Raymond Burr Biography

While still young, his father moved the family to China after he secured a position as a trade agent. When the family returned to Canada, Raymond's parents divorced; his mother then took him to California, where she raised him with the aid of his grandparents. Raymond would eventually take jobs to support his mother, younger sister and younger brother.

Burr served in the US Navy during World War II. However, he was sent home after being shot in the stomach. Soon after this, Burr made his film debut in San Quentin (1946).

Burr emerged as a prolific television actor in the 1950s.He made his debut on an episode of: The Amazing Dr. Malone. The part led to other roles in shows such as Dragnet, Chesterfield Sound Off Time and Four Star Playhouse.

However, his big break came in 1956 when he auditioned for the title role of Perry Mason, a new courtroom drama, a part which eventually became the role Burr was most closely identified with in the public mind. He won two Emmy awards for his performances.
Between 1967 and 1975, Burr moved to CBS and assumed the role of paraplegic San Francisco Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside. This gave Burr another hit series.

His later projects included the short-lived TV show Kingston Confidential (1976), a cameo in Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982), and 26 two-hour Perry Mason specials, filmed between 1986 and 1993.

Burr's official biography states that he had been previously married, but both his wives and one child had died. In 1942, while working in London, he met Scottish Actress Annette Sutherland, and that year they married. Shortly before her death, Burr received a letter that Sutherland was working in Spain and would return to England and then America; Sutherland then boarded a flight from Lisbon to London and it has been widely reported that Sutherland then perished on BOAC Flight 777-A, the same flight that claimed actor Leslie Howard. However, Burr’s biographer Ona L. Hill writes that “no one by the name of Annette Sutherland Burr was listed as a passenger on the plane”.

In 1958, Raymond Burr started living with former actor Robert Benevides. They remained together, as both a couple and as business partners, until Burr's death from cancer in 1993.