75 Facts About Raymond Burr

Raymond William Stacy Burr was a Canadian actor known for his lengthy Hollywood film career and his title roles in television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

Raymond Burr won Emmy Awards for acting in 1959 and 1961 for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons and reprised in a series of 26 Perry Mason TV movies.

Raymond Burr died of cancer in 1993, and his personal life came into question, as many details of his biography appeared to be unverifiable.

Raymond Burr was ranked number 44 of the 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time by TV Guide magazine in 1996.

Raymond William Stacy Burr was born May 21,1917, in New Westminster, British Columbia.

Raymond Burr's father William Johnston Burr was a hardware salesman; his mother Minerva Annette was a pianist and music teacher.

Raymond Burr's mother moved to Vallejo, California, with him and his younger siblings Geraldine and James, while his father remained in New Westminster.

Raymond Burr briefly attended San Rafael Military Academy in San Rafael, California, and graduated from Berkeley High School.

Raymond Burr was already his full adult height and rather large and "had fallen in with a group of college-aged kids who didn't realize how young Raymond was, and they let him tag along with them in activities and situations far too sophisticated for him to handle".

Raymond Burr developed a passion for growing things and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year in his teens.

Raymond Burr did acting work in his teen years, making his stage debut at age 12 with a Vancouver stock company.

Raymond Burr grew up during the Great Depression and hoped to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, but he was unable to afford the tuition.

Raymond Burr briefly attended Long Beach Junior College and taught for a semester at San Jose Junior College, working nights as a radio actor and singer.

Raymond Burr began his association with the Pasadena Playhouse in 1937.

Raymond Burr moved to New York in 1940 and made his first Broadway appearance in Crazy With the Heat, a two-act musical revue produced by Kurt Kasznar.

Raymond Burr's first starring role on the stage came in November 1942 when he was an emergency replacement in a Pasadena Playhouse production of Quiet Wedding.

Raymond Burr became a member of the Pasadena Playhouse drama faculty for 18 months, and he performed in some 30 plays over the years.

Raymond Burr returned to Broadway for Patrick Hamilton's The Duke in Darkness, a psychological drama set during the French Wars of Religion.

Raymond Burr appeared in more than 50 feature films between 1946 and 1957, creating an array of villains that established him as an icon of film noir.

Raymond Burr's villains were seen in Westerns, period dramas, horror films, and adventure films.

Raymond Burr had a regular role in Jack Webb's first radio show, Pat Novak for Hire, and in Dragnet he played Joe Friday's boss, Ed Backstrand, chief of detectives.

Raymond Burr worked on other Los Angeles-based series including Suspense, Screen Directors Playhouse, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Family Theater, Hallmark Playhouse and Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Raymond Burr performed in five episodes of the experimental dramatic radio anthology series CBS Radio Workshop, and had what is arguably his best radio role in "The Silent Witness", in which his is the only voice.

From March, 1951 through June, 1952 Raymond Burr used the name of Ray Hartman approximately 30 times when appearing on radio, mostly on Dangerous Assignment, The Line Up and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

In 1956 Raymond Burr was the star of CBS Radio's Fort Laramie, an adult Western drama produced, written and directed by the creators of Gunsmoke.

Raymond Burr played the role of Lee Quince, captain of the cavalry, in the series set at a post-Civil War military post where disease, boredom, the elements and the uncharted terrain were the greatest enemies of "ordinary men who lived in extraordinary times".

Raymond Burr told columnist Sheilah Graham that he had received 1,500 fan letters after the first broadcasts, and he continued to receive letters praising the show's authenticity and presentation of human dignity.

Raymond Burr emerged as a prolific television character actor in the 1950s.

Raymond Burr made his television debut in 1951, appearing in episodes of Stars Over Hollywood, The Bigelow Theatre, Family Theater and the debut episode of Dragnet.

Raymond Burr went on to appear in such programs as Gruen Playhouse, Four Star Playhouse, Ford Theatre, Lux Video Theatre, Mr and Mrs North, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars and Playhouse 90.

In 1956, Raymond Burr auditioned for Perry Mason, a new CBS-TV courtroom drama based on the highly successful novels by Erle Stanley Gardner.

Raymond Burr went on a crash diet over the following month; he then tested as Perry Mason and was cast in the role.

Raymond Burr received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations and won the award in 1959 and 1961 for his performance as Perry Mason.

