Raymond Burr

Raymond William Stacey Burr (May 21, 1917 – September 12, 1993) was an actor, most known for his roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

Life and acting career

He was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada to William Johnston Burr (a descendant of Irish immigrants) and Minerva Smith (who was of Scottish and English descent). A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, Burr served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and was wounded at the Battle of Okinawa. Burr broke into films in 1946 and made 90 in the next decade. He co-starred in the classics A Place in the Sun and Rear Window. Burr usually played menacing villains on the screen, although in 1956 he played the heroic reporter Steve Martin in Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the American re-edited version of the Japanese film Gojira. He reprised this role nearly three decades later in Godzilla 1985.

With the international success of Godzilla, and shortly after starring on the radio drama Fort Laramie, Burr was chosen to star in 1957 in Perry Mason where he played Erle Stanley Gardner's clever defence attorney who always defended the innocent and only lost one case ("The Case of the Deadly Verdict," 10/17/1963; his client withheld evidence needed to win). The show was very popular and lasted nine years. In 1967, Burr started another long running television series Ironside (known as A Man Called Ironside in the UK) in which he played a wheelchair-bound police chief. This show ran until 1975. Subsequent to this, Burr had a couple of other short-lived series such as Confidential but was unable to repeat his earlier hits. He co-starred in such TV films as Love's Savage Fury (1979), Eischied: Only The Pretty Girls Die (1979), Disaster On The Coastliner (1979), The Curse Of King Tut's Tomb (1980), The Night The City Screamed (1980), Peter And Paul (1981), and They Call Me MISTER Bonobo! (1982). Burr also had a supporting role in Dennis Hopper's controversial film Out of the Blue (1980) and spoofed his Perry Mason image in The Sequel (1982). In 1985, Burr made a comeback as Perry Mason and made a series of 26 two-hour movies that were enormous ratings blockbusters, the last being completed only a few weeks prior to his death. By this time both he and the Mason character were wheelchair-bound, as his character in Ironside had been, but this time due to his real-life failing health. He also reprised the role of Ironside not long before his death, having to dye his hair red and shave off his trademark beard in order not to look too much like Perry Mason.

Showing charity

In contrast to the "bad guys" and hard, unbending heroes he often played, Raymond Burr was in real life a generous man who gave enormous sums of money to charity. He once sponsored 27 foster children through Christian Childrens Fund. He would take the children with the greatest medical needs.

He would insist that TV executives and directors treat his co-stars with the same respect shown him. He also gave generously over many years to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

Relationships

In his younger years, Burr, who was predominantly homosexual, was reportedly a significant other in Natalie Wood’s life. "When I was talking to Dennis Hopper about that," Wood biographer Suzanne Finstad says, "he was saying I just can't wrap my mind around that one. But you know, I saw them together. They were definitely a couple. Who knows what was going on there." No romantic relationship has ever been proved between Burr and Natalie Wood.

Burr's official biography stated that he had been previously married, but both his wives and one child had died. However, these details were fabricated in an attempt to hide the fact that Burr was gay. Only one brief marriage which ended in divorce had actually occurred; the other marriages and the child were fiction.

Robert Hofler in his 2005 book The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson, alleged that Burr and Rock Hudson hosted gay parties at a rented home in Palm Springs, California.

Raymond Burr lived with his partner, former actor Robert Benevides, for 35 years until Burr's death. At the time of Burr's death, Sonoma residents said they were well acquainted with Burr and Benevides, who operated their own vineyard there, and regarded them as any other married couple.

Death

Burr died of liver cancer on September 12, 1993 in Sonoma, California, aged 76.

Burr is interred in the Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. The WGS84 coordinates of his plot are N49° 13.338 W122° 53.892.

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre in New Westminster, British Columbia opened in October 2000 near a city block bearing the family name of Burr. Originally a movie theatre under ownership of the Famous Players chain (as the Columbia Theatre) and at present a 238-seat intimate theatre, plans exist to expand the theatre to become a 650-seat regional performing arts facility. Since the theatre began producing plays, it has been the custom always to have a picture of Raymond Burr included somewhere on each set, and the first toast on the opening night of every production is always dedicated to his memory.

Raymond Burr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6656 Hollywood Blvd.

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