Raymond Burr

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Stephen L. Thompson

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."