Raymond Burr He was 76 years old. The day after Burr's death, American Bar Association president R. William Ide III released a statement: "Raymond Burr's portrayals of Perry Mason represented lawyers in a professional and dignified manner. ... Mr. Burr strove for such authenticity in his courtroom characterizations that we regard his passing as though we lost one of our own." "The New York Times" reported that Perry Mason had been named second—after F. Lee Bailey, and before Abraham Lincoln, Thurgood Marshall, Janet Reno, Ben Matlock and Hillary Clinton—in a recent "National Law Journal" poll that asked Americans to name the attorney,
Raymond Burr Navy cannot be confirmed, nor can his statements that he sustained battle injuries at Okinawa. Other invented biographical details include years of college education at a variety of institutions, being widowed twice, a son who died young, world travel and success in high school athletics. Most of these claims were accepted as fact by the press at the time of Burr's death and by his first biographer, Ona Hill. Burr was reportedly married at the beginning of World War II to a Scottish actress named Annette Sutherland—killed, Burr said, in the same 1943 plane crash that claimed the life of