Steve Burrows
The Burrows of Hollywood, Inc.
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Steve Burrows
Steve Burrows
The Burrows of Hollywood, Inc.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Steve was weaned and reared in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Beer Capital of the World. After his Dad won it all by playing the saw on The Gong Show, Steve’s future in show business was a lock.
Graduating from the University of Wisconsin with two questionable majors (Political Science and Film Criticism), Steve moved to Chicago, joining Second City Director Del Close as a member of the famed, groundbreaking improvisational comedy group, Baron’s Barracudas.
Meeting his future wife at O’Hare Airport while wearing a cabana suit, Steve relocated to L.A. where he made his first film, The Soldier of Fortune – a short about his actual appearance and subsequent humiliation on The Wheel of Fortune game show. The film garnered a plethora of film festival wins, as well as one lawsuit by Merv Griffin.
From there, Steve became a writer/performer for the legendary comedy troupe, The Groundlings, where his shameless mugging led to stints on everything from Seinfeld to America’s Funniest Home Videos to over 200 TV spots – including perhaps his best known performance as the “Jowly Guy With Psoriasis” in Super Bowl XXVII.
After optioning several scripts and writing an original screenplay for 20th Century Fox, Steve turned his increasingly cringe-worthy show biz experiences into his directorial feature film debut with Chump Change (fame, fortune, cheese and beer) starring Tim Matheson, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Fred Willard, Abe Vigoda and Traci Lords!
Premiering at the prestigious AFI Film Festival to rave reviews, Chump Change then played to sellout crowds at the HBO Comedy Fest in Aspen, winning the Audience Award for Best Feature. It is there Miramax Films acquired Chump Change for distribution.
Burrows then went on to win over 75 awards for writing/directing television commercials on five continents – including the Cannes Lion, multiple Addy and Telly awards – not to mention several spots which now reside, inexplicably, in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
Burrows then wrote, directed and starred in The King Kaiser Show – the award-winning show-within-a-show within-a-show starring a fella weaned and reared in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Beer Capital of the World – and his somewhat dubious career in show biz.
In a complete career 180°, Burrows dropped out of Show Business to take care of his mother, who had gone in for a routine partial hip replacement and came out in a coma with permanent brain damage. For real. The insane years that followed – fighting for his Mom’s life and for medical and legal justice – became Burrows latest feature, the award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO documentary film, BLEED OUT.
Since Bleed Out’s HBO debut, Burrows has become a fierce patient safety activist, partnering with the Leapfrog Group and the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, as well as becoming adjunct faculty for MedStar Institute for Quality and Safety and the Academy for Emerging Leaders for Patient Safety. Burrows is also a Co-Founder of Patients for Patient, Safety US.
Back in the saddle, Burrows is currently working on several television and feature film projects, including a comedy and a drama. He is also writing his first book.
The Burrows of Hollywood, Inc.