Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Raymond William Stacey Burr (May 21, 1917 –
September 12, 1993) was an actor, most known for
his roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and
Ironside (TV series)|Ironside.

He was born in New Westminster, British Columbia,
Canada, and it is not known if he ever received or
requested U.S. citizenship. Burr became interested
in acting after naval service in World War II (he
was wounded at the Battle of Okinawa). Burr broke
into films in 1946 and made 90 in the next decade.
He co-starred in the classics A Place In The Sun
(movie)|A Place in the Sun and Rear Window. Burr
usually played menacing villains on the screen,
although in 1956 he played the hero reporter Steve
Martin in the Godzilla, King Of The Monsters, the
American version of the Japanese film Godzilla
(1954)|Gojira, a role he reprised in the American
version of The Return of Godzilla, known as
Godzilla 1985.

With the international success of the westernised
Godzilla, and shortly after starring on the radio
drama Fort Laramie (radio)|Fort Laramie, Burr was
chosen to star in 1957 in Perry Mason where he
played Erle Stanley Gardner's clever defence
attorney who always defended the innocent and only
lost one case ("The Case of the Deadly Verdict,"
10/17/1963; his client withheld evidence needed to
win). The show was very popular and lasted nine
years. In 1967, Burr started another long running
television series Ironside (known as A Man Called
Ironside in the United Kingdom|UK) in which he
played a wheelchair-bound chief of police|police
chief. This show ran until 1975. Subsequent to
this, Burr had a couple of other short-lived
series such as Kingston: Confidential but was
unable to repeat his earlier hits. He co-starred
in such TV movie|TV films as Love's Savage Fury
(1979), Eischied: Only The Pretty Girls Die
(1979), Disaster On The Coastliner (1979), The
Curse Of King Tut's Tomb (1980), The Night The
City Screamed (1980), and Peter And Paul (1981).
Burr also had a supporting role in Dennis Hopper's
controversial film Out of the Blue (1980
movie)|Out of the Blue (1980) and spoofed his
Perry Mason image in Airplane II: The Sequel
(1982). In 1985, Burr made a comeback as Perry
Mason and made a series of 26 two-hour movies that
were enormous ratings blockbusters, the last being
completed only a few weeks prior to his death.  By
this time both he and the Mason character were
wheelchair-bound, as his character in Ironside had
been, but this time due to his real-life failing
health. He also reprised the role of Ironside not
long before his death, having to dye his hair red
and shave off his trademark beard in order not to
look too much like Perry Mason.

In contrast to the "bad guys" and hard, unbending
heroes he often played, Raymond Burr was in real
life a generous man who gave enormous sums of
money to charity. He once sponsored 20 foster
children. He would insist that TV executives and
directors treat his co-stars with the same respect
shown him.

Raymond Burr lived with his partner Robert
Benevides for 35 years until Burr's death of
kidney cancer on September 12, 1993 in Sonoma,
California. He is interred in the Fraser Cemetery,
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada.

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre in New
Westminster, British Columbia opened in October
2000 near a city block bearing the family name of
Burr.  At present a 238-seat intimate theatre,
plans exist to expand the theatre to become a
650-seat regional performing arts facility. Since
the theatre began producing plays, it has been the
custom always to have a picture of Raymond Burr
included somewhere on each set, and the first
toast on the opening night of every production is
always dedicated to his memory.

Raymond Burr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame at 6656 Hollywood Blvd.