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 fictional or not, they most admired. Burr was interred with his parