Raymond Burr is somebody who is well known for his acting abilities. He is also somebody who kept a secret for many years.
Even though Raymond Burr had a Hollywood career that spanned a number of movies and television shows, he was best known for his role in Perry Mason. The hour-long show that was on every week took a toll on him, as he had to be on the set early and often spent 15 hour days working on the next episode.
For nine years, he starred in Perry Mason as the leading actor and when he looked back on those days, he said that he did waste a large portion of his life. He said: “The only thing I regret in my life — I’m sorry I spent nine years of my life tying myself down. I couldn’t be married, have a family, even have friends.”
He did, however, have a life outside of his acting career. He even tried to have a family, getting married once but that ended when his wife died in a plane crash in 1943. They had a son together but he died of leukemia.
When he got married for a second time, he was divorced within months. His third marriage was somewhat of a mystery and he said that she died of cancer before they could go on their honeymoon.
When he died, everyone learned that his second marriage may have been the only marriage that actually existed. The others were nothing more than a lie.
The confusion that surrounded him and the topic of his marriages and his son had the media badgering him relentlessly. He liked to keep his private life away from the media, however, so we often dismiss their questions. Typically, he would just say “I don’t discuss that.”
Eventually, people began to accept the lies as reality and assumed that he just couldn’t think about it because of the pain involved. After a while, however, some cracks started to show in his storyline.
When they questioned his second wife, Isabel Ward about their marriage, she said that she always assumed that she was his first. His family also admitted that they had never met his first wife or his son.
In 1993, some light started to be shed on his private life. He was diagnosed with kidney cancer and was not given a long time to live. Soon, the stories began to unravel and people realized that he had fabricated most of it.
Even though he had been married to Ward for a short while, she realized that marriage wasn’t for her. At the same time, he was using that marriage to cover up the fact that he was actually gay. He kept that secret to avoid being shunned by the rest of Hollywood.
In his last days, Burr spent a lot of time saying goodbye to his friends and holding extravagant parties at his home. He had lived there for a long time with his partner, Robert Benevides. They had been together for 35 years and had even worked on Perry Mason together.
Robert Benevides admitted that he had been set up with Burr in 1959 and they spent their lives together. There was also a rumor that they were married in 1963 and that he looked after the house, knitting sweaters in front of a fire.
A close friend of the couple opened up about the relationship, saying: “If you went to their house, Raymond would be wearing a frilly pink apron and doing the ironing. He fussed around like the woman of the house. Raymond always called Robert ‘my husband.’ He would knit sweaters for him in front of the fire.”
After he died, the secrets would all come out in the open. He had left everything that he owned to his partner, Benevides. His family would try to contest the will but they were unsuccessful.
