بیوگرافی
Peter Burrell was born in Rochester, New York, into a family with deep ties to the Eastman Kodak Company, where both his father and grandfather spent their entire careers. His mother was a teacher and interior decorator. For more than twenty years, Peter lived just two doors away from Sidney Mear, a world-renowned music teacher and principal trumpet player for The Eastman-Rochester Orchestra and The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Music was central to his neighborhood, where he took piano and trombone lessons for over six years. This sparked a passion for various music genres, particularly jazz, musicals, and standards. Alongside a childhood friend, he organized numerous neighborhood musical productions and high school talent shows. Before they were of age, Peter and his friend would sneak into The Pythod Room, a nationally known jazz club in the inner city, to hear jazz legends including Rochester's own Chuck Mangione. They eventually produced their first concert by bringing Chuck Mangione and his brother Gap to their high school, followed by Joey Dee and the Starliters, known for the hit "The Peppermint Twist." They also created their own radio station, which illegally broadcast throughout their neighborhood. This early experience led both to their first show business jobs as radio disc jockeys. His friend, Don Alhart, was later recognized in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-running television news anchorman, with a career spanning over 50 years.
Encouraged by his father, Peter participated in scouting, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout and attending the Schiff National Junior Leader Training Camp. He also became an American Red Cross certified swimming instructor. With his father being a pioneer in American skiing, the family embraced the sport, and Peter took up ski racing in high school, serving as captain of his championship team. Aspiring to become a professional ski patrolman, he earned his American Red Cross Advanced First Aid certificate, which led to six years as a US Army Reserve medic.
After graduating from high school in Rochester, Peter enrolled at the University of Vermont. After one year, he paused his studies to accept a job as a top-40 disc jockey at WJOY in Burlington, Vermont, hosting two shows daily: an FM classical program by day and an AM top-40 show at night.
After a year on air, he left WJOY to pursue his goal of becoming a professional ski patrolman, joining the Mt. Mansfield Ski Patrol in Stowe, Vermont.
Following his time in the ski industry, Peter resumed his education at Ithaca College in New York, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Radio and Television Production. During college, he was captain of the ski team, president of the student body, and actively produced college concerts. To support himself, he worked as a ski instructor and was among the first to teach skiing to the blind. His skiing skills later opened doors in the film industry as a specialist for second unit snow and skiing sequences in movies and television.
While in school and afterward, Peter produced concerts featuring Sammy Davis Jr., Flip Wilson, Billy May's Orchestra with Buddy Greco, The Beach Boys, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin. Through these connections, he secured a position at the Agency for the Performing Arts (APA) in New York, traveling with Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In on a summer tour and attending the Woodstock Music Festival with APA client Jefferson Airplane.
After Woodstock, Peter left APA to pursue film, enrolling at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in cinematography with a minor in creative writing. During graduate school, he produced an award-winning educational film for the National Ski Patrol and helped launch WCMF FM, an alternative radio station featuring jazz, folk, blues, ‘60s alternative rock, and some classical music. After earning his MFA, Peter worked professionally as a cameraman and film editor for clients including Xerox and Aetna Life.
His industrial film career was interrupted when he was accepted into the Directors Guild of America Producers Training Program in New York, which allowed him to focus on theatrical films. Alongside a college friend, he wrote the screenplay "Welcome to Springer" for Cannon Pictures, and after several screenplays, he joined the Writers Guild of America.
In 1975, Peter joined the Directors Guild of America as an assistant director, working on over a dozen feature films including "Slapshot," "King Kong," "The Front," "The Turning Point," "House Calls," "Rollercoaster," "FM," and "Better Off Dead." He began his work as a production manager on "Smokey and the Bandit II" and joined the Producers Guild of America during this period.
Peter also directed second units for "One Crazy Summer," "MacGyver," "The Golden Child," and "The Return of Maxwell Smart," the latter requiring the filming of an out-of-bounds skiing sequence in May at altitudes above 10,000 feet to capture dry snow late in the season.
In 1981, Peter realized a lifelong dream by producing the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Luis Valdez musical "Zoot Suit," starring Edward James Olmos. The film was praised for its faithful preservation of theatrical elements while succeeding as a cinematic work, earning Peter a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture Musical/Comedy in 1982.
Following "Zoot Suit," he was production manager on "The Natural," starring Robert Redford, which began an association with Redford's Sundance Institute. This connection led to producing Sundance-developed films "Death of an Angel," starring Bonnie Bedelia, and "Stacking," starring Christine Lahti. He was subsequently invited to join the Producers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Peter co-produced the westerns "El Diablo" for HBO and "The Gambler III" for CBS.
He served as associate producer and production manager on the 20th Century Fox film "Jack the Bear," starring Danny DeVito. He coordinated a second unit extreme skiing sequence for Disney's "Aspen Extreme" featuring skiers Scot Schmidt and the late Doug Coombs, and later worked as associate producer and production manager on Steven Seagal's "On Deadly Ground" in Alaska for Warner Bros. He co-produced and managed production on "Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story," a low-budget film set in 1930s New York City starring Moira Kelly and Martin Sheen for Paulist Pictures.
Peter was production manager on the 20th Century Fox film "Jingle All the Way," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, creating a midwinter Minneapolis Christmas parade on Universal's backlot during summer. He also coordinated a glacier second unit on the Pemberton Ice Cap in Canada for "The X Files Movie."
He spent several months in Japan as production supervisor on "Gai Gin," the follow-up to "Shogun" for NBC. Although the project was canceled due to a devastating earthquake, Peter valued the experience for its insight into Japanese culture, business practices, and people.
With three children, Peter sought to stay local and began working in episodic television as Coordinating Producer and Production Manager on David E. Kelley's "Ally McBeal." His work on the series earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best TV Series Musical/Comedy in 1998 and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1999, leading to his invitation to join the Producers Branch of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He also produced Kelley's "Boston Public," for which he received a Peabody Award in 2002. Additionally, he worked on the series "LAX," produced "Privileged," and the Lifetime Civil War movie "Deliverance Creek."
Several years ago, Peter was selected from a highly exclusive group of candidates to join an innovative team of non-military, non-government professionals hired by the Secretary of the Air Force as advisors and consultants in aerospace. For six months, he worked on a classified project with experts from diverse fields to improve satellite launch efficiency, interfacing with everyone from generals and aerospace engineers to the personnel responsible for launch pad maintenance.
Throughout his career, Peter Burrell has worked extensively across the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Japan on over 35 feature films and more than 150 hours of episodic television.
