Edward Burns Biography

Outstandingly established himself to be a successful actor, writer, director, also producer, which is such a rare thing found in Hollywood, Edward J. Burns Jr. surely has leaped far beyond other stars of his generation to stand firmly amidst the heavy flowing of new talents in the industry. The middle child of Irish Catholic immigrants formerly worked as a police sergeant and an employee of Federal Aviation Administration at Kennedy Airport, he was born on January 29, 1968 in Woodside, Queens County, New York but spent most of his early life in Long Island growing up alongside his siblings, Mary and Brian. This brown-haired guy initially studied English literature at State University of New York in Albany yet later changed direction to learn more about filmmaking at Manhattan's Hunter College during his junior year to then begin writing screenplays until he decided to quit the institution in 1994.

Afterwards taking part-time job as a production assistant also van driver for "Entertainment Tonight", Edward gradually was able to gather cash that he willingly used to make his first film feature, "The Brothers McMullen" (1995). Carried out quadruple jobs of being the movie's star, writer, producer, and director, he carefully filmed the picture over the course of eight month on a shoe-string budget reported to be under $30,000 with his girlfriend Maxine Bahns in the cast list. His effort delightfully was proven worthy when it made its way to enter Sundance Film Festival in 1995, even won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic category which inevitably made him become the center of attention at the event for sure. What was more, he finally could get the chance to see the work's release on commercial theaters through 20th Century Fox's Searchlight Pictures that no doubt brought him wider notice from the public.

Riding high on this initial success, Edward thus optimistically went on to nab the same jobs in "She's the One" (1996) and "No Looking Back" (1998) yet his love life sadly had to experience a gloomy chapter in between for he and Bahns decided to end their romance by 1997. Fortunately, everything turned out terribly well for Edward next for not only he could flourish a new love in Heather Graham but also received a great portion of prominence due to his third-billing enactment in Tom Hanks' 1998 vehicle of "Saving Private Ryan." A brilliantly-made war drama by celebrated director Steven Spielberg, the flick really hit the screen very hard as it amazingly managed to draw superb result both critically and commercially with worldwide gross of more than $481 million in the box office.

Subsequently walked on rather smoothly in the industry thereafter, Edward effortlessly continued his path to take part in a handful of big screen features throughout the first half of 2000s, like "15 Minutes" (2001), "Confidence" (2003), plus "A Sound of Thunder" (2005) among others. In the meantime, his personal life also reached a degree of happiness after turning his heart from Graham to Christy Turlington, whom he ultimately married in June 2003 to then embrace the arrival of his first child, Grace, by the following 4 months. Later joyously welcomed the second one, a son named Finn, in February 2006, things apparently still glided quite velvety on his film career that year as this brown-eyed man steadily maintained his stature to be respected actor, director, writer, and producer through "The Groomsmen."

While 2006 also found him join the starry cast of "The Holiday", 2007 again saw Edward assume quadruple job as he did for "Groomsmen" in "Purple Violets", a relationship comedy about four friends from college ready for change. Following this, he would appear in two more titles of very different genre; one is horror mystery feature "One Missed Call" opposite Shannyn Sossamon and the other a promising romantic comedy titled "27 Dresses" which "Grey Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl toplines, both set for 2008 releases.