Biography

Blonde American child actress (from the age of four) of the mid 1950s and early 70s. She gave a memorable performance, as "Markie", in the first season The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, Nightmare as a Child (1960). Retired in 1971.

When someone dies in Los Angeles County, officials work to notify next-of-kin if no one has come forward. They wait for three years to bury the dead (the embalmed body held in the LA County Morgue), which gives family members a chance to locate their missing relatives. The unclaimed dead, after three years, are cremated and end up in a common grave in the county's public cemetery. Anyone can buy remains that have gone unclaimed after two years, according to a spokeswoman for the morgue. Fans, including Reuben Febus of New York, worried Burnham would be buried in a common grave. According to documents from the LA County Morgue, Febus received authority to have her ashes transported to him in New York; charges included $340 for the cremation. "Even if you don't know the person, you develop a relationship, as strange as that sounds," Febus said, who pursued her autograph for about 15 years, a common grave isn't fitting for Burnham; whose death certificate says she died of cardiac arrest, but also dealt with hypertension, diabetes and depression. "I became disgusted with myself," Febus said. "Here I am, chasing an autograph. That's a person, not an autograph. She's a human being, with hopes and dreams, just like anyone else." Febus said. Terry Burnham is buried in an actors and performers cemetery in Westchester County, New York. "It's too bad she didn't reach out and open herself up a bit with communication," Andrew Ramage said. "There's something lost there." And maybe the long wait between Burnham's death and burial can be summed up in the words she once uttered in the middle ground between light and shadow. "I'm in no hurry".

Burnham's final acting credit was a 1971 episode of the syndicated television series "Insight," a religious, half-hour drama that drew a range of actors, such as Martin Sheen, Patty Duke and Beau Bridges. "Then nothing when she reached the age of 22, she dropped off the planet," Andrew Ramage said. Burnham's legend grew in part because she lived life in seclusion and was not accessible like so many other stars in the "Twilight Zone" series. Fans wanted to get their hands on anything related to the Long Beach woman whose stunning performance as a child revealed an acting prowess beyond her years. Fans of the television series agree that Burnham, who died (at age 64) October 7, 2013, turned in her best performance of her "Twilight Zone" episode, which otherwise has been debated as either underrated or a Rod Serling flop.

As the legend goes, someone won an auction for a Burnham storage unit in Southern California. Sources said this was around 2010, and many of her personal records -- photos, tax documents, acting contracts and medical reports -- began to filter online for sale. Leonard Lightfoot, an actor with roles on "Silver Spoons" and "She's the Sheriff" among other television shows, found a cache of Burnham photos at the Radium Open Air Market in Torrance, California. A collector and seller of old photos, Lightfoot sold the images on eBay. "I got several emails about it," Lightfoot said of his Burnham collection. "It just showed up in a box of stuff I bought. I wish some was that interested in my career." Most of Burnham's items ended up in the hands of two collectors, one in California and the other in Kentucky. The man in Kentucky was Byron Lang, a former police officer. Lang said after buying the photos, medical records and other items related to Burnham, he wrote the actress a letter offering to send the items to her free of charge. "She didn't respond. I think she was trying to stay out of the public eye," Lang said. "She was living in a mobile home in Compton. The more you got into it, the sadder it was. There were people around the corner that were trying to call her and contact her. You know how people develop this unhealthy obsession with actors and so forth." Interviews with several people revealed that most of Burnham's stuff is now in the hands of a man in Australia. Reached by email, the man did not want his name used but said he bought nearly all of her items from various collectors, with the aim to have them returned to Burnham. Some sellers cut the signature of Burnham's mother out of her contracts, and tried to sell them as Burnham autographs. The Australian fan said the records include hundreds of photographs, dozens of contracts, letters from fans, friends, family and a boyfriend; hundreds of tax receipts; some drawings Burnham created; her birth certificate; her school diploma and tassel; and medical records.

Terry Burnham's final resting place is at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Long Beach, California, next to her mother. Nearly five years after her death, she was buried on August 8, 2018, on what would have been her 69th birthday.