Burr, Raymond (1917-1993)

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Burr, Raymond (1917-1993)

Like so many actors before and after him, Raymond Burr found one of those roles that he did so much to define, but which, at the same time, virtually defined him. His portrayal of a lawyer in the mystery television series Perry Mason, which ran from 1957 to 1966, and in 26 made-for-television movies, set firmly in the minds of the viewing public what a defense lawyer should look like, how he should behave, and how trials should transpire. Realistic or not, his success, his interaction with clients, suspects, the police, and the district attorney, established in people's imaginations a kind of folk hero. For many, "Perry Mason" became shorthand for lawyer, as Einstein means genius or Sherlock Holmes means detective. This compelling image held sway for years before the profession was subjected to so much negative scrutiny in real life and in the media. Yet, Burr, again like so many others, did not achieve overnight fame. His role as Perry Mason overshadowed decades of hard work in radio, the theater, and films, as well as his business and philanthropic successes and personal tragedies.

Raymond William Stacy Burr was born on May 21, 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. When he was six years old, his parents separated, and his mother took him and his siblings to Vallejo, California. His earliest taste of acting came in junior high school drama classes, followed by a theatrical tour in Canada in the summer of his twelfth year. As he grew up, he held a variety of jobs: in the Forestry Service, and as a store manager, traveling salesman, and teacher. He furthered his education in places as diverse as Chungking, China, Stanford, and the University of California, where he obtained degrees in English and Psychology. He also worked in radio, on and off the air, wrote plays for YMCA productions, and did more stagework in the United States, Canada, and Europe. While he was working as a singer in a small Parisian nightclub called Le Ruban Bleu, Burr had to return to the United States when Hitler invaded France.

In the early 1940s, he initiated a long association with the Pasadena Playhouse, to which he returned many times to oversee and participate in productions. After years of trying, he landed a few small roles in several Republic Studios movies, but returned to Europe in 1942. He married actress Annette Sutherland and had a son, Michael, in 1943. Leaving his son with his grandparents outside London while Annette fulfilled her contract with a touring company, Burr came back to the United States. In June 1943, Annette was killed while flying to England to pick up Michael and join her husband in America when her plane was shot down.

Burr remained in the United States, working in the theater, receiving good notices for his role in Duke of Darkness, and signing a contract with RKO Pictures in 1944. Weighing over 300 pounds, a problem he struggled with all his life, Burr was usually given roles as a vicious gangster or menacing villain. Late in the decade he was in various radio programs, including Pat Novak for Hire and Dragnet with Jack Webb. A brief marriage that ended in separation after six months in 1948, and divorce in 1952, was followed by the tragic death of his son from leukemia in 1953. His third wife died of cancer two years later. Despite the misfortunes in his personal life, the roles he was getting in radio, such as Fort Laramie in 1956, and in films, continued to improve. By the time Perry Mason appeared, he had been in A Place in the Sun (1951), as the district attorney, which played a part in his getting the role of Mason, Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), and the cult classic Godzilla (1954). After years of being killed off in movies, dozens of times, according to biographer Ona L. Hill, he was about to experience a complete role reversal.

The first of over eighty Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner had been published in 1933. Ill served, Gardner felt, by earlier movie versions of his hero, and dissatisfied with a radio program which ran for twelve years, he was determined to have a strong hand in the television series. Burr auditioned for the part of the district attorney on the condition that he be allowed to try out for the lawyer as well. Reportedly, Gardner spotted him and declared that he was Perry Mason. The rest of the cast, Barbara Hale as his secretary Della Street, William Hopper as private eye Paul Drake, William Talman as the district attorney, and Ray Collins as Lt. Tragg, melded, with the crew, into a kind of family that Burr worked hard to maintain. In retrospect, it is difficult to imagine the program taking any other form: from its striking theme music to the core ensemble of actors to the courtroom dramatics. He also gave substance to the vaguely described character from the books, fighting unrelentingly for his clients, doing everything from his own investigating to bending the law and playing tricks in court to clear them and finger the guilty. In the words of Kelleher and Merrill in the Perry Mason TV Show Book, he was "part wizard, part snakeoil salesman."

One of the pieces of the formula was that Mason would never lose a case. One of the shows in which he temporarily "lost" generated thousands of letters of protest. When asked about his unblemished record, Burr told a fan, "But madam, you only see the cases I try on Saturday." Despite many ups and downs, including hassles between Gardner and the producer and scripts of varying quality, the show ran for 271 episodes. Though his acting received some early criticism, Burr eventually won Best Actor Emmys in 1959 and 1961. The program was criticized for casting the prosecutor as the villain, the police as inept, and the lawyer as a trickster, but most lawyers, along with Burr, felt that the shows like Perry Mason "opened people's eyes to the justice system," according to Collins' the Best of Crime and Detective TV. Burr developed an interest in law that resulted in his speaking before many legal groups and a long association with the McGeorge School of Law.

In March 1967, Burr reappeared on television as wheelchair-bound policeman Ironside in a pilot that led to a series the following September. Assembling a crime-solving team played by Don Galloway, Barbara Anderson, and Don Mitchell, Burr, gruff and irascible, led them until early 1975 and in 1993's The Return of Ironside movie. In 1976-77 he starred as an investigative reporter in Kingston Confidential. Major activities in the early 1980s included a featured role in five hours of the multipart Centennial and in Godzilla '85. He was associated with the Theater Department at Sonoma State University in 1982 and some programs at California Polytechnic State University. In December 1985, he reprised his most famous role in Perry Mason Returns, which led to a string of 25 more TV movies.

In spite of his busy career and many personal and medical problems, Burr still found time to become involved in various business projects and charitable works. In 1965, he purchased an island in Fuji, where he contributed substantially to improving living conditions and the local economy. He also grew and sold orchids there and in other places around the world, and had ventures in Portugal, the Azores, and Puerto Rico. He collected art, and for several years helped operate a number of art galleries. During the Korean War he visited the troops twelve times, and made ten "quiet" trips to Vietnam, usually choosing to stop at far-flung outposts. Though the latter were controversial, he insisted, according to Hill in Raymond Burr: "I supported the men in Vietnam, not the war." Besides financially supporting many relatives and friends over the years, he had over 25 foster and adopted children from all over the world, in many cases providing them with medical care and educational expenses. He was involved in numerous charitable organizations, including the Cerebral Palsy Association, B'nai B'rith, and CARE, and created his own foundation for philanthropic, educational, and literary causes.

Burr was a complex man. Kelleher and Merrill describe him this way: "Approachable to a point, yet almost regally formal. Quiet, but occasionally preachy. Irreverent yet a student of [religions]. Intensely serious, yet a notorious prankster … [and] generous to a fault." Unquestionably, he worked incessantly, often to the detriment of his health, seldom resting for long from a myriad of acting, business, and philanthropic projects. His diligence seems to have been as much a part of his personality as his generosity. It was in many ways emblematic of his life and character that, despite advanced cancer, he finished the last Perry Mason movie in the summer before he died on September 12, 1993.

—Stephen L. Thompson