Raymond Burr's character is often said never to have lost a case, although he did lose two murder cases off-screen in early episodes of the series.

Raymond Burr moved from CBS to Universal Studios, where he played the title role in the television drama Ironside, which ran on NBC from 1967 to 1975.

Raymond Burr took on a shorter project next, playing an underworld boss in a six-hour miniseries, 79 Park Avenue.

On January 20,1987, Raymond Burr hosted the television special that later served as the pilot for the long-running series Unsolved Mysteries.

In 1985, Raymond Burr was approached by producers Dean Hargrove and Fred Silverman to star in a made-for-TV movie, Perry Mason Returns.

Raymond Burr agreed to do the Mason movie if Barbara Hale returned to reprise her role as Della Street.

The movie was so successful that Raymond Burr made a total of 26 Perry Mason television movies before his death.

Twelve more Mason movies were scheduled before Raymond Burr's death, including one scheduled to film the month he died.

Raymond Burr said that he weighed 12.75 pounds at birth, and was chubby throughout his childhood.

Raymond Burr's weight was always an issue for him in getting roles, and it became a public relations problem when Johnny Carson began making jokes about him during his Tonight Show monologues.

Raymond Burr married actress Isabella Ward on January 10,1948.

In 1960, Raymond Burr met Robert Benevides, an actor and Korean War veteran, on the set of Perry Mason.

Raymond Burr told Parade that when he realized Michael was dying, he took him on a one-year tour of the United States.

Raymond Burr had the ability to mythologize himself, to some extent, and some of his stories about his past.

Raymond Burr had many hobbies over the course of his life: cultivating orchids and collecting wine, art, stamps, and seashells.

Raymond Burr was among the earliest importers and breeders of Portuguese water dogs in the United States.

Raymond Burr developed his interest in cultivating and hybridizing orchids into a business with Benevides.

Raymond Burr named one of them the "Barbara Hale Orchid" after his Perry Mason costar.

In 1965, Raymond Burr purchased Naitauba, a 4,000-acre island in Fiji, rich in seashells.

Raymond Burr gave enormous sums of money, including his salaries from the Perry Mason movies, to charity.

Raymond Burr was known for sharing his wealth with friends.

Raymond Burr sponsored 26 foster children through the Foster Parents' Plan or Save The Children, many with the greatest medical needs.

Raymond Burr gave money and some of his Perry Mason scripts to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California.

Raymond Burr was an early supporter of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida, raising funds and chairing its first capital campaign.

Raymond Burr donated to the museum a large collection of Fijian cowries and cones from his island in Fiji.

Raymond Burr supported medical and educational institutions in Denver, and in 1993, the University of Colorado awarded him an honorary doctorate for his acting work.

Raymond Burr founded and financed the American Fijian Foundation that funded academic research, including efforts to develop a dictionary of the language.

Raymond Burr made repeated trips on behalf of the United Service Organizations.

Raymond Burr toured both Korea and Vietnam during wartime and once spent six months touring Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.

Raymond Burr sometimes organized his own troupe and toured bases both in the US and overseas, often small installations that the USO did not serve, like one tour of Greenland, Baffin Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Raymond Burr had a reputation in Hollywood as a thoughtful, generous man years before much of his more-visible philanthropic work.

Raymond Burr threw several "goodbye parties" before his death on September 12,1993, at his Sonoma County ranch near Healdsburg.

Mr Raymond Burr strove for such authenticity in his courtroom characterizations that we regard his passing as though we lost one of our own.

Raymond Burr was interred with his parents at Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia.

Raymond Burr bequeathed his estate to Robert Benevides, and excluded all relatives, including a sister, nieces, and nephews.

Raymond Burr's will was challenged, without success, by the two children of his late brother, James E Burr.

Raymond Burr was named Favorite Male Performer, for Perry Mason, in TV Guide magazine's inaugural TV Guide Award readers poll in 1960.

In 1960, Raymond Burr was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6656 Hollywood Boulevard.

Raymond Burr received six Emmy nominations for his work in the TV series Ironside.

Raymond Burr was a trustee and an early supporter who chaired the museum's first capital campaign, and made direct contributions from his own shell collection.

From 2000 to 2006, the Raymond Burr Performing Arts Society leased the historic Columbia Theatre from the city of New Westminster, and renamed it the Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre.

Raymond Burr received the 2009 Canadian Legends Award and a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto.