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Raymond Burr

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Raymond Burr
Raymond Burr (Perry Mason)
on the cover of Look (October 10, 1961)
Born
Raymond William Stacey Burr

(1917-05-21)May 21, 1917
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
DiedSeptember 12, 1993(1993-09-12) (aged 76)
Healdsburg, California, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1940–1993
Spouse(s)Isabella Ward
(married 1948–1952)
PartnerRobert Benevides (1960–1993)

Raymond William Stacey Burr (May 21, 1917 – September 12, 1993) was a Canadian-American actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. He was prominently involved in multiple charitable endeavors, such as working on behalf of the United Service Organizations.

Burr's early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film, usually as the villain. His portrayal of the suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Rear Window (1954), is regarded as his best-known film role. He won two Emmy Awards, in 1959 and 1961, for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons between 1957 and 1966. His second hit TV series, Ironside, earned him six Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.

After Burr's death from cancer in 1993, his personal life came into question, as details of his known biography appeared to be unverifiable.[1][2]

In 1996, Burr was listed as one of the 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time by TV Guide. A 2014 study found that Burr was rated as the favorite actor by Netflix users, with the greatest number of dedicated microgenres.

Early life

Raymond William Stacey Burr was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada,[3] to William Johnston Burr (1889–1985), a hardware salesman,[4] and his wife, Minerva Annette (née Smith, 1892–1974), a concert pianist and music teacher.[5] His mother was born in Chicago, Illinois; Burr's ancestry included Irish, English, Scottish, and German.[4][6]

When Burr was six, his parents divorced. Burr's mother moved, with him and his younger siblings, Geraldine and James Edmond, to Vallejo, California. ,[3] His father remained in New Westminster. Burr attended a military academy for a while and graduated from Berkeley High School.[7]

In later years, Burr freely invented stories of a happy childhood. He told The Modesto Bee in 1986, for example, that when he was twelve and a half years old, his mother sent him to New Mexico for a year to work as a ranch hand. He was already his full adult height and rather large and "had fallen in with a group of college-aged kids who didn't realize how young Raymond was, and they let him tag along with them in activities and situations far too sophisticated for him to handle."[8] He developed a passion for growing things and, while still a teenager, joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year.[8] Throughout his teenaged years, he had some acting work, making his stage debut at age 12 with a Vancouver stock company.[3]

Burr may have served in the Coast Guard, but never in the United States Navy as his publicists and he later claimed.[9] He had claimed he was seriously wounded in the stomach during the Battle of Okinawa in the latter stages of World War II.[10] Other invented biographical details include years of college education at a variety of institutions, two marriages, and a son who died as a teenager, world travel, an acting tour of the United Kingdom, and success in high school athletics.[11] Such claims were accepted as fact by the press during his lifetime[12][3] and by his first biographer.[13]

Early career

In 1937, Burr began his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1941, he landed his first Broadway role in Crazy with the Heat. He became a contract player at RKO studio, loaned-out to play a film noir villain in Eagle-Lion's Raw Deal (1948). In 1946, he had a regular part in Jack Webb's first radio show, Pat Novak for Hire, playing Webb's nemesis Detective Heilman.

Burr appeared in over 60 movies between 1946 and 1957. His performance in Pitfall (1948) was cited in 1976 by Richard Schickel as a prototype of film noir, in contrast with the appealing television characters for which Burr later became famous.[14] Burr received favorable notice for his role as an aggressive prosecutor in A Place in the Sun (1951), co-starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, and Shelley Winters. His most notable film role was that of a suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly.[3][12] He played the part of reporter Steve Martin in Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956).[15]

Burr emerged as a prolific television character actor in the early to mid-1950s. He made his television debut on the April 24, 1952, episode "The Tiger" of Gruen Playhouse on the DuMont Television Network. (At about the same time, Burr guest-starred on an episode of The Amazing Mr. Malone on ABC.) This part led to other roles in such programs as Dragnet, Chesterfield Sound Off Time, Four Star Playhouse, Mr. & Mrs. North, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, The Ford Television Theatre, and Lux Video Theatre.

