
Acting
Mark Burns
Born — Died
1936-03-30 — 2007-05-08
Place of birth
Worcestershire, England, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
68 titles
Known for
6.6Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970
7.8A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).
The Avengers
1961
7.4Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint
1962
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.1Laura Holt, a licensed private detective, opens a detective agency but finds that potential clients refuse to hire a woman, however qualified. To solve the problem, Laura invents a fictitious male superior whom she names Remington Steele. Through a series of events that unfold in the first episode, "License to Steele," a former thief and con man, whose real name is never revealed, assumes the identity of Remington Steele. Behind the scenes, Laura remains firmly in charge.
Remington Steele
1982
7.0Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.
Bergerac
1981
Film credits
1990s · 7 titles
5.1Spies force two British con men to pose as look-alike scientists peddling cheap-energy fusion.
Bullseye!
1990
6.1Several years after the battle of Waterloo, a former soldier from Shoreditch sits in a London inn reminiscing about the brave and determined officer who took him to hell and back. The narrator is Rifleman Cooper, and the officer whose fame he recalls is the legendary Richard Sharpe.
Sharpe: The Legend
1997
5.0Shortly after she moves into her own flat in Brighton, Bella finds she is being spied on and generally harassed by a man living across from her. Finally driven to solving the problem with a hammer, she realises she is then ready for a crusade against other such problem males
Dirty Weekend
1993
6.6Spain, 1813. Sharpe is unwittingly caught up in a French plot; he is convicted of the murder of a Spanish nobleman and sentenced to death. This time he will need more than just his legendary courage to survive. In a desperate attempt to clear his name, Sharpe is forced to venture deep into enemy territory to capture La Marquesa, a beautiful French spy, who alone can prove his innocence.
Sharpe's Honour
1994
7.0A period film, set around an English country house whose owners want to arrange a marriage of convenience between their elder daughter and an aristocratic heir of a hard-up noble family.
The Clandestine Marriage
1999
4.3When a beautiful mob hitwoman learns she only has six months to live, she decides to rob her employers, and go out in style, but the syndicate's head man won't rest until he gets his two million dollars back.
Savage Hearts
1995
7.0After her divorce is final, socialite Helen Hollander heads to Paris and finds herself caught up in an international terrorist plot in this thriller. When Helen comes into possession of information vital to a terrorist organization, nefarious characters begin tailing her through Paris. A hunky private eye offers to help her, but Helen isn't sure whether he's on the up-and-up.
Passport to Murder
1993
1980s · 5 titles
4.9Caroline is to be wed to Sir Ralph and invites her sister Barbara to be her bridesmaid. Barbara seduces Ralph, however, and she becomes the new Lady, but despite her new wealthy situation, she gets bored and turns to highway robbery for thrills. While on the road she meets a famous highwayman, and they continue as a team, but some people begin suspecting her identity, and she risks death if she continues her nefarious activities.
The Wicked Lady
1983
6.6The true story of jockey Bob Champion who overcame cancer to win the 1981 Grand National
Champions
1984
4.9Stuck in a sexless marriage, a frustrated well-to-do couple agrees to see a female sex therapist. Unfortunately, she only helps escalate the tensions between them. Meanwhile, the police are baffled by a string of brutal nightly killings.
The Surrogate
1984
5.8A feuding but very wealthy married couple are planning their divorce while relaxing at luxury hotels in Yugoslavia. The husband decides he wants to get rid of his wife, so hires a hitman. However his wife also has the same planned for her husband, seducing one of her many lovers into doing the job. Should these attempted murders not succeed, the husband will have to carry on being blackmailed by his wife for his incestuous affair with his 16 year old daughter. Since the daughter has her own lethal romantic agenda, things don't go quite as planned.
Destroying Angel
1987
6.2Biography of the life of Guillaume Apollinaire.
La Chanson du mal-aimé
1982
1970s · 18 titles
7.2Composer Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.
Death in Venice
1971
6.3A terrorist demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he has planted aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. Inspired by real events.
Juggernaut
1974
6.0A hard-nosed Chicago cop is sent to London to bring back an American mobster being held for extradition. Brannigan in his Irish-American way brings American law to the people of Scotland Yard but has to contend with a stuffy old London first.
Brannigan
1975
4.9Fontaine Khaled is the London wife of wealthy Arab businessman Benjamin, whose money she blows on partying and on her nightclub, "The Hobo". She hires handsome Tony to manage her club, but it's understood that his job security is dependent on his satisfying her nymphomaniacal demands. He soon loses interest, and turns his attention to her stepdaughter Alexandra, who uses him to get back at Fontaine for cheating on her father.
The Stud
1978
7.5Historical evocation of Ludwig, king of Bavaria, from his crowning in 1864 until his death in 1886, as a romantic hero. Fan of Richard Wagner, betrayed by him, in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Austria, abandoned by her, tormented by his homosexuality, he will little by little slip towards madness.
Ludwig
1973
6.4Fleeing from his enemies in the Catholic Church, the free thinking philosopher, poet and scientist Giordano Bruno has found some protection in Venice. But the Roman Inquisition, fearing his influence in Europe, wants to bring him on trial for 'heresy'.
