| Birth: | May 21, 1917 | | Death: | Sep. 12, 1993 | 
Actor. Best known for the title role in the "Perry Mason" weekly television series (1957 to 1966). Before he came to "Perry Mason," Burr was already an accomplished character actor with over 80 film credits, but still was not widely known. The ‘Perry Mason' character not only made him rich and famous, but also became inseparably linked to his name. Just as Carroll O'Connor is ‘Archie Bunker,' William Shatner is ‘Captain Kirk,' and Peter Falk is ‘Colombo,' Raymond Burr is ‘Perry Mason.' He was born Raymond William Stacy Burr in New Westminster, Canada in 1917, into a family of extensive travels, but modest circumstances. Following his parents divorce (they later remarried), he moved to Vallejo, California with his mother, brother and sister to live with his grandparents when he was six-years-old. Although interested in acting, particularly in films, since his teenage years, Burr had to work odd jobs to help support his mother and siblings. He eventually had a stage career in this country and England from 1936 to 1943. His first New York theatrical break was in the 1943 play "Duke in Darkness." That same year, his English wife Annette was killed in the same plane crash that took the life of actor Leslie Howard when their plane was shot down by the Luftwaffe off the coast of Portugal. Distraught after the death of his wife, Burr joined the U.S. Navy. After two years of service, Burr was wounded in Okinawa and then returned to California to resume his acting career. Told by Hollywood agents that 340 pounds on his 6'1" frame was too fat for a career in the movies, he went into seclusion in a shabby rooming house, where he spent a torturous six months living on 750 calories per day, eating little besides cottage cheese. Emerging at a trim 210 pounds, he landed his first film role, an uncredited bit part as Claudette Colbert's dancing partner in "Without Reservations," but it was in "San Quentin" (1946), his next film, that Burr found his true calling, as a brooding villain. He spent the next ten years playing a long list of menacing characters in such films as "Love Happy" (1949, with the Marx Brothers), "Key to the City"(1950, with Clark Gable), "A Place in the Sun" (1951, with Montgomery Clift), and "A Cry in the Night" (1954, with Natalie Wood). His most celebrated assignments during this period were the role of melancholy wife murderer ‘Lars Thorwald' in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" (1954) and as reporter ‘Steve Martin' in the English-language scenes of the Japanese monster movie "Godzilla" (1956). When executive producer Gail Jackson started conducting screen tests for the Perry Mason series in 1956, there was no shortage of well-known leading men who wanted to read for the ‘Perry Mason' role, including William Holden, Richard Egan, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Fred MacMurray. Jackson's initial interest in Burr was for the ‘Hamilton Burger' role, based on his performance as a prosecuting attorney in "A Place in the Sun," but at this point in his career Burr was tired of unpleasant secondary roles and wanted to have a shot at the lead. With the help of his agent, Lester Salkow, Burr was able to negotiate a deal with Jackson. If he would agree to test for the Burger role, he would also be allowed to test for Mason. On the day he read for the Mason part, series co-creator Erle Stanley Gardner happened to be on hand in the projection room, and selected Burr for the Mason role on the spot. Burr got the part. In the later years of the hugely popular "Perry Mason" series run, Burr was one of the highest paid actors in series television, commanding the then-unheard-of yearly salary of $1 million. Yet he was well known for his philanthropy. He was also well known for generosity in using his clout on the production set to intervene on behalf of other cast members or support staffers that were being treated in a less than chivalrous manner by the producers or the network. Between television production seasons he would take the time to journey to Vietnam on his own -- not to perform but to meet and visit with those serving on the front lines. Burr was comfortable with self-depreciating humor and appeared in numerous television send-ups and spoofs based on his own career and characters on shows such as "The Jack Benny Show" and "The Red Skelton Show." Less than a year after the end of "Perry Mason," Burr was back at work, starring as a wheelchair-bound policeman in another successful series, "Ironside" (1967-75). In this series, Burr portrayed ‘Chief of Detectives Robert Ironside,' crippled by an assassin's bullet in the pilot episode. Although urged to retire, Ironside worked to ferret out criminals -- this time from the prosecution's side. Burr tried several other series, but after the twin successes of "Perry Mason" and "Ironside" he was unable to recapture the unity of character that a successful television series needs. In 1976 he had the title role of a lawyer in "Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence," a pilot that never went to series. Next he played an investigative reporter in "Kingston: Confidential," which aired as a series for less than a season in 1977, and another lawyer in "The Jordan Chance" (1978), also a failed pilot. Through the early to middle 1980s Burr was a pitchman for a number of products such as the Independent Insurance Agents association. Only when he returned to the role of ‘Perry Mason' in the made-for-television movie "Perry Mason Returns" (1985) was he able to rekindle his success in American television. In this highly successful series of 26 2-hour episodes, the only other surviving member of the original cast, Barbara Hale, reprised her role as Mason's secretary ‘Della Street' and her real-life son, William Katt, played the private detective ‘Paul Drake Jr.' in the first 9 episodes. Burr also reprised his role as ‘Chief Ironside' in "The Return of Ironside" in 1993. The original cast returned for what was planned to be a new series of made-for-television movies, but only the pilot was completed. After throwing a number of "Farewell" parties for his friends, Burr finally succumbed to kidney cancer on September 12, 1993. (bio by: Edward Parsons)
Search Amazon for Raymond Burr | | | Burial:
Fraser Cemetery
New Westminster
British Columbia, Canada |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Jan 01, 2001
Find A Grave Memorial# 1661 |
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lisa greenman
Added: Jan. 31, 2010 |
Dear Mr. Burr, You were the first actor to incite my love of acting during your years on "Perry Mason." Your performances and philanthropy have been an inspiration to me all these years. God bless you and you are missed. James
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James C. Glica-Hernandez
Added: Jan. 29, 2010 |
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muffin
Added: Jan. 22, 2010 |
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