Background

Mark Burnett was born on July 7, 1960, in London, England, the United Kingdom, to Archie and Jean Burnett. He was the only child. Mark Burnett came from a humble, but very supportive family. His parents were Ford Motors factory workers. His father worked in a Ford Motor Company plant; his mother worked in the battery compound next door.

Although the Burnetts could not afford to give their only child a lot of material things, they did give him plenty of encouragement. Burnett's mother, in particular, served as an early role model. She always explained to him that he could achieve anything in life he wanted. She was also her son's biggest champion. Burnett explained in his autobiography, "Basically, she supported every crazy thing I had ever done my whole life."

Education

Mark Burnett attended the Warren School, Romford, England, class of 1976, and Redbridge Technical College, Ilford, England, class of 1978.

Career

At the age of 17, he joined the British Army and became a section commander in the Parachute Regiment. After completing missions with the British Parachute Regiment in the Falkland Islands and Northern Ireland, in 1982, Burnett gave up his military career and moved to California, where he would take on a number of odd jobs, including as a nanny for wealthy families and selling T-shirts on Venice Beach, before finding success in TV.

Burnett experienced his first successful career venture in the early 1990s when he created Eco-Challenge, a multi-day team competition including racing, trekking, diving and horseback riding, and taking place in Utah. According to Burnett, the event was inspired by the French expedition race Raid Gauloises. First broadcast in 1995, the Eco-Challenge television series featured mixed-sex teams in arduous multisport competitions emphasizing esprit de corps and environmental consciousness. In 2000 Eco-Challenge: Morocco won a Sports Emmy and a Banff Rockie Award. In 1999, Burnett received a Sports Emmy Award for best program achievement for his work on Eco-Challenge.

Inspired by the success of Eco-Challenge, Burnett geared up to produce another competition-based series. During the course of the Eco-Challenge races, he was intrigued by how the players interacted with each other under stress. Survivor was actually the brainchild of British producer Charlie Parsons. In 1998 Burnett purchased the American rights to Survivor, a European show that offered, like Eco-Challenge, dramatic settings, and featured competitors under harsh conditions. Contestants, who are sequestered in a remote, exotic location and compete for a cash prize, are initially divided into two "tribes" and are expected to build shelter and find food with a minimal number of tools. The "tribes" occasionally compete against each other in "challenges."

It took Burnett a few years to convince networks of his gut feeling. Network after network turned down the project until 2000, when CBS snapped it up, hoping to air it during the empty summer months when its regular line-up was in reruns. Six thousand people applied for the chance to be dropped off on a remote island in order to compete for food, shelter, and the ultimate prize of one million dollars. Only sixteen were chosen, ranging from Rudy, a retired Navy SEAL (a highly-skilled military division), to a female truck driver named Susan. The men and women were divided into two "tribes," and over the course of thirty-nine days, they competed in such challenges as fish-spearing, slug-eating, and running obstacle courses. At the end of each show, the losing team of the night met in tribal councils and voted off one of their own members.

Survivor was an immediate and outrageous success. Viewers flocked to their sets every Thursday night to find out who was voted off, and tuned in on Friday mornings to watch ousted tribal members interviewed on radio and TV talk shows. On August 23, 2000, over fifty million people tuned in to watch the series finale. The show's winner, Richard Hatch, became an instant celebrity; producer Mark Burnett became a multi-millionaire, and Survivor went down in pop culture history as the most successful reality show of all time.

Burnett went on to create a number of Survivor sequels and specials, and although none quite reached the heights of the original, each attracted record numbers of viewers. In December 2003, when Survivor: Pearl Island (the seventh installment in the series) ended, it was the second-most-watched program on network television. In May of 2004 more than twenty-four million viewers saw Amber Brkich named the winner of the Survivor: All-Stars competition, which set eighteen past cast members in competition against one another.

In addition to its popularity with audiences, Survivor received praise from critics and was nominated for fourteen Emmy Awards, winning two. Perhaps the real mark of success was that Survivor spawned a number of imitators, including Big Brother and Joe Millionaire. Such shows hoped to cash in on the reality craze, but none even came close.

Burnett was not yet finished riding the reality show wave. After a series of shows that struggled to find an audience - including The Restaurant (2003-2004), which chronicled the turbulent life of a Manhattan eatery - Burnett found success in 2004 with The Apprentice. The program revolved around ambitious candidates competing for a full-time job with Donald Trump, who was billed as a billionaire real-estate tycoon. It was popular with viewers - as was Trump’s "You’re fired" catchphrase - and in 2008 Burnett created The Celebrity Apprentice, which featured well-known entertainers and other public figures, such as comedian Joan Rivers and journalist Piers Morgan, as contestants.