Giordano Bruno
1973
6.8David and Anna are a newly wed couple, whose lives together take a turn as Anna becomes diagnosed with a terminal illness.
A Long Return
1975
5.9Based on satirical short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a vain, egotistical Etienne Gerard, a French brigadier serving during the Napoleonic Wars. He thinks he's the best soldier and lover that ever lived and intends to prove it.
The Adventures of Gerard
1970
5.1In a bold coup a Palestinian terrorist group captures the yacht Rosebud and kidnaps the millionaires five daughters on it. At first they demand film clips to be shown on major European TV stations. Undercover agent Martin is hired to hunt the terrorists down.
Rosebud
1975
4.3The owner of a trendy disco starts having problems with the men in her life and the Mafia, which is trying to move in on her place.
The Bitch
1979
4.8Bernie is a silver tongued wanderer with a fondness for drink and no clear goal in life. What was supposed to be a day of fun at the seaside turns to dust as he drinks his way through a seaside resort community, trailing his little niece Winnie.
A Day at the Beach
1970
7.0Jonathan Harker visits the Count in Transylvania to help him with preparations to move to England. Harker becomes Dracula's prisoner and discovers Dracula's true nature. After Dracula makes his way to England, Harker becomes involved in an effort to track down and destroy the Count, eventually chasing the vampire back to his castle.
Count Dracula
1977
5.8A film version of Genet's play. Two maids, Solange and Claire, hate their employers and, while they are out, take turns at dressing up as Madame and insulting her.
The Maids
1975
3.1Film adaptation from the novel by D.H. Lawrence, discovered after the celebrated author's death in 1930, a romantic love story tells of a prim young English girl who is sexually attracted to a seductively virile gypsy. The climatic dam burst is linked with the consummation of her desire.
The Virgin and the Gypsy
1970
5.5A successful rock lyricist becomes romantically involved with a girl he picks up hitchhiking only to learn that she is only fourteen. Her parents take action against him.
Home Before Midnight
1979
5.0The story of an apartment in Paris and the various people that occupy it over the years.
A Time for Loving
1972
4.8On a South African plantation, a maniac is on the loose, first killing the estate's animals, then starting on the human members.
House of the Living Dead
1974
8.0Mature student, divorcee and mother of three Josie finds the social pressures in and out of university more demanding than her academic studies.
Degree of Uncertainty
1979
1960s · 12 titles
6.7Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.
Exodus
1960
6.9The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.
Sink the Bismarck!
1960
6.2During the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in the 1850s, a British cavalry division, led by the overbearing Lord Cardigan, engages in an infamously reckless strategic debacle against a Russian artillery battery.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
1968
7.0Following World War II in peacetime Scotland, brigade headquarters replaces commanding officer Major Jock Sinclair, a boisterous battalion leader, with the strict, temperamental Lieutenant Colonel Basil Barrow. Resentful toward his replacement, Sinclair undermines Barrow's authority and damages his successor's reputation among the soldiers. Barrow faces an uphill battle in regaining the discipline and respect of his battalion.
Tunes of Glory
1960
6.7In the midst of World War II, a French widow falls for a U.S. captain whom she hides from the Nazis and helps escape to Spain.
The Day and the Hour
1963
5.9Successful businessman Joe Lampton is married to the wealthy Susan, has two children, and lives in the mill town of Warley in northern England. But his career seems to have plateaued, leaving him disillusioned. This feeling is only exacerbated when he discovers his wife's infidelity with local man Mark. So he takes up with attractive TV host Norah and moves with her to London, aiming to reignite the fire that drove him to the top.
Life at the Top
1965
6.2Brothers Michael and David Tremayne decide to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, not for criminal purposes, but to make themselves famous.
The Jokers
1967
6.2In a seaside village, a group of local young men mingle among the seasonal tourists in search of sexual conquests. Near the end of one summer, the leader of the group, Tinker, a strolling photographer, aims to conquer a fashion model from a well-to-do family, but he finds himself unexpectedly falling in love. The tables thus turned, Tinker begins to see that maybe it's not the tourists who are being used in these sexual games.
The System
1964
5.4Advertising golden boy Andrew Quint is fed up with his fabulously successful life. In very dramatic fashion, he quits his job to return to writing for a small literary magazine. He wants to leave his former life behind, going as far as saying good-bye to his wife and mistresses. He finds, however, that it's not so easy to escape the past.
I'll Never Forget What's'isname
1967
6.7A criminal gang sets out to pull off the heist of a large army payroll.
A Prize of Arms
1962
4.3Narcotics agent Dennis goes undercover in the Mediterranean Islands to investigate a smuggling operation, and gains the confidence of a woman who works for the ringleader. But Dennis ends up arrested for murder when the crime boss turns up dead.
Death Is a Woman
1966
Campbell Carter, in the process of building a luxury hotel, is aggravated by the fact that he cannot acquire a coffee bar and adjoining antique shop owned by Sid Light and his younger brother Bill. Carter tries several unsuccessful tricks to further his own ends. Largely due to the fact that Carter's daughter Carole falls in love with Bill, there is a conciliation between Carter and Sid who go into partnership. Sid's new idea of a band-and-dance show in Twenties style is incorporated in the hotel.