During this time, Burr's distinctive voice also could be heard on network radio, appearing alongside Jack Webb in the short-lived Pat Novak for Hire on ABC radio, as well as in early episodes of NBC's Dragnet.[16] He also made guest appearances on other Los Angeles-based shows, such as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and landed a starring role in CBS's Fort Laramie (1956),[17] which depicted 19th-century life at old Fort Laramie.[18]

Perry Mason and Ironside

With Kathleen Crowley in Perry Mason (1958)

In 1956, Burr auditioned for the role of District Attorney Hamilton Burger in Perry Mason, a new CBS-TV courtroom drama based on the highly successful novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Impressed with his courtroom performance in the 1951 film, A Place in the Sun, executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson told Burr he was perfect for Perry Mason, but at least 60 pounds overweight. Over the next month, Burr went on a crash diet. When he returned, he tested as Perry Mason and won the role.[19] Gardner reportedly saw his audition and declared, "He is Perry Mason."[16] William Hopper also auditioned as Mason, but was instead cast as private detective Paul Drake.[20] Also starring were Barbara Hale as Della Street, Mason's secretary; William Talman as Hamilton Burger, the district attorney who loses nearly every case to Mason; and Ray Collins as homicide detective Lieutenant Arthur Tragg.[19]

The series ran from 1957 to 1966, and Burr won Emmy Awards in 1959 and 1961[21] for his performance as Perry Mason. The series has been rerun in syndication ever since. Beginning in 2006, the series has become available on DVD, with each calendar year having the release of one season as two separate volumes. The ninth and final season's DVD sets became available in 2013. Though Burr's character is often said never to have lost a case, he did lose two murder cases in early episodes of the series, once when his client misled him and another time when his client was later cleared.[22]

Burr and Victoria Shaw in Ironside (1969)

Burr moved from CBS to Universal Studios, where he played the title role in the television drama Ironside, which ran on NBC. In the pilot episode, San Francisco Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside is wounded by a sniper during an attempt on his life and is left an invalid in a wheelchair. This role gave Burr another hit series, the first crime drama show ever to star a disabled police officer. The show, which ran from 1967 to 1975, earned Burr six Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.[21]

Burr's weight, always an issue for him in getting roles, became a public relations problem when Johnny Carson began making jokes about him during his Tonight Show monologues. Burr refused to appear as Carson's guest from then on and told Us Weekly years later: "I have been asked a number of times to do his show and I won't do it. Because I like NBC. He's doing an NBC show. If I went on I'd have some things to say, not just about the bad jokes he's done about me, but bad jokes he does about everybody who can't fight back because they aren't there. And that wouldn't be good for NBC."[23] In later life, his distinctive physique and manner could be used as a reference that would be universally recognized. One journal for librarians published a writer's opinion that "asking persons without cataloging experience to design automated catalogs...is as practical as asking Raymond Burr to pole vault."[24] A character in a 1989 short story refers to Burr as "grossly overweight" in Ironside. [25]

Mariette Hartley and Burr in Kingston: Confidential (1977)

After Ironside went off the air, NBC failed in two attempts to launch Burr as the star of a new series. In a two-hour television movie format, Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence aired in February 1976 with Burr again in the role of the lawyer who outwits the district attorney. Despite good reviews for Burr, the critical reception was poor and NBC decided against developing it into a series.[26] In 1977, Burr starred in the short-lived TV series Kingston: Confidential as R.B. Kingston, a William Randolph Hearst-esque publishing magnate, owner of numerous newspapers and TV stations, who, in his spare time, solved crimes along with a group of employees. It was a critical failure that was scheduled opposite the extraordinarily popular Charlie's Angels. It was cancelled after 13 weeks.[27] Burr took on a shorter project next, playing an underworld boss in a six-hour miniseries, 79 Park Avenue[28] One last attempt to launch a series followed on CBS. The two-hour premiere of The Jourdan Chance aroused little interest.[29]

