Raymond William Stacy Burr (May 21, 1917 – September 12, 1993) was a Canadian actor who had a lengthy Hollywood film career and portrayed the title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

[4] His father William Johnston Burr (1889–1985) was a hardware salesman;[5] his mother Minerva Annette (née Smith, 1892–1974) was a pianist and music teacher.

According to Burr's story, he 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."

In the same article, Burr also stated he developed a passion for growing things and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year in his teens.

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

[9][10][11][12] 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.

"[6]: 36 Other titles in Burr's film noir legacy include Walk a Crooked Mile (1948), Borderline (1950), Unmasked (1950), The Whip Hand (1951), FBI Girl (1951), Meet Danny Wilson (1952), Rear Window (1954), They Were So Young (1954), A Cry in the Night (1956), and Affair in Havana (1957).

[20] His courtroom performance in that film made an impression on Gail Patrick[22] and her husband Cornwell Jackson, who had Burr in mind when they began casting the role of Los Angeles district attorney Hamilton Burger in the CBS-TV series Perry Mason.

[26] He had a regular role in Jack Webb's first radio show, Pat Novak for Hire (1949),[27]: 534  and in Dragnet (1949–50) he played Joe Friday's boss, Ed Backstrand, chief of detectives.

[3]: 180 [35][36] From March 1951 through June 1952 Burr used the name of Ray Hartman approximately 30 times when appearing on radio, mostly on Dangerous Assignment, The Lineup and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

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

He 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".

[42] Although the network wanted Burr to continue work on Fort Laramie as well, the TV series required an extraordinary commitment and the radio show ended.

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

[56] Burr told associate producer Sam White, "If you don't like me as Perry Mason, then I'll go along and play the part of the district attorney, Hamilton Burger.

[61] 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.

In the pilot episode, San Francisco Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside is paralyzed by a sniper during an attempt on his life and, after his recovery, uses a wheelchair for mobility, in the first crime drama show to star a policeman with a disability.

In a two-hour television movie format, Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence aired in February 1976 with Burr again in the role of the lawyer who outwits the district attorney.

Kingston, a publishing magnate similar to William Randolph Hearst, owner of numerous newspapers and TV stations, who, in his spare time, solved crimes along with a group of employees.

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

[69] His 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.

Burr refused to appear as Carson's guest from then on, and told Us Weekly years later: "I have been asked a number of times to do his show and I won't do it.

[4] Although Burr may have served in the Coast Guard, reports of his service in the U.S. Navy are false, as apparently are his statements[83] that he sustained battle injuries at Okinawa.

[6]: 57–58 [84][a] Other false biographical details include years of college education at a variety of institutions, being widowed twice, a son who died young, world travel, and success in high school athletics.

"[6]: 100  Dean Hargrove, executive producer of the Perry Mason TV films, said in 2006, "I had always assumed that Raymond was gay, because he had a relationship with Robert Benevides for a very long time.

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

[6]: 197–98  Burr also founded and financed the American Fijian Foundation that funded academic research, including efforts to develop a dictionary of the language.

"The impressions he came up with are neither weighty nor particularly revealing", wrote the Chicago Tribune; the Los Angeles Times said Burr's questions were "intelligent and elicited some interesting replies".

[63] A benefactor of legal education, Burr was principal speaker at the founders' banquet of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, in June 1973.

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.