-Men and Richard Thomas before John Boy.
But another teenager joined them. She had a turned-up nose, reddish-blonde hair, and about five one. The character’s name was Rhoda, who protested Barbara Hersey’s Sandy keeping a wounded seagull by her. Rhoda is lonely, so she starts to hang out with them, much to Sandy’s chagrin. One rainy day, Rhoda visited them and tells them, in a heartbreaking monologue, why she never learned how to swim. Richard Thomas’ character Peter soon finds himself attracted to Rhoda. But Sandy, one of the Original Mean Girls, isn’t pleased with Rhoda’s intrusion into their lives.
I don’t want to ruin the ending to Last Summer. All I will say is it was violent, upsetting, and I was probably way too young to watch it. What stayed with me was Catherine Burns’ performance. Who was she? What happened to this girl? In the late eighties, you didn’t have the Google machine to look this stuff up. I went to the library and looked her up in Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide.
Catherine Burns was raised in New York City, making her screen debut in Last Summer. There were no questions she turned in a powerhouse performance. This girl was going places. However, critics made a point of mentioning her looks. Vincent Canby called her a “mushroom” Another critic said, “Twenty years ago, they wouldn’t have let her inside a studio gate.” Just reading these quotes make me want to tear my hair out. Nevertheless, Burns was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She sat in the audience as the winner’s name was read: Goldie Hawn for Cactus Flower. Burns was never nominated again.
She did continue to act. She teamed up with Richard Thomas again and did another movie called Red Sky at Morning. She did guest star roles in The Bionic Woman, Medical Center, and Emergency! She also played Amelia Earhart’s little sister in a TV movie. The most memorable guest-starring role was in The Waltons, where she was teamed up again with, yes, Richard Thomas. After a supporting part on a CBS Schoolbreak Special, she stopped acting.
She turned her attention to writing. She published a children’s book called The Winter Bird. She also sold scripts to the soap opera Guiding Light in 1989. This was when I was watching the show regularly, so I hope I saw one of the episodes she wrote. But she became a Trivial Pursuit question, someone who just disappeared. I looked on Facebook and Twitter for her, nothing. I figured she wanted her privacy.
What I didn’t know was I wasn’t the only one who wondered what happened to Burns. The Hollywood Reporter was trying to find her for an interview, fifty years after her single nomination. Screenwriter Larry Karaszewski had shown Last Summer several times for audiences and wanted to interview Burns, but he couldn’t find her. Finally, THR went to a retirement home in Washington State; they had tracked down a Catherine Burns who lived there with her husband. He refused an interview, saying how much she hated Hollywood. THR then contacted the Department of Health, who confirmed Burns died from a fall she suffered a year before. Cirrhosis was also a contributing factor.
After the show ended, I turned off the TV set and realized I was crying. I knew it didn’t make sense; I never read Burns’ writing, although I’m going to try and find something she wrote. I only saw her in one film, one TV show. Why does Hollywood feel like we need to chew up people then spit them out? God knows I’m not perfect; I made some snide remarks about several dresses I didn’t like on the Red Carpet on my Facebook account. But why is it when people are given a platform, people decide to be cruel? And in the case of Rush Limbaugh, be rewarded for it?
I know I’m wading into territory that’s been covered many many times. Although Burns didn’t want to be remembered as an actress, I am glad the Academy included her with others that died this past year. I’m happy I’m not the only one who remembered this pretty girl with freckles who decided Hollywood wasn’t her thing, then walked out into the good night.