In 1985, Burr was approached by producers Dean Hargrove and Fred Silverman to star in a made-for-TV movie Perry Mason Returns.[30] Burr recalled in a 1986 interview, "They asked me to do a new 'Godzilla' the same week they asked me to do another Perry Mason, so I did them both."[31] He agreed to do the Mason movie if Barbara Hale returned to reprise her role as Della Street.[32] Hale agreed and when Perry Mason Returns aired in December 1985, her character became the defendant.[30] The rest of the original cast had died, but Hale's real-life son William Katt played the role of Paul Drake, Jr.[30] The movie was so successful, Burr made a total of 26 Perry Mason television films before his death.[12] Many were filmed in and around Denver, Colorado.[33]

By 1993, when Burr signed with NBC for another season of Mason films, he was using a wheelchair full-time because of his failing health. In his final Perry Mason movie, The Case of the Killer Kiss, which ironically was based on the final 60-minute episode, "The Case of the Final Fadeout", he was shown either sitting or standing while leaning on a table, but only once standing unsupported for a few seconds.[34] Twelve more Mason movies were scheduled before Burr's death, including one scheduled to film the month he died.[35]

In 1993, as he had with the Perry Mason TV movies, Burr decided to do an Ironside reunion movie. In May of that year, The Return of Ironside aired, reuniting the entire original cast of the 1967–1975 series.[36] Like many of the Mason movies, it was set and filmed in Denver. Burr's illness precluded any further such reunions.[35]

Other work

In the early 1960s, Burr narrated one film and appeared in several others sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service. They were designed to educate the public about accident prevention.[37]

In 1973, Burr starred in one-hour television drama, Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was John. He portrayed Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, as he tried to prevent the forced return of Jewish children from Istanbul to Nazi Germany.[38]

Burr co-starred in such TV films as Eischied: Only The Pretty Girls Die, the miniseries Centennial, and Disaster On The Coastliner (all in 1979), The Curse of King Tut's Tomb and The Night the City Screamed (both 1980), and Peter and Paul (1981). He also had a supporting role in Dennis Hopper's controversial film Out of the Blue (1980) and spoofed his Perry Mason image in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982).

Burr reprised his 1956 role in Godzilla, King of the Monsters! in Godzilla 1985: The Legend Is Reborn.[39] The film won Burr a nomination for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor.[40] Burr delivered the film's closing lines: "For now, Godzilla—that strangely innocent and tragic monster—has gone to earth. Whether he returns or not, or is never again seen by human eyes, the things he has taught us remain."[41]

Burr also worked as media spokesman for the now-defunct British Columbia-based real estate company Block Bros. in TV, radio, and print ads during the late 1970s and early 1980s.[42]

In 1983, he made a rare stage appearance when he starred in the thriller Underground at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto and after a UK tour, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London.[43]

On January 20, 1987, he hosted the television special that later served as the pilot for the long-running series Unsolved Mysteries.[44]

Personal life

Family life

Burr married actress Isabella ("Bella") Ward on January 10, 1948.[45] They lived together for less than a year, and divorced after four years. Neither remarried.[46] In the mid-1950s, Burr met Robert Benevides (born February 9, 1930, in Visalia, California)[47] a young actor and Korean War veteran, on the set of Perry Mason. According to Benevides, they became a couple around 1960. Benevides gave up acting in 1963[48][49] and later became a production consultant for 21 of the Perry Mason TV movies.[50] Together they owned and operated an orchid business and then a vineyard,[51] in the Dry Creek Valley in California. They were partners until Burr's death in 1993.[50] Burr left Benevides his entire estate, including "all my jewelry, clothing, books, works of art ... and other items of a personal nature."[52] Benevides subsequently renamed the Dry Creek property Raymond Burr Vineyards (reportedly against Burr's wishes) and continues to own and manage it as a commercial enterprise.[53]

