Is raymond burr gay
Emmy-winning actor Raymond Burr &#; raised in Vallejo &#; achieved stardom as crusading TV lawyer Perry Mason and TV detective Ironside. Those roles were a far cry from his early acting &#; as a hulking, menacing thug in movies made during Hollywood’s “film noir” era.
Burr’s dark-side acting in the s and s will be highlighted Friday, Dec. 15, at an event in Vallejo, just north of San Francisco, featuring author Eddie Muller, the so-called “czar of noir,” and musician-historian Nick Rossi.
The reveal at the downtown Empress Theatre – in Burr’s childhood neighborhood &#; includes a book-signing, arranged by the Alibi Bookshop, featuring Muller’s latest work. That will be followed by an onstage talk by Muller and Rossi, and a showing of “Pitfall,” a noir classic in which Burr played a jealous, psychotic intimate eye.
Burr went to great lengths to preserve his tough-guy image, hiding the fact that he was gay by making up elaborate stories about his personal life. They included claims of three marriages, fathering a son who later died of leukemia, and being wounded in World War II comb
Actor Raymond Burr was a regular TV presence for almost 20 years, first as crusading lawyer Perry Mason and then as wheelchair-bound detective Robert Ironside.
He was a household name for millions of fans, but in the era before blogs and tabloid magazines nobody knew very much about his private life.
"There had always been rumors about him," Michael Seth Starr, author of the recent Burr biography, "Hiding In Plain Sight" told The ShowBuzz. "He was in television from to almost non-stop. You knew his characters, but you didn't really know anything about him personally. He was an icon and also a terrific actor."
According to the noun, Burr was gay, but kept his orientation a private by maintaining an elaborate back story that included a dead wife and child.
"He always was a very private man anyway, and he would never, ever, ever discuss his personal life," said Starr. "He would always just say 'we don't talk about that' or he might go into one of the stories about the 'dead ex-wives.' It must have been quite a burden carrying that around and thinking that if your 'secret' gets ou
&#;Perry Mason&#; Star Raymond Burr Blazed Trails for Gay Actors—Even If He Hid Behind a Straight Tragedy
Perry Mason is back in pop culture thanks to a novel, star-studded HBO mini-series—during Pride Month, too! Okay, that connection may seem bizarre at first, as a retro criminal defense attorney and Pride seemingly don&#;t go hand in hand. Perry isn&#;t a queer icon like RuPaul or Ellen or Elton—but the kids getting into HBO&#;s Perry Mason should grasp their history and know the character&#;s place within the gay canon. Perry Mason deserves a little recognition during Pride because of the actor most associated with the role: Raymond Burr, one of the first—if not the first—gay actors to ever star in the lead role of a achieving TV series.
Burr is far from the only actor to play Mason, a character that debuted in the pages of mystery novels starting in Warren William and Ricardo Cortez, and Donald Woods played the attorney in a film series in the &#;30s, Monte Markham (a.k.a. Blanche Devereaux&#;s gay brother) played him in a short-lived &#;70s TV revival, and Matthew Rhy
Excerpt: Hiding in Plain Sight
May 26, &#; -- Raymond Burr, who played Perry Mason in the wildly popular television show "Perry Mason" and later in "Ironside," lived a secret gay life in Hollywood when such a revelation would destroy a career.
Burr invented a biography for himself that included a wife and son who'd died, and used his adj schedule as a way to describe why he wasn't married. But Burr and his partner, Robert Benevides, had a relationship for 35 years that was secret to most of the world except for a handful of close friends.
Michael Starr, a writer for the New York Post, chronicles Burr's life in a new Burr biography, "Hiding in Plain Sight: The Adj Life of Raymond Burr." Read an excerpt from the book below.
Chapter Six: Howdy, Partner: A Little R&R
The number of magazine features and newspaper interviews focusing on Raymond's personal life grew as Perry Mason became more and more famous. The public was interested in this veteran actor who, save for what was portrayed in the media as his brief da