For other people named Burns, see Burns (disambiguation).

Born on Mott Street in the Manhattan Chinatown of New York City. He made his Broadway debut in Face the Music in 1932, Cole Porter's Nymph Errant (1936) was his London debut, and he appeared in many comedies and musicals over an almost 50 year career. He won two Tony Awards for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, for his performances as "Mayor Shinn" in The Music Man and as "Senex" in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Burns introduced the hit song "It Takes a Woman" from Hello, Dolly as the original "Horace Vandergelder".

He died on stage, of a heart attack, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the out-of-town tryout of Kander and Ebb's 70, Girls, 70.

He also appeared in the original Broadway casts of:

• The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939-1941)
• Pal Joey (1940-1941)
• Oklahoma! (1943)
• Billion Dollar Baby (1945)
• Cole Porter's Out of This World (1950)
• Alive and Kicking (1950)
• Two's Company (1952)
• A Hole in the Head (1957)
• Do Re Mi (1960-1962)
• Make Mine Manhattan
• The Price (1968-1969)
• Art Buchwald's Sheep On The Runway (1970)
• Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen as "Colonel Purdy" (1970-1971)

Film Roles

• Deep In My Heart
• Let's Make Love
• It's Always Fair Weather
• Who Is Harry Kellerman
• The Tiger Makes Out

Awards

Tony

• 1959 Meredith Willson's The Music Man
• 1963 A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum

posthumous nomination for Leading Actor in a Musical

• 1971 Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen

External links

• David Burns @ IBDB (Internet Broadway Database)
• David Burns at the Internet Movie Database
• Who's Who in Musicals