Controversy

At various times in his career, Burr and his managers offered spurious or unverifiable biographical details to the press and public. These included a 1940 marriage to a Scottish actress named Annette Sutherland—killed, Burr said, in the same plane crash that claimed the life of actor Leslie Howard. (Multiple sources, including Burr's biographer, have reported that no one by that name appears on any of the published passenger manifests from the flight.[54]) Another undocumented marriage in 1953 to Laura Andrina Morgan—who died of cancer, Burr said, in 1955[55]—produced a son, Michael Evan, who purportedly died at age ten of leukemia. (No evidence exists of the marriage, nor of a son's birth, other than Burr's own claims.[56]) As late as 1991, Burr stood by the account of his son's life and death; he told Parade magazine that when he realized Michael was dying, he took him on a one-year tour of the United States. "Before my boy left, before his time was gone," he said, "I wanted him to see the beauty of his country and its people."[12] According to his publicist, Burr worked in Hollywood throughout the year that he was supposedly touring with his son.[57] Burr's stories about his World War II service in the Marine Corps, including battle injuries in Okinawa, were similarly unverified.[58][3][59]

In the late 1950s, Burr was rumored to be romantically involved with Natalie Wood.[1] Wood's agent sent her on public dates so she could be noticed by directors and producers and so the men she dated could present themselves in public as heterosexuals. The dates also helped to disguise Wood's intimate relationship with Robert Wagner, whom she later married.[60] Burr felt enough attraction to Wood to resent Warner Bros.' decision to promote her attachment to Tab Hunter, instead. Robert Benevides later said: "He was a little bitter about it. He was really in love with her, I guess."[61][62]

Later accounts of Burr's life explain that he hid his homosexuality to protect his career. In 2000, AP reporter Bob Thomas recalled the situation:[48][63]

It was an open secret...that he was gay. He had a companion who was with him all the time. That was a time in Hollywood history when homosexuality was not countenanced. Ray was not a romantic star by any means, but he was a very popular figure...if it was revealed at that time in Hollywood history [that he was gay] it would have been very difficult for him to continue.

Art Marks, a producer of Perry Mason, recalled Burr's talk of wives and children: "I know he was just putting on a show....That was my gut feeling. I think the wives and the loving women, the Natalie Wood thing, were a bit of a cover."[64] In 2006, Dean Hargrove, who worked on Perry Mason Returns, said: "I had always assumed that Raymond was gay, because he had a relationship with Robert Benevides for a very long time. Whether or not he had relationships with women, I had no idea. I did know that I had trouble keeping track of whether he was married or not in these stories. Raymond had the ability to mythologize himself, to some extent, and some of his stories about his past...tended to grow as time went by."[65]

A 2007 memoir by actor Paul Picerni described several experiences with Burr on the set of Mara Maru, when he felt Burr expressed sexual interest in him. He wrote, "I saw him staring at me. With his big blue eyes. And with this strange expression on his face. For the first time in my life, I felt like a dame. Then it hit me: He'd been giving me all this bullshit about his wife and his two kids in London, when in fact he was gay, and he was makin' a move on me!" He remembered Burr "was a great guy and very subtle in his homosexuality."[66]

Hobbies

Burr had many hobbies over the course of his life: cultivating orchids and collecting wine, art, stamps, and seashells. He was very fond of cooking.[3] As a dedicated seashell collector, his financial support and gift of cowries and cones from Fiji helped to create the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida.[67] He was also interested in flying, sailing, and fishing. According to A&E Biography, Burr was an avid reader with a retentive memory. He was also among the earliest importers and breeders of Portuguese Water Dogs in the United States.[68]

Raymond Burr Vineyards

He developed his interest in cultivating and hybridizing orchids into a business with Benevides. Over 20 years, their company, Sea God Nurseries, had nurseries in Fiji, Hawaii, the Azores, and California, and was responsible for adding more than 1,500 new orchids to the worldwide catalog.[citation needed] Burr named one of them the "Barbara Hale Orchid" after his Perry Mason costar.[citation needed] Burr and Benevides cultivated Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Port grapes, as well as orchids, at Burr's farmland holdings in Sonoma County, California. [69]

In 1965, Burr purchased the Naitauba, a 4,000-acre (16 km2) island in Fiji, rich in seashells. There, he and Benevides oversaw the raising of copra (coconut meat) and cattle, as well as orchids.[48][69] Burr planned to retire there permanently. However, medical problems made that impossible and he sold the property in 1983.[70]

