Perry Mason (TV film series) Raymond Burr starred as Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason, a character created by American author and attorney Erle Stanley Gardner. Television producer Dean Hargrove resurrected the Perry Mason character in a series of television films for NBC beginning in 1985. Dean Hargrove was able to bring back the two then-surviving major stars, Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale (reprising their roles as Mason and Della Street) for the first telefilm, "Perry Mason Returns", in which Mason resigns his position as an appellate court judge to defend Street on a murder charge. William Katt, Hale's own son, was cast as
Raymond Burr weight, always an issue for him in getting roles, became a public relations problem when Johnny Carson began making jokes about him during his "Tonight Show" monologues. Burr refused to appear as Carson's guest from then on, and told "Us Weekly" years later: "I have been asked a number of times to do his show and I won't do it. Because I like NBC. He's doing an NBC show. If I went on I'd have some things to say, not just about the bad jokes he's done about me, but bad jokes he does about everybody who can't fight back