Was actor 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 show at the downtown Empress Theatre – in Burr’s childhood neighborhood &#; includes a book-signing, arranged by the Alibi Bookshop, featuring Muller’s latest function. That will be followed by an onstage chat by Muller and Rossi, and a showing of “Pitfall,” a noir classic in which Burr played a jealous, psychotic intimate eye.
Burr went to excellent 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
Raymond Burr &#; How Hollywood Protected Him
Homosexuality had been an integral part of Hollywood culture since the inception of the motion picture industry. From Hollywood&#;s earliest days, thousands upon thousands of gay men had proven themselves in behind-the-camera posts such as casting, wardrobe, makeup, cameramen, and even as directors and producers. When a gay guy became a major box office actor, the studio bosses expected and even demanded that the star&#;s sexual orientation be kept a closely guarded classified. After all, Hollywood&#;s leading men were expected to portray the type of virile male that made women swoon and men cheer. Any hint that the actor was not a macho man hunk was absolutely not tolerated in public.
Actor Raymond Burr, the subject of this story, learned early on as his celestial body rose in Hollywood, that his sexual orientation could wreck his career. His life was a sad and uninterrupted battle to camouflage his homosexuality.
A native of Canada, short-lived was known about Burr&#;s childhood. His father ran a hardware store and his mother was a music lecturer in British Col
(Warning: This post is long. Seriously. You may want to pack a lunch.)
This is my favorite picture of Raymond Burr. (Don&#;t you LOVE it??)
Perry Mason. Ironside. Two fictional characters with whom the name of Raymond Burr is instantly and inextricably linked. But the handsome, hefty star of stage, screen, and television led a life off-screen that was far more fascinating and complex than even the most fanciful script could supply. An intensely private man, Burr apparently invented much of his past, including several wives, a son, and service in World War II. Renowned for his kindness, numerous accounts abound of the actor’s demonstrations of his kindness for loved ones and strangers alike. And in contrast with his somber television persona, Burr was a notorious practical joker who left his co-workers never knowing what next to expect.
Although he was on the right side of the law during his prolific television career, in films Burr was almost always cast as a villain, and lent his commanding presence to a whopping 10 features from the film noir era: Desperate (), P Raymond Burr was in excruciating pain as he filmed the final “Perry Mason” episodes in Almost no one on the set knew he was dying of cancer. Biographer Michael Seth Starr is not surprised. According to Hiding in Plain Sight: The Covert Life of Raymond Burr (published by Applause), secrecy was second nature to the actor. He became one of the world’s most familiar TV stars during the original dash of “Perry Mason” () and went on to another popular if less remembered series, “Ironside” (). And there he was, instantly recognizable and in the public eye, a gay man who kept his sexuality concealed. Any admission of homosexuality would have poisoned his career at any day before the s. Times changed but Burr kept his own counsel through the end. He was actually once married, briefly, and went on to invent no less than two dead wives and even a dead son to fill out the blank spaces in his life story. Along with false reports of his service during World War II, he repeated these additions to his autobiography so long and so often that they initiate th
Raymond Burr's Secret Life