Take Me Over
1963
Series credits
6.6Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970
7.8A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).
The Avengers
1961
7.4Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint
1962
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.1Laura Holt, a licensed private detective, opens a detective agency but finds that potential clients refuse to hire a woman, however qualified. To solve the problem, Laura invents a fictitious male superior whom she names Remington Steele. Through a series of events that unfold in the first episode, "License to Steele," a former thief and con man, whose real name is never revealed, assumes the identity of Remington Steele. Behind the scenes, Laura remains firmly in charge.
Remington Steele
1982
7.0Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.
Bergerac
1981
7.2Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964
7.2Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964
4.8No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
No Hiding Place
1959
5.7Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond is an American anthology series that dramatized purportedly real-life supernatural and paranormal experiences. The series was hosted by John Newland and ran for three seasons on ABC from January 1959 to July 1961.
One Step Beyond
1959
7.7After resigning, a secret agent is abducted and taken to what looks like an idyllic village, but is really a bizarre Kafkaesque prison. His warders demand information. He gives them nothing, but only tries to escape.
The Prisoner
1967
7.8World War II drama about covert organisation Lifeline helping allied airmen escape after being shot down in occupied Europe, working with the Resistance and hiding from the Gestapo.
Secret Army
1977
8.0Sharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books. Produced by Celtic Films and Picture Palace Films for the ITV network, the series was shot mainly in Turkey and the Crimea, although some filming was also done in England, Spain and Portugal. The series originally ran from 1993 to 1997. In 2004, as part of ITV's new set of drama, ITV announced that it intended to produce new episodes of Sharpe, in co-production with BBC America, loosely based on his time in India, with Sean Bean continuing his role as Sharpe. Sharpe's Challenge is a two-part adventure; part one premiered on ITV on 23 April 2006, with part two being shown the following night. With more gore than earlier episodes, the show was broadcast by BBC America in September 2006.
Sharpe
1993
7.2The New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.
The New Avengers
1976
8.2The Main Chance was a British television series which first aired on ITV between 1969,1970,1972 and 1975. A drama, it depicts the sudden transformation in the life of solicitor David Main who relocates from London to Leeds.
The Main Chance
1969
5.8Mystery and Imagination is a British television anthology of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 on ITV and produced by ABC and Thames Television.
Mystery and Imagination
1966
8.2The Human Jungle is a British TV series about a psychiatrist, made for ABC Television by the small production company Independent Artists for transmission on ITV. Starring Herbert Lom, it ran for two series which were first transmitted during 1963 and 1965.
The Human Jungle
1963
9.0A kid-friendly take on the exploits of King Richard the Lion Heart, from his participation in the Crusades, to his capture in Austria, to his final return to England.
Richard the Lionheart
1962
8.0Redcap is a British television series produced by ABC Weekend Television for ITV. John Thaw stars as Sergeant John Mann, a member of the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police. It ran for 26 episodes over two series between 1964 and 1966, being about 50 minutes in a 60 minute time slot. Surprisingly for a 1960s ABC Weekend Television programme, 23 of the 26 episodes still exist.
Redcap
1964
Studio 4 is an anthology drama series utilising BBC Television Centre's Studio Four, and running for two series in 1962 on BBC One. It was envisaged as a sequel to Storyboard, a similar anthology series which had been transmitted the previous year.
Studio 4
1962
8.0Victorian England, the late 1800s: Detective Sergeant Daniel Cribb of the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is determined to remove crime from the streets of London using the latest detection methods.
Cribb
1980
7.0This classic period drama series follows the fortunes of the aristocratic Lacey family, living peacefully in Arnescote Castle until the onset of the English Civil War in 1640. Sir Martin Lacey, the head of the family, is steadfastly loyal to the King. However the family is torn apart when his eldest daughter Anne weds John Fletcher - son of a merchant family who support the forces of Cromwell.
By the Sword Divided
1983
9.0Count Dracula is a British television adaptation of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It first aired 22 December 1977. It is among the more faithful of the many adaptations of the original book. Louis Jourdan played the title role.
Count Dracula
1977
Sword of Honour is a three-part miniseries produced as part of the anthology Theatre 625, and broadcast on BBC2, based on Evelyn Waugh's 1952–61 novels of the same name. It stars Edward Woodward as 35-year-old Englishman Guy Crouchback, who returns home from Italy at the start of WWII, determined to fight the good fight. Horrified by Nazi barbarism and emotionally shattered by a painful divorce, Crouchback eagerly accepts a post with the elite Royal Corps of Halberdiers.
Sword of Honour
1967
Rupert of Hentzau is a 1964 British television series based on the novel Rupert of Hentzau which ran for six half-hour episodes. It starred George Baker, Barbara Shelley, Peter Wyngarde, John Phillips, Tristram Jellinek, Sally Home and Derek Blomfield. It was filmed at the BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane, west London.
Rupert of Hentzau
1964