Philanthropy

Burr was a well-known philanthropist.[71][72][73][74] He gave enormous sums of money, including his salaries from the Perry Mason movies, to charity. He was also known for sharing his wealth with friends. He sponsored 26 foster children through the Foster Parents' Plan or Save The Children, many with the greatest medical needs.[8] He also gave money and some of his Perry Mason scripts to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California.[74]

A view of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida, with the Raymond Burr Memorial Garden in the foreground, December 2011

Burr raised money for the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida, and also donated a considerable collection of Fijian cowries and cones from his island in the Fijis.[74] In 1993, Sonoma State University awarded Burr an honorary doctorate.[75] He supported medical and education institutions in Denver, and in 1993, the University of Colorado awarded him an honorary doctorate for his acting work.[76] Burr also founded and financed the American Fijian Foundation that funded academic research, including efforts to develop a dictionary of the language.[77]

Burr made repeated trips on behalf of the United Service Organizations (USO). He toured both Korea and Vietnam during wartime and once spent six months touring Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. He sometimes organized his own troupe and toured bases both in the U.S. and overseas, often small installations that the USO did not serve, like one tour of Greenland, Baffinland, Newfoundland and Labrador.[78] Returning from Vietnam in 1965, he made a speaking tour of the U.S. to advocate an intensified war effort. As the war became more controversial, he modified his tone, called for more attention to the sacrifice of the troops, and said, "My only position on the war is that I wish it were over."[79] In October 1967, NBC aired Raymond Burr Visits Vietnam, a documentary of one of his visits that received mixed reviews, ranging from "The impressions he came up with are neither weighty nor particularly revealing" (Chicago Tribune) to "His questions...were intelligent and elicited some interesting replies." (Los Angeles Times).[79]

Burr had a reputation in Hollywood as a thoughtful, generous man years before much of his more-visible philanthropic work. In 1960, Ray Collins, who portrayed Lt. Arthur Tragg on the original Perry Mason series, and who was by that time often ill and unable to remember all the lines he was supposed to speak, stated, "There is nothing but kindness from our star, Ray Burr. Part of his life is dedicated to us, and that's no bull. If there's anything the matter with any of us, he comes around before anyone else and does what he can to help. He's a great star—in the old tradition."[80]

Illness and death

During the filming of his last Perry Mason movie in the spring of 1993, Raymond Burr fell ill. A Viacom spokesperson told the media that the illness might be related to the malignant kidney that Burr had removed that February.[35] It was determined that the cancer had spread to his liver and was at that point inoperable.[81] Burr threw several "goodbye parties" before his death on September 12, 1993, at his Sonoma County ranch near Healdsburg.[3] He was 76 years old.

Burr was interred with his parents at Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia. On October 1, 1993, a gathering of about 600 family members and friends of Burr mourned him at a memorial service at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California.[82] The private memorial was attended by Robert Benevides, Barbara Hale, Don Galloway, Don Mitchell, Barbara Anderson, Elizabeth Baur, Dean Hargrove, William R. Moses, and Christian I. Nyby II.

R. William Ide III, president of the American Bar Association, paid tribute to the way Burr's Perry Mason presented lawyers "in a professional and dignified manner" and helped "to educate many people who previously had not had access to the justice system." Though lawyers once complained of the character's implausibly perfect track record, Ide complimented Burr because he "strove for such authenticity in his courtroom characterizations that we regard his passing as though we lost one of our own."[22] The New York Times added that Mason "made the presumption of innocence real … [and] also made lawyers look good.[22] Not long before Burr died, Mason was named second after F. Lee Bailey in a poll that asked Americans to name the attorney, fictional or not, they most admired.[22]

Because Burr had not revealed his homosexuality during his lifetime, initial press accounts gave it sensational treatment. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that People magazine was preparing a story on Burr's "secret life" and asked, "Are the inevitable rumors true?"[1][2] Burr's Ironside co-star, Don Galloway, when asked about Burr's sexual orientation, told People, "I don't know. I never discussed with Raymond his sexuality." The Sunday Mail invented a feminine Burr "wearing a pink frilly apron and doing the ironing. He fussed around like the woman of the house."[83]

