Raymond burr was gay
Raymond's grueling Perry Mason shooting schedule would have made it difficult for him to have a romance with a memberof either sex. But he chose to continue perpetrating the fabrications by refusing to address them. Many of these terms have fallen into disuse.
Reporters who were cowed by his presence followed his lead and quickly changed the subject. The courtroom scenes alone were killers.
Excerpt Hiding in Plain : 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
Barbara Hale went home to her husband and kids at the end of the day. The number of magazine features and newspaper interviews focusing on Raymond's personal life grew as Perry Mason became more and more popular.
I think the wives and the loving gay mis, the Natalie Wood thing, were a bit of a cover. That was all changing now. If the questioning went any further in relation to Annette Sutherland or, God forbid, son Michael, he begged off with a terse, "I don't discuss that.
That was my gut feeling. Burr invented a biography for himself that included a wife and son who'd died, and used his busy schedule as a way to explain why he wasn't married. Unlike his costars, Raymond was in nearly every Perry Mason scene, and he was often memorizing fourteen or more pages of dialogue each day.
Irrespective of whether Raymond Burr was gay, straight, or bisexual, none of that mattered to his Perry Mason co-stars, including and specifically, Barbara Hale, who said she "adored" the actor. Raymond Burr is famous for his starring roles as Perry Mason in the television drama "Perry Mason" but is also known as the actor who hid his sexuality from the world throughout his life.
So he used his long hours on the set as a convenient excuse whenever the subject of remarrying was raised. Dive into the life of Robert Benevides, Raymond Burr’s partner. Even Barbara Hale, one of Raymond's closest confidantes, had trouble piercing his protective armor.
That wasn't an option for the show's star, who carried an enormous workload on his broad shoulders. Certainly Raymond's face was familiar, but now the tragic tale of his dead wife and dead son assumed a life of its own. Once Perry Mason took off, the dead-wife-and-son story was repeated time and again.
Raymond Burr biography, "Hiding in Plain Sight," explores the actor's life. An unmarried man is not married at the moment.
Discover their love story, career highlights, and net worth in this juicy profile!. Because of his backbreaking work schedule, it was often easier to sleep on the lot instead of making the hour-long drive back to Malibu or arising at a. Or, if Raymond did confide in Barbara, he swore her to secrecy.
Okay, the reporter, pressed, but there's no wife waiting for you when you return home from the studio? He would answer the inevitable queries about his supposed marriages by reciting the facts of his brief union with Isabella Ward. He repeated the "I don't discuss that" mantra so many times that writers eventually gave up asking him about it and relied on rehashing the story of his dead wife and son as fact.
Perry Mason Star Raymond :
The public was interested in this veteran actor who, save for what was portrayed in the media as his brief dalliance with Natalie Wood, had one of those faces everyone knew but couldn't quite match with a name. 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.
Raymond was sleeping at the studio, and doing so was now part of his weekday routine while shooting a Perry Mason episode.