Raymond Burr the debut episode of "Dragnet". He went on to appear in such programs as "Gruen Playhouse", "Four Star Playhouse", "Ford Theatre", "Lux Video Theatre", "Mr. and Mrs. North", "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars" and "Playhouse 90". In 1956, Burr auditioned for the role of District Attorney Hamilton Burger in "Perry Mason", a new CBS-TV courtroom drama based on the highly successful novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Impressed with his courtroom performance in the 1951 film "A Place in the Sun", executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson told Burr he was perfect for Perry Mason, but at least overweight. Over the next month,
Dorothy Burr Thompson Dorothy Burr Thompson Dorothy Burr Thompson (August 19, 1900 – May 10, 2001) was a classical archaeologist and art historian at Bryn Mawr College and a leading authority on Hellenistic terracotta figurines. Thompson was the elder of two daughters of a prominent Philadelphia family. Her father was attorney Charles Henry Burr Jr. and her mother was novelist and biographer Anna Robeson Brown. Her grandfather was noted orator and lawyer Henry Armitt Brown. Early in life Thompson studied the Classics, attending Miss Hill's School in Center City, Pa., and The Latin School in Philadelphia. She began her study of Latin at