In 2005, he created the reality show The Contender. Starring Tommy Gallagher, Dub Huntley, Jeremy Williams, and others, it followed a group of boxers and their relationships with each other and their families. During 2005, Mark Burnett served as the executive producer of Rock Star. The show debuted on CBS in July 2005 and involved aspiring singers who competed with each other to become the lead singer of a featured group.

This was soon followed by On the Lot, a single-season reality series and online competition for filmmaking which was produced by Burnett alongside Steven Spielberg and David Goffin. On August 9, 2009, ABC premiered his business reality television series, Shark Tank. The series became a huge success and earned several Emmy Awards. From 2010 to 2013, Mark Burnett created several shows, including the short-lived Sarah Palin's Alaska, School Spirits, Stars Earn Stripes, and Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. During this time, he also came up with HGTV Star, where contestants compete for interior design challenges. The show ran for 63 episodes and was canceled after seven seasons.

In the year 2015, he launched The Dovekeepers miniseries on CBS and 500 Questions for ABC. The following year, Burnett produced the reality TV show, America's Greatest Makers. Launched on TBS, the show’s judging panel included Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, Carol Roth, and Kevin Pereira. His projects in 2017 included Steve Harvey's Funderdome and Survivor: Game Changers. Also in May 2017, Burnett served as the co-executive producer of Beat Shazam. On July 12, 2017, Fox renewed the show for its second season. In January 2020, it was renewed for its fourth season.

He has also served as the executive producer of a few TV shows, The Voice (NBC), The World's Best (CBS), Lucha Underground (The El Rey Network), and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader. As chairman of MGM Worldwide Television, Burnett oversees many scripted TV shows, including Condor, The Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings, and Get Shorty. He alongside his third wife Roma Downey produced The Bible, a History Channel drama based on the Bible. The drama became the #1 new series in 2013 and also emerged as # 1 series in Spain, Canada, and Portugal.

Achievements

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  Mark Burnett is best known for producing the hit reality show, Survivor, which was named the #1 reality series of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2009. Burnett has produced several other television franchises including The Apprentice. Mark Burnett was named by Time Magazine in 2004 as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009. Burnett continues to dominate the reality show genre and was elected into the Broadcast and Cable Hall of Fame in 2008.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Jump In!: Even If You Don't Know How to Swim

    (Burnett knows better than anyone that jumping into life w...)

    2000
  • Survivor : The Ultimate Game

    (Provides a behind-the-scenes look at all thirteen episode...)

    2000

Religion

Mark Burnett grew up with a Presbyterian mother and a Catholic father. It is not known in which denomination he was raised.

Politics

Burnett donated $2,300 to the Obama campaign during the 2008 election, and then to the Democratic National Committee after Obama took office.

Views

Mark Burnett is also recognized for philanthropy. He was also named "Philanthropist of the Year" by the Reality Cares Foundation

Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, are devoting time and considerable money to sounding the alarm on a humanitarian crisis that is deeply personal to them. Burnett and Downey have established the Cradle of Christianity Fund, in partnership with the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Global Engagement, to help ease the plight of about 800,000 displaced Christians in Iraq and Syria. Cradle of Christianity is a response to disturbing reports of persecution of Christians at the hands of ISIS and other terror groups.

Quotations: "The world is changing, and the internet is about to become the next broadcast network."

"My mantra is: Realize you’re going to fail all the time and accept it. That doesn’t mean I’m not frightened of it."

"One of the best ways to feel better is by doing something for somebody else."

"Analysis creates paralysis. You can’t be 100 percent sure of anything."

Personality

The only time Mark Burnett appeared onscreen was on Survivor: The Australian Outback episode "Trial by Fire", where he personally assisted the medical team in pulling Michael Skupin from the game when he got injured.

Interests

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Writers

  The Magic of Believing, by Claude Bristol, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, Dale Carnegie

• Sport & Clubs

  soccer, FC Barcelona

• Music & Bands

  Coldplay, Norah Jones

Connections

Mark Burnett has been married thrice. His first marriage was with Kym Gold whom he married in 1988. They divorced a year later. Burnett then married Dianne J. Burnett in 1992. They have two sons, James and Cameron. The couple separated and eventually divorced in 2006. In January 2004, Mark Burnett started a relationship with actress and author, Roma Downey. They wed in April 2007 in their Malibu home.

Father:

Archie Burnett

Mother:

Jean Burnett

ex-wife:

Kym Gold

ex-wife:

Dianne J. Burnett

Wife:

Roma Downey

Son:

James Burnett

Son:

Cameron Burnett

colleague:

Donald Trump

Mark Burnett teamed up with business tycoon Donald Trump to launch reality competition The Apprentice in 2004.

References

• Mark Burnett on Instagram
• Mark Burnett on Twitter