Burr bequeathed his estate to Robert Benevides and excluded all relatives, including a sister, nieces, and nephews. His will was challenged by a niece and nephew, Minerva and James, the children of his late brother, James E. Burr, without success.[84] The tabloids estimated that the estate was worth $32 million, but Benevides' attorney, John Hopkins, said that was an overestimate.[85][86]

Recognition

Burr won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series twice, in 1959 and 1961, for his performance as Perry Mason. He was also nominated a further seven times, once for Mason and six times for Ironside. For the latter role, he was also nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama. Burr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6656 Hollywood Blvd.[87]

Burr received the 2009 Canadian Legends Award and a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto. The induction ceremony was held on September 12, 2009.[88] In 2008, Canada Post issued a postage stamp in its "Canadians in Hollywood" series featuring Burr.[89]

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, awards the Raymond Burr Award for Excellence in Criminal Law.[22]

A circular garden at the entrance to the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in Florida honors Burr, who was a shell collector, as well as a benefactor and fund-raiser for the museum.[90] In August 2012, a renovated exhibit about Raymond Burr with information about him as an actor, a benefactor, and a shell collector, opened in the museum's Great Hall of Shells.[91]

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre in New Westminster opened in October 2000, near a city block bearing the Burr family name, and closed in 2006. Originally a movie theatre, under ownership of the Famous Players chain (as the Columbia Theatre), it was an intimate, 238-seat theatre. Initial plans included expanding the venue to a 650-seat regional performing arts facility. When in operation, it was the custom to have a picture of Raymond Burr included somewhere on each set, with the first toast on the opening night of every production always dedicated to his memory. The Centre was commonly referred to as the "Burr Theatre" or simply as "the Burr". It is owned by the City of New Westminster, which placed it for sale on 15 June 2009.[92]

Burr was ranked #44 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time in 1996.[93] A 2014 article in The Atlantic that examined how Netflix categorized nearly 77,000 different personalized genres found that Burr was rated as the favorite actor by Netflix users,[94][95] with the greatest number of dedicated microgenres.[96]

Selected filmography

Film
Year Film Role Notes
1946 San Quentin Jeff Torrance
1947 Desperate Walt Radak
1948 Sleep, My Love Detective Sgt. Strake
Pitfall MacDonald
Raw Deal Rick Coyle
Walk a Crooked Mile Krebs
Adventures of Don Juan Capt. Alvarez
1949 Black Magic Alexandre Dumas, Jr.
Red Light Nick Cherney
Abandoned Kerric
1950 Borderline Pete Ritchie
Key to the City Les Taggart
Love Happy Alphonse Zoto
1951 The Whip Hand Steve Loonis
A Place in the Sun District Attorney R. Frank Marlow
His Kind of Woman Nick Ferraro
New Mexico Private Anderson
Bride of the Gorilla Barney Chavez
1952 Meet Danny Wilson Nick Driscoll alias Joe Martell
Mara Maru Brock Benedict
Horizons West Cord Hardin
1953 The Blue Gardenia Harry Prebble
The Bandits of Corsica Jonatto
Serpent of the Nile Mark Antony
Tarzan and the She-Devil Vargo
1954 Casanova's Big Night Bragadin
Gorilla at Large Cy Miller
Rear Window Lars Thorwald
de [Mannequins für Rio; They Were So Young] Jaime Coltos
1955 You're Never Too Young Noonan
Count Three and Pray Yancey Huggins
1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters! Steve Martin
Great Day in the Morning Jumbo Means
The Brass Legend Tris Hatten
A Cry in the Night (film) Harold Loftus
Please Murder Me Attorney Craig Carlson
1957 Crime of Passion Police Inspector Anthony "Tony" Pope
Ride the High Iron Publicity agent Ziggy Moline
1960 Desire in the Dust Col. Ben Marquand
1968 P.J. aka New Face in Hell William Orbison
1977 The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena host of documentary
1980 The Curse of King Tut's Tomb Jonash Sebastian
The Return Dr. Kramer
Out of the Blue Dr. Brean
1982 Airplane II: The Sequel Judge D.C. Simonton
1985 Godzilla 1985 Steve Martin
1991 Delirious Carter Hedison
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1957–1966 Perry Mason Perry Mason 271 episodes
1961 The Jack Benny Program Perry Mason "Jack On Trial for Murder"[97]
1967–1975 Ironside Robert T. Ironside; Charlton Duffy "Death By The Numbers" 194 episodes
1972 The Bold Ones: The New Doctors Robert T. Ironside 1 episode
1977 Kingston: Confidential R.B. Kingston 13 episodes
79 Park Avenue Armand Perfido Miniseries
1979 The Love Boat Malcolm Dwyer 2 episodes
Centennial Herman Bockweiss Miniseries
Eischied Police Commissioner 2 episodes
The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo The Godfather 1 episode
1979 Love's Savage Fury Lyle Taggart Sr. Television movie
1981 Peter and Paul Herod Agrippa I Television movie
1985–1993 Perry Mason TV movies Perry Mason 26 television films
1993 The Return of Ironside Robert T. Ironside Television movie

