Raymond Burr: TV's 'Perry Mason' played villains in the movies and was secretly gay in real life

Photo byClassic TV Preservation Society

Before playing noble defense attorney Perry Mason on the classic TV series of the same name, actor Raymond Burr enjoyed a successful career on the big screen. from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s playing villains in noir movies.

Although Burr delivered a credible performance as a wife-killer in director Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Thelma Ritter, he did not find fame until Perry Mason producer Gail Patrick Jackson discovered his performance as the prosecutor in the 1951 motion picture A Place in the Sun.

The Perry Mason Trials Begin

Perry Mason originally aired on CBS TV from September 21, 1957, to May 22, 1966. Raymond Burr played a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer who was first introduced to the mainstream via the detective fiction novels by Erle Stanley Gardner (who penned several of the TV episodes).

Perry Mason was one of Hollywood's first weekly one-hour TV shows and remains one of the longest-running and most successful legal-themed series. During its initial season, the show received an Emmy for Outstanding Dramatic Series, while, while Burr would go on to win two Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

Burr's co-star, Barbara Hale (a close friend of Gail Patrick's, and mother to actor William Katt (from TV's Greatest American Hero) received an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as Mason's confidential secretary Della Street.

Then Came Ironside

Following the solid popularity of the legal-geared Perry Mason, which originally aired on CBS from 1957 to 1966, actor Raymond Burr switched networks to NBC as the star of Ironside, which originally aired from 1967 to 1975).

According to IMDb.com, Ironside was the first television series to feature a main character with a physical disability. Paralyzed by a sniper's bullet, Burr's Robert T. Ironside continues investigating criminal cases as a citizen volunteer. With the assistance of two former protegees, Ironside sets out to find his would-be assassin. Along the way, he solves other criminal cases.

Ahead of its time, Ironside was an intelligent, sophisticated production, written directed, produced, and performed with a superior quality. The rousing theme music, by Quincy Jones, was also considered pitch-perfect.

Ironside is generally regarded as the first in an extensive line of police/detective shows from Universal Studios that aired in the 1960s and '70s (Columbo, McMillan & Wife, McCloud), along with other such programming from Quinn Martin Productions (The FBI, Barnaby Jones, Cannon), and Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg (The Mod Squad, The Rookies, Charlie's Angels, S.W.A.T.).

Perry Mason Returns

The late 1970s and 1980s were successful decades for Raymond Burr. He played a journalist in Kingston: Confidential in 1977 and participated in the miniseries Centennial before being named one of the first hosts of Unsolved Mysteries.

In the mid to late '80s until his demise, Burr reprised his role as Perry Mason in Perry Mason Returns, the first in a series of successful NBC TV-reunion-movies (with Barbara Hale, his co-star on the original show, and initially the aforementioned William Katt, who was Hale's son in real life).

Burr's Secret Life Behind the Camera

Raymond Burr had married actress Isabella Ward in January 1948, even though he was gay. he and Ward initially met five years earlier at the Pasadena Playhouse, where Burr was a teacher, and she was a student, two years his junior. They went their separate ways after a few months, and she returned to Baltimore. In 1952, their divorce was finalized, and neither of them wed again.

During his work on Perry Mason, Burr met actor Robert Benevides. According to the Burr biography Hiding in Plain Sight, the men were introduced to each other when Benevides delivered a script to Burr on set.

Afterward, Benevides became an assistant to Burr, though he was also an actor before then — with approximately 12 TV show appearances. He later became a production assistant on Burr's Ironside and the Perry Mason reboots.

Conclusion

Raymond Burr left his indelible mark in the history of entertainment and will be forever cherished by a legion of classic TV and film fans.