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MARK BURNETT
By Anne KeehnPhotos By Mark Burnett Productions
Mark Burnett has made millions by capitalizing on people’s need for social approval. Says Burnett, the producer and creator of reality TV mega-hits Survivor, The Apprentice, The Contender, and Rock Star, “You try to tap into emotion. Social exclusion is a massive fear for people.”
Born in London in 1960 and raised in Essex, Burnett enlisted in the British army at 17 and was stationed in Northern Ireland. Later, he was shipped off to the Falklands during the U.K.’s 1982 war with Argentina. In 2004, he told CNN, “The Falklands war made me realize the glory of war isn’t real, [after] one day seeing, over one night, I think, 20 of my friends in body bags.”
At 22, Burnett accepted a job doing contract security work in Central America. The early ‘80s were a politically tumultuous time in the region, and the job was a risky one. “It was through an independent company, working with the American government,” Burnett says. “[But] I never did it. I changed my mind, mainly because my mother had a bad feeling. She had never had a bad feeling about anything I had done, and it spooked me.” His flight had a stopover in Los Angeles. The young Brit walked off the plane and has stayed in California, for the most part, ever since.
Burnett instantly found work as a nanny in Beverly Hills (”I went from commando to nanny in 24 hours,” he told CNN). He then became an entrepreneur, selling t-shirts on Venice Beach, and later started his own credit card marketing company. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1990, and the following year led the first-ever U.S. Team in the Raid Gauloises, a rugged adventure trek often called “the world’s toughest race.” Seeing business potential in the excursion, Burnett filmed the race and sold the footage to ESPN. This was the beginning of his foray into entertainment. He eventually bought the rights to the Raid Gauloises and parlayed the concept into his first TV series, Eco-Challenge.
If he weren’t a TV producer, Burnett says, “I wouldn’t mind being in Iraq in a great military unit.” When he describes his reality shows, he references philosophers like Joseph Campbell, Machiavelli, and game theorist John Nash. Burnett’s philosophy of human nature emerges as a somewhat cynical one, no doubt shaped by his traumatic experiences in violent combat and his current milieu of the hard-ass entertainment business world.
“In Survivor, I’ve tapped into death and rebirth,” he says. “When someone’s flame is extinguished and the lighting goes from orange to blue, it represents death. The rebirth is when the tribe lives on without that person. That’s why [host] Jeff [Probst] always ends by saying, ‘See you tomorrow.’ I deal with all those human touch points of emotion: camaraderie, attraction, integrity, sportsmanship. Machiavelli said it best, that being a leader and making hard choices is difficult. People won’t love you, but the trick is to never make them hate you. That’s the essence of Survivor. You’re figuratively killing others, and then asking them, for their pains, to give you a million dollars.”