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Podolsky, J.D. "The Defense Rests". People. September 27, 1993 Vol. 40, No. 13
  2. ^ a b People/Television;For the Defense. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 21, 1993. p. D6. Retrieved March 23, 2010. Cite error: The named reference "Post-Gazette" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Grimes, William (September 14, 1993). "Raymond Burr, Actor, 76, Dies; Played Perry Mason and Ironside". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-01-15.
  4. ^ a b Obituary. Los Angeles Daily News. September 14, 1993. Retrieved March 25, 2010.
  5. ^ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7504064
  6. ^ http://ethnicelebs.com/raymond-burr
  7. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plan Sight, 10–13
  8. ^ a b c The Modesto Bee: Jane Ardmore "Welcome Home to Perry Mason", June 3, 1986, accessed March 26, 2010
  9. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 57–58. The National Personnel Records Center has no record of a Raymond Burr serving in any branch of the U.S. military.
  10. ^ Thomas, Bob (February 12, 1963). "Raymond Burr Back At Work". Daytona Beach Morning Journal. p. 12.
  11. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 17, 20, 23–24, 40–41
  12. ^ a b c d Thomas, Bob (September 13, 1993). "Actor Raymond Burr Dies at 76". Ellensburg Daily Record. Associated Press. p. 1. Retrieved March 23, 2010.
  13. ^ Hill, Raymond Burr, 27, available online. Burr said that he never attended high school, but took courses at Long Beach Junior College, Stanford, and the University of California. The Modesto Bee: Jane Ardmore "Welcome Home to Perry Mason", June 3, 1986, accessed March 26, 2010
  14. ^ Richard Schickel, "Rerunning Film Noir," The Wilson Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, summer 2007, 43
  15. ^ Internet Movie Database: Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), accessed July 14, 2011
  16. ^ a b Bounds, J. Dennis. "Raymond Burr". The Encyclopedia of Television. Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved 2015-04-23.
  17. ^ Batz, Bob Radio Buff Savor the Glory Days. Dayton Daily News. April 28, 1991. Retrieved March 27, 2010.
  18. ^ Fort Laramie was produced by the team that brought Gunsmoke to radio and was in a similar adult format. The 41 episodes all featured Raymond Burr as Lee Quince, captain of the cavalry.
  19. ^ a b Bawden, James (April 29, 2014). "Dream Factory Time: Gail Patrick". Classic Images. Retrieved 2015-04-23.
  20. ^ Galbraith IV, Stuart (April 10, 2008). "Perry Mason — 50th Anniversary Edition". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2015-04-07.
  21. ^ a b Awards for Raymond Burr (IMDB)
  22. ^ a b c d e Margolick, David (September 24, 1993). "At the Bar; Raymond Burr's Perry Mason was fictional, but he was surely relevant and, oh, so competent". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-08-15.
  23. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 184
  24. ^ Verna Urbanski, "Fear and Loathing in Library Science," Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, vol. 33, no. 1, winter 1992, 59.
  25. ^ Maxine Chernoff, "Death Swap, Mississippi Review, vol. 18, no. 1, 1989, 77
  26. ^ Internet Movie Database:Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence (TV 1976), accessed July 15, 2011; Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 177–78
  27. ^ Internet Movie Database: Kingston: Confidential (TV Series 1976), accessed July 15, 2011; Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 178–80
  28. ^ Internet Movie Database: Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (TV mini-series 1977), accessed July 15, 2011; Starr writes that Burr hosted Saturday Night Live in February 1978, but no other sources report this. Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 183
  29. ^ Internet Movie Database: The Jordan Chance (TV 1978), accessed July 15, 2011; Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 183
  30. ^ a b c Raymond Burr to Return as Perry Mason. Eugene Register. November 30, 1985
  31. ^ "Dougan, Michael, Raymond Burr: Much More than Just Perry Mason. The Telegraph. June 9, 1986. Retrieved March 26, 2006.
