Bryan Burrough

Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair magazine and the author of five books, including the No. 1 New York Times Best-Seller Barbarians at the Gate and the best-selling Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34. He is also a three-time winner of the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for Excellence in Financial Journalism.

Born in 1961, Burrough was raised in Temple, Texas, and graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1983. From 1983 to 1992 he was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he reported from Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh and, during the late 1980s, covered the busy mergers and acquisitions beat in New York.

In 1990, Burrough and John Helyar coauthored Barbarians at the Gate, the story of the fight for control of RJR Nabisco. The book has been hailed as one of the most influential business narratives of all time and was made into an HBO movie in 1993. A special 20th anniversary hardcover edition of Barbarians, including a new afterword, was issued by HarperCollins in November 2008.

Burrough joined Vanity Fair in 1992, where he has reported from locales as diverse as Hollywood, Nepal, Moscow, Tokyo and Jerusalem. His subsequent books include: Vendetta: American Express and the Smearing of Edmond Safra (1992) and Dragonfly: An Epic Story of Survival in Space (1998).

Burrough’s Public Enemies (2004) is the definitive account of the 1930s crime wave that brought notorious criminals like Bonnie and Clyde to America’s front pages. A major movie based on the book, also named Public Enemies, is to be released by Universal Studios in July 2009. Directed by the acclaimed Michael Mann, the film stars Johnny Depp as the legendary bank robber John Dillinger and Christian Bale as his nemesis, FBI agent Melvin Purvis.

Burrough’s most recent release, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes (2009) enjoyed three weeks on New York Times Best-Seller list and garnered rave reviews. Burrough profiles the Big Four oil dynasties of H.L. Hunt, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson, along with their cronies, rivals and families.

In addition to consulting work for 60 Minutes and various Hollywood studios, Burrough has authored numerous book reviews and OpEd articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. He has appeared on TODAY, Good Morning America and in many documentary films.

Burrough lives in Summit, New Jersey, with his wife and their two teen-aged sons.