Edwin J. Burke

Biography

Edwin J. Burke, one of first New York playwrights to move to Hollywood after advent of "talkies", was born on 30 August, 1889, at Albany, New York. In 1910, after attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, he began his acting career playing lead roles for a local Shakespearean company. Later he became a stage director for a traveling stock company. After running out of money during the 1919 actors' strike, Burke decided to see if he could make a living writing for vaudeville. Over the next ten years or so he wrote over 250 one-act plays and skits. Hollywood called in 1928 after the success of his first full length play "This Thing Called Love" (adapted for the screen in 1929 and again in 1940). After working as a writer and director on many successful films, including Bad Girl (1931) for which he won an Oscar, Burke left Hollywood in 1935 and relocated to High Bridge, New Jersey. Edwin J. Burke passed away after a short illness at New York City on 26 September, 1944. Not long before his death he had been working with Winfield R. Sheehan on Captain Eddie (1945), a film based on the life of Capt.Eddie Rickenbacker. Burke had served as a director of the Percy Williams Home for Actors at East Islip, Long Island, New York.