  32. ^ Burr Delights in TV Return. Worcester Telegram & Gazette. September 7, 1989 Accessed on March 26, 2010
  33. ^ Dougan, Michael (September 16, 1993). "Raymond Burr: A Man of Vast Appetites". The San Francisco Examiner for The Free Lance–Star. p. D1. Retrieved March 25, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  34. ^ O'Conner, John J. Review/Television; Case of the Missing Mason. New York Times, May 10, 1994. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
  35. ^ a b c Raymond Burr Reported Seriously Ill at Ranch. The Sunday Gazette. April 27, 1993. Retrieved March 27, 2010.
  36. ^ King, Susan. Ironside Returns to NBC Tuesday. Los Angeles Times, reprinted in the Daily Gazette, May 1, 1993. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
  37. ^ "An Assault on Accidents," American Journal of Nursing, vol. 62, no. 12, December 1962, 68
  38. ^ Internet Movie Database: Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was John (TV 1973), accessed July 14, 2011; Starr,Hiding in Plain Sight, 171–72
  39. ^ Internet Movie Database: Godzilla 1985: The Legend Is Reborn (1984), accessed July 14, 2011
  40. ^ John Wilson, The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst (Hachette, 2005), Sixth Annual Razzies 1985
  41. ^ TimesDaily.com: Harris, Franklin. Franklin Harris, "Poetry Helps Godzilla in Recovery," March 25, 2010, accessed July 14, 2011
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  43. ^ British Theatre Guide 1983
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  46. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 26–30
  47. ^ http://issuu.com/npgproductions/docs/ptwebpageof100113/31
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  49. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 102–103, 120
  50. ^ a b Murphy, Mary. "With Raymond Burr During His Final Battle." TV Guide, 25 September 1993, pp. 34–43
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  53. ^ Mersmann, A. Robert Benevides of the Raymond Burr Winery. Passport Magazine archive. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
  54. ^ Hill (1999), pp. 19–20.
  55. ^ "The Lies They Tell About Raymond Burr". Inside TV Magazine, retrieved July 27, 2015.
  56. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 44–45, 113–14. Isabella Ward said, "No, I never met [Michael Evan]. Because there was no son."
  57. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sighrt, 216
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  59. ^ "Raymond Burr, 76, Dies of Cancer", Los Angeles Daily News, September 14, 1993
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  61. ^ Suzanne Finstad, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood (Three Rivers Press, 2002), ??
  62. ^ Someone who worked on the set with Burr and Wood thought they had a certain chemistry, but later said, "I think everybody knew about his sexual preferences, but that was just something that was in the motion picture business." Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 67–68
  63. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 119; Finstad, Natasha, ??: "It was the most devastating thing when [Natalie Wood] found that Raymond Burr was gay..."
  64. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 100
  65. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 214. See also William J. Mann, Behind the Screen: How Lesbians and Gays Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969 (Viking, 2001), 313–14. Mann writes that Hedda Hopper received information from an informant in 1963 and wrote to Burr: "Dear Ray, What the hell did you do in Phoenix? If the enclosed letter is correct, this is the first intimation I've had of it." She did not repeat the enclosure's charges, but reassured Burr that if trouble developed, he need only "call on the mother of Paul Drake and I will stand up and swear anything for you." Drake was a character on the Perry Mason television series played by Hopper's son William.
  66. ^ Starr, Hiding in Plain Sight, 52–53; Paul Picerni, Steps to Stardom: My Story (Bearmanor Press, 2007), ??
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