Raymond Burr Burr went on a crash diet. When he returned, he tested as Perry Mason and won the role. While Burr's test was running, Gardner reportedly stood up, pointed at the screen and said, "That's Perry Mason." William Hopper also auditioned as Mason, but was cast instead as private detective Paul Drake. Also starring were Barbara Hale as Della Street, Mason's secretary; William Talman as Hamilton Burger, the district attorney who loses nearly every case to Mason; and Ray Collins as homicide detective Lieutenant Arthur Tragg. The series ran from 1957-66. Burr received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations and won the
Bettina Burr Bettina Burr Bettina "Nina" Burr (born c. 1946) is vice president of the board of trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to which she and other members of her family made a major donation of Rothschild family heirlooms that is known as The Rothschild Collection. Burr was born Bettina Looram, around 1946. She is the daughter of Bettina Jemima Looram (née Rothschild) (1924–2012) and Matthew James Looram, Jr. (died 2004), an American diplomat, who married in 1943. She is the granddaughter of Baron and Baroness Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild of the Vienna branch of the Rothschild family.