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Martyn Burke | |
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 Martyn Burke in 2013 | |
| Born | 1952 (age 73–74) Hamilton, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupations | Director,producer,screenwriter,novelist,documentary films |
Martyn Burke (born 1952) is a Canadian director, novelist and screenwriter fromToronto,Ontario.[1]
Born inHamilton, Ontario, to Freda and Les Burke who immigrated from England to Canada during World War II as part of the British Civilian Military Authority, Martyn Burke graduated from Royal York High School in Toronto, Ontario. He attendedMcMaster University, where he played on the football team, the McMaster Marauders, and graduated with a degree in economics. After a brief stint working in television programming for a major advertiser, Burke paid his own way over toVietnam to work as a freelance journalist and photographer covering the war. His experience reporting on theVietnam War was the beginning of his writing and filmmaking career and served as the background for his first novel,Laughing War which was short-listed for aBooks in Canada First Novel Award.
In 2018, the BBC listed the Paramount Pictures filmTop Secret!, which Burke co-wrote, as one of the top one hundred film comedies of all time.
In 2012 he won the Peabody Award and was short-listed for an Academy Award for the film Under Fire: Journalists In Combat; in 2015 he was named winner of the Auteur Award by the International Press Association in Los Angeles; and in 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.[2]
Burke lives inSanta Monica, California with his wife, Laura Morton.
After Vietnam, Burke started writing, directing and producing documentaries forCBC Television winning a number of awards in Canada for his work. Among them are aGemini Award for Best Documentary forConnections, a multi-part undercover report on the Mafia in Canada and America, and aGenie Award for his documentary,Witnesses, filmed inside the conflict zones of Afghanistan. Other conflict zone documentaries includeThe Week That Paddy Died, about the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
His experience reporting on the Vietnam War was the beginning of his writing and filmmaking career and served as the background for his first novel,Laughing War which was short-listed for a Books in Canada First Novel Award. It was to become the way that Burke wrote his novels — first researching them through on-the-ground experience as the stories formed before they were written (forThe Commissar’s Report he traveled across Russia and made documentary exposés on the KGB; forIvory Joe he made CBS segments on the exploitation of old R&B musicians; forTiara he was based out of Brownsville Texas with DC-3 pilot-smugglers; forThe Truth About The Night he spent months at the legendary Palomar Observatory not far from the Mexican border; forMusic For Love Or War, he called upon his experiences in Afghanistan; His latest novel,The Gossip Columnist, set in Weimar and Nazi Germany, speaks to his lifelong interest and activities in journalism and focuses on what happens to free press and speech in times of war or suppression.
While still living in Canada, Burke began writing and directing theatrical films, such asJohn Candy's first film,The Clown Murders, andPower Play a.k.a.Coup d'Etat which starredPeter O'Toole andDavid Hemmings. He emigrated toCalifornia whenColumbia Pictures optioned his bookThe Commissar's Report and brought him toLos Angeles to write the screenplay.
Continuing to produce and direct documentaries - his 2012 documentaryUnder Fire: Journalists in Combat was short-listed for anAcademy Award and won aPeabody Award in 2012 - his theatrical and cable television film career expanded in Los Angeles and includes theEmmy Award nominated film forTNT,Pirates of Silicon Valley for which he was also nominated for aDGA Award as director. In 2015 he was awarded theInternational Press Academy's Auteur award. He wrote a number ofHBO and TNT films includingThe Second Civil War starringBeau Bridges (for which Bridges won an Emmy) andJames Earl Jones andDenis Leary,Sugartime starringJohn Turturro aboutChicago mafia donSam Giancana, and an adaptation ofGeorge Orwell'sAnimal Farm. His feature film credits include co-writing theParamount Pictures cult classic comedy,Top Secret! and directingAvenging Angelo starringSylvester Stallone,Anthony Quinn andMadeline Stowe.
Feature or Miniseries
