Emmy winning actor Raymond Burr may be best remembered as the champions of justice he portrayed in the "Perry Mason" television series in the 1950s and 60s, but Burr began his career typecast as a motion picture villain in such films as Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window". As intensely private as he was talented, Raymond Burr was an often anonymous philanthropist and foster parent who gave away most of his fortune before his death from cancer on September 12th, 1993.
Resented by the media for his tight lipped policy of personal privacy, Raymond Burr's off-screen life became and remained a topic of speculation, guarded by the actor perhaps because it was frequently marked by painful events.
A native of Canada, Raymond William Stacey Burr was born on May 21st, 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, the first of three children of William and Minerva Burr. Burr's father was a trade agent, who moved his family to assignments around the world, the most lengthy tenure placing the Burrs in China for a number of years. The actor's mother was a concert pianist whose wish to return to her career led the family to California around 1927. The
sion may have proven neither popular nor timely, as William Burr left his wife and children to return to Canada as the Depression struck the United States. Faced with a bill of divorcement and the task of feeding three children, Burr's mother resorted to working as an accompanist for silent films and local theater productions. Silent films, however, soon switched to sound, and Minerva was forced to seek support from her family.
Raymond Burr's earliest ambition was far removed from film studios or footlights: He hoped to become a career Navy officer and earned a scholarship to the San Rafael Military Academy. It was not until late in his adult life that doctors hypothesized Burr may have had a glandular disorder which caused him to attain nearly his full height of 6'3" before he entered junior high school, as well as prompting a life long battle with obesity. The differences which separated Burr from his schoolmates were later used to his advantage when he quit school in his early teens to support his family. Burr's size helped him secure employment in such hard labor as cattle and sheep ranching, while in his late teens he spent a short time as a sheriffs deputy before resuming his education. Burr continued to support himself while a student by selling hand-tinted photographs and working occasionally with song and dance acts: A talented vocalist with a distinctive speaking voice, Burr worked at various times in his career as a lounge singer and in radio theater, getting early breaks from radio actor and director Jack Webb.
Burr's vaudeville type ventures and his distant family in Canada factored into his 1937 entry into a Toronto based repertory theater, which teamed during its summer season with players from a British touring company. Among the company's players was a young Scottish actress, Annette Southerland, with whom Burr eloped in England. The couple lived in England and France, Burr became a popular nightclub singer in Paris, and they welcomed a son, Michael Evan Burr, around 1942.
Burr and his family returned to America ahead of the worst of World War II, settling in the Los Angeles area, where Burr joined the theater and workshop of the lauded Pasadena Playhouse. Burr's theater work eventually took him to Broadway, where he scored a hit in the 1943 show "Duke In Darkness". On the eve of
s deputy before resuming his education. Burr continued to support himself while a student by selling hand-tinted photographs and working occasionally with song and dance acts: A talented vocalist with a distinctive speaking voice, Burr worked at various times in his career as a lounge singer and in radio theater, getting early breaks from radio actor and director Jack Webb.
Burr's vaudeville type ventures and his distant family in Canada factored into his 1937 entry into a Toronto based repertory theater, which teamed during its summer season with players from a British touring company. Among the company's players was a young Scottish actress, Annette Southerland, with whom Burr eloped in England. The couple lived in England and France, Burr became a popular nightclub singer in Paris, and they welcomed a son, Michael Evan Burr, around 1942.
Burr and his family returned to America ahead of the worst of World War II, settling in the Los Angeles area, where Burr joined the theater and workshop of the lauded Pasadena Playhouse. Burr's theater work eventually took him to Broadway, where he scored a hit in the 1943 show "Duke In Darkness". On the eve of Burr's professional triumph personal tragedy struck: Annette Sutherland, with other British actors supporting the troops and the war effort, traveled to her native Great Britain on a public relations junket. On June 1st, 1943, the plane carrying Ms. Sutherland, actor Leslie Howard and others from London to Lisbon was shot down over the Atlantic by German forces. All on board were killed.
Burr placed his young son in the care of relatives, walked away from an RKO Pictures offer and joined the US Navy, serving in the Pacific Theater until the battle at Okinawa, where he was seriously wounded by shrapnel. Decorated with the Purple Heart, Burr was honorably discharged, but spent months recovering and becoming reacquainted with his son Michael.
The sedentary time in recovery sent Burr's weight to over 300 pounds, but by 1946 he had trimmed down and landed a role in the John Wayne and Claudette Colbert film "Without Reservations", a hit that included cameos by such stars as Cary Grant. Burr's second film that year proved more significant if only for marking his debut as a screen villain. "San Quentin" was the first of dozens of antagonist roles the actor would play for nearly twenty years.
Regardless of film genre (and Burr worked them all at RKO, from costume drama to bio-pic, swashbuckler to comedy) Raymond Burr harassed, stalked, menaced or murdered such stars as Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Don Juan", Groucho Marx in "Love Happy", comedienne Lucille Ball in "The Magic Carpet" and Clark Gable in "Key to the City".
His most memorable roles included a turn as a ruthless attorney in "A Place In the Sun" with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, and the Frank Sinatra film "Meet Danny Wilson". Burr was even cast in a 1951 remake of the Fritz Lang thriller "M", which had launched the screen career of fellow film villain Peter Lorre in 1931.
In 1952 Burr mysteriously trimmed down his appearances in film and stage productions, taking only four roles that year. It was later revealed that Burr's son, Michael, whom he had carefully protected from the press, had been battling leukemia. Michael Burr lost his fight before his eleventh birthday. Several years later, Burr lost his third wife, Adrina Morgan, to cancer.
