Born On This Day- May 21st... Raymond Burr

Perry Mason reruns have been playing on a Portland TV station every day for the past 44 years. No another U.S. station has continuously broadcast Perry Mason as long as KPTV, where the show debuted 15 days after ending its 9 run on CBS. It's among the least expensive shows to buy, even as KPTV has moved from showing it on film reels to 1-inch tapes to digital tapes & now digital with closed captioning. Station Manager-Patrick McCreery: "Most markets don't want it; they figure that with high-definition sets & 5.1 stereo sound, what viewer is going to want to watch an old B&W show? We've found very loyal viewers. It's the linchpin of our daytime programming."

A deeply closeted Hollywood lifestyle is not a unique club, but the back story of Raymond Burr’s career holds interest. Typecast as a “heavy” when he landed in Hollywood after World War II, his imposing presence & brooding manner made him a perfect choice for film noir & crime dramas. He played the chilling homicidal husband across the courtyard in Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window (1954) & the district attorney who took apart Montgomery Clift’s testimony in A Place in the Sun (1951).

Burr was never an A-list movie actor. He became a star in the brand new medium of television. As Perry Mason & the wheelchair bound detective on Ironside, he became one of TV’s best paid & best known faces. Burr returned to his most famous role in 1985 for the beginning of a decade long run of made-for-TV movies beginning with Perry Mason Returns.

Throughout his life, Burr was unfailingly generous to charities & gave away much of his time, when he wasn’t keeping a grueling work schedule; he was known to be popular & kind to cast members & crew.

Knowledge of his homosexuality would have ruined Burr’s career. He remained intensely private to the very end. Burr invested an enormous amount of energy to remain closeted, & the efforts took their toll physically & psychologically. He believed he could ensure privacy by creating an imaginary world to hide his homosexuality & his 40 year relationship with fellow actor Robert Benevides, who he met on the set of Perry Mason in 1957. He invented 2 dead wives, a dead son, & false reports of his service during World War II to fill out the blank spaces in his life story. He repeated the stories so long & so often that they found their way into his obituaries.

 In the 1950s he was “romantically linked” to Natalie Wood. They were genuinely fond of each other & remained friends until her death in 1981. Burr & Benevides shared a passion & a business for orchids, which they bred on their private island in Fiji. Later they would own & run a successful vineyard in Sonoma. At their home in Palm Springs, the couple was known to throw all male pool parties along with their friend Rock Hudson. The couple were together 36 years, until Burr’s death in 1993.

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