Burns was born in Mineola, Long Island, New York. He graduated summa cum laude in 1976 from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. and earned his M.A. in European history at the same institution. He entered Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1977, and earned his Ph.D. in Modern European history.

Actor

Burns was a well-known child actor, starring on the television program Wagon Train, as orphaned "Barnaby West" during seasons 4-8. He also co-starred with Glenn Corbett, Ted Bessell, and Randy Boone in a 19-episode NBC comedy/drama It's a Man's World in the 1962-1963 season. Burns played 14-year-old Howie Macauley, who lives on a houseboat called the Elephant on the Ohio River with his older brother Wes, played by Corbett. Bessell and Boone were the two other young men living with them. The program was hailed by its viewers and critics for its portrayal of restless youth but was quickly cancelled because of low Nielsen ratings.

Burns appeared with James Stewart in the film, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. He appeared as a guest star in over thirty-five series in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly Westerns, including CBS's Gunsmoke, NBC's The Virginian and The Road West, and ABC's The Legend of Jesse James and The Big Valley. During his twenties, Burns appeared in several films, most notably in That Cold Day in the Park (1969), and Journey to Shiloh (1968).

Historian

He became a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College in 1980 and authored books on the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s. Upon his retirement in 2002, he was honored by Mount Holyoke as Professor Emeritus.

While on the faculty at Mount Holyoke College, Burns married the college's then-president, Elizabeth Topham Kennan. He and his wife presently reside near Danville, Kentucky, where they have restored the Cambus-Kenneth Estate, a thoroughbred horse farm listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Books

• France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History (1998) [1]
• Dreyfus : a family affair, 1789-1945 (1991) [2]
• Rural society and French politics : Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair, 1886-1900 (1984) [3]

Reviews

• Michael Burns, "Local Hero: How a provincial laborer became a reformer in 19th-century France", The New York Times, October 8, 2000.