Donnie Burns MBE was born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1959, where he attended Holy Cross High School. He is a Scottish professional ballroom dancer, specialising in Latin dance.

He and his former partner Gaynor Fairweather were 14-time World Professional Latin champions: this is by some way the record for this title.^[1] They were also eleven times International Latin American Dance Champions, and this is also a record.^[2] On their competitive retirement both were honoured by appointment as MBE. Donnie was undefeated in any competitive dance contest for nearly 20 years of continuous competition, a record in any major category of ballroom dance; this is now in the Guinness Book of Records. During this period he won major titles in countries throughout the world.

He is now President^[3] of the World Dance Council.^[4] He is a winner of the Carl Alan Award for outstanding services to dance and is widely considered the "Michael Jordan" of ballroom dancing. In 2008, Burns married swing dance and International Latin dancer Heidi Groskreutz.

Burns was the hero of the character Mr. Aoki in the 1996 Japanese film Shall We Dance?.

Burns appeared during week 7 of the 12th season of Dancing with the Stars and made an error in his scoring of the final dance of the night, giving Romeo and Chelsie Hightower's Samba a 7 but holding up the 8 paddle when the judges revealed their scores.

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Gaynor Fairweather is a British professional ballroom dancer. She and her partner, Donnie Burns, were 14-time Professional World Latin Dance Champions and 11 times Professional International Latin American Dance Champions. This is by some way the record number of wins in both these top competitions. On their retirement from competition dancing they were both appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to the performing arts.

Gaynor fell in love with dancing at the age of 10 and immediately decided to become a world champion. She was introduced to Donnie by another former world champion Sammy Stopford and from that date on the team was relentless in the quest for the championship. They were two-time amateur champions before moving to the professional level. Their professional string of wins in the world championship stood at an undefeated streak of 13 years (1984–1996) followed by one year of retirement and then another single championship followed by another retirement.

During their reign they were perfectionists. In their efforts to strive for excellence they sought out the help of the best in many fields. To bring the elements of Flamenco dance into their competitive repertoire they went to South America to train with world champion Flamenco dancers. They have traveled extensively to teach in Japan and Hong Kong.

Gaynor is married to Italian dancer Mirko Saccani, with whom she competed after the end of her partnership with Burns. As of 2006, she was living in Hong Kong and training wealthy socialites for Pro-Am competitions.

Monica Wong case[link]

She and Saccani were sued by a former student, heiress and banker Monica Wong, who had promised to pay them £8 million pounds over an eight-year period for exclusive coaching. However the relationship rapidly deteriorated after Saccani repeatedly verbally abused Monica Wong in public.^[1] Wong terminated the contract in 2004 on the basis of repudiatory conduct by Saccani, which she accepted and some other bases.^[2] She sued to have her £4 million pound downpayment returned. A Hong Kong court ruled in Wong's favour.^[3]

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