Raymond Burr

Biography

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 decision 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 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.

When Burr returned to film work in 1953 he added an even darker dimension to his characters as well as his own history. As Hollywood was torn apart by the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC] witch hunts, Canadian-born Burr, who had purportedly Socialist sympathies, became victim of the rumor mills which ground up his character, questioning the legitimacy of his marriages or son and casting a cloud over his personal life. Burr, a maverick known to walk off of sets if his cast mates were being treated badly by stage or studio management and to turn down high paying jobs if he disagreed with the scripts ethically, refused to comment or dignify the rumors. Though he survived the HUAC, Burr remained the subject of speculation and rumor for the rest of his life.

Despite his personal losses, the 1950s proved to be a peak in Burr's career, and his credits included such film noir hits as "The Blue Orchid" with actress Ann Sothern, the adventure "Tarzan and the She-Devil", and one of several appearances with Vincent Price, "Casanova's Big Night" in 1954. That year also marked one of the actor's most acclaimed roles as he dove into the bleach for master director Alfred Hitchcock to play a silver-haired sociopath in "Rear Window", with James Stewart and Grace Kelly.

By 1956, Burr took on Tokyo and perhaps the only murderous force in films bigger than he was in "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!". Burr's role as an American reporter served as a liaison to English audiences for the popular (if not poorly dubbed) series from Japan. Burr reprised the role for a 30th anniversary remake in the 1980s, "Gojira".

Away from the cameras, Raymond Burr opened a Rodeo Drive art gallery with the guidance of his business and investment advisor, Robert Benevides. Benevides eventually became a full partner in many of Burr's business ventures and philanthropic enterprises. Burr purchased a 40-acre ranch and vineyard in the Dry Creek region of the Sonoma Valley, where at various times he raised rare sheep for their wool, produced wine, and grew organic fruits and vegetables. Once advised by his friend and costar Errol Flynn that if he died with ten dollars to his name he "hadn't done a good job", Burr took the credo to heart.

The actor financed his own good will tours of American military bases during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, supported a number of veterans and orphans charities in the US and Canada, and opened his ranch to nearly two dozen foster children over the course of three decades. An avid amateur botanist, Burr had been importing orchids from the Fijis, until he discovered how impoverished the people of the 4,000-square-acre island were. Burr bought the island, Naitouba, offered the islanders employment as tropical plant farmers, and installed a school and medical facility.

In 1957 Raymond Burr landed the role that would give him a permanent place in American Pop Culture, that of criminal defense attorney Perry Mason, the creation of author Erle Stanley Gardener. Gardener personally selected Burr for the starring role, though casting directors had planned to assign the actor yet another antagonist part as Mason's nemesis, Hamilton Burger. "Perry Mason" aired for nearly ten years, starring Burr and his long time friend from the RKO Studios lots, actress Barbara Hale as Mason's devoted assistant, Della Street.

When "Perry Mason" went off the air in 1966, Raymond Burr barely skipped a beat before taking on a second starring role in an equally popular series, "Ironside". Portraying a paralyzed police detective, Robert Ironside, Burr won critical praise as well as merits of appreciation from hundreds of coalitions for the handicapped across the nation. Burr's work on television garnered a total of four Emmy Awards.

After his success in "Perry Mason" and "Ironside", audiences had a new perception of Raymond Burr that was a reversal from his string of typecast, black-hat parts in such epics as Orson Welles's "Black Magic" or the disturbing "Raw Deal". Burr played Pope John XXIII, although he did turn nasty again as King Herod in the 1981 made for television "Peter and Paul". Burr even tested his wings in comedy, joining such stars as Lloyd Bridges, Chuck Connors and Sonny Bono in "Airplane II: The Sequel!".

By 1986, "Perry Mason" had remained so popular in reruns, Burr was approached with an offer to resurrect his character for a contracted series of 2-hour television movies. Burr agreed on the condition that Barbara Hale be brought back as Della Street: Ms. Hale and her son, actor William Katt, both worked with Burr on the movie series, which eventually counted 20 2-hour TV movie events. In return for her long support as a friend and costar, Burr named a rare hybrid orchid species he developed The Barbara Hale Orchid.

Diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1992, Raymond Burr finished a last Perry Mason adventure before visiting his island in Fiji one last time and touring Europe. The actor returned to his Sonoma Valley ranch, where he oversaw the dispersal of his wealth through charities, gifts to friends and the developments of grant and trust programs. After spending his last two weeks hosting farewell parties for his friends and former foster children, Raymond William Stacey Burr died at his home from the complications of cancer of the kidneys on September 12th, 1993.