Caroline Burke

Caroline Flora Burke (née Berg; July 7, 1913 – December 5, 1964) was an American actress, theater producer, television producer, writer, and art collector. She appeared in several films in the early 1940s before becoming a theater producer in New York City, notably producing several stage productions of Harold Pinter plays and Broadway productions. She also worked as a producer for NBC in the 1950s, and at the time was the company's only female producer.

The daughter of a prominent Portland, Oregon businessman, Burke studied art history at Bryn Mawr College before embarking on a short-lived career as an actress. Her first role was a starring part in The Mysterious Rider (1942), which she followed with three minor film appearances before retiring from film acting. In the 1950s, she transitioned into executive and production work for NBC, as well as theatre producing for various Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. In addition to her career in entertainment, Burke also taught television production at Columbia University, and was the founder of the art history department at Reed College. She died of undisclosed causes in 1964 while in the midst of producing a second Harold Pinter stage production, which opened the week following her death.

Burke and her husband, business executive Erwin Swann, owned a significant art collection of modernist paintings and sculpture—including works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, and Auguste Rodin—which has shown at several national art museums. Additionally, the couple's collection of cartoon and caricature artwork is owned by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Early life Burke was born Caroline Flora Berg on July 7, 1913, in Portland, Oregon Her father, a native of San Francisco, also founded the Charles F. Berg Company, a local Portland women's clothing chain, and co-produced "The Hoot Owls," a pioneering radio sketch show for KGW. The Charles F. Berg Building, an Art Deco building in downtown Portland that served as one of the Berg storefronts, is named for her father, who died there of a heart attack in 1932. She had one elder brother, Forrest Talbott Berg,

Burke graduated from the Catlin Hillside School (now Catlin Gabel School),

Career In 1941 and 1942, Burke appeared on Broadway in productions of Brooklyn, U.S.A. and Gilbert Miller's Heart of a City, respectively. It was noted in a July 1, 1942 article in the Detroit Free Press: Some weeks ago, a petite New York miss named Caroline Burke came to Hollywood. Object: Screen career. Experience: Two bits in Broadway shows and some radio appearances. Hollywood producers were not sufficiently interested to give her interviews. Agents were too unimpressed to represent her... Instead of encouraging her, [agents] stressed the difficulties of crashing studio gates. But pint-size Miss Burke is a person of determination. "Others have done it," said she, "and so can I." While appearing in films in Hollywood, she simultaneously worked as an advertising and radio editor in California.

She spent her later life living and working in New York City, where she was a theatrical producer, co-producing Broadway stagings of Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man, and Brendan Behan's The Hostage. She and her husband's art collection included works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Édouard Vuillard, Georges Rouault; and sculpture by Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Georges Braque, and William Zorach.

The Caroline and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon is owned by the Library of Congress, and contains 2,085 drawings, prints, and paintings related to the art of caricature, cartoon, and illustration.

Personal life On August 7, 1945, Burke married camera manufacturing magnate Cyrus Max Adler at the Portland home of her brother, Forrest, in a private Jewish ceremony.

Burke later married advertising executive Erwin D. Swann, who worked for the Foote, Cone & Belding Ad Agency; the couple resided in Manhattan at 24 West 55th Street.

Silent Witness Nurse

The Collection Producer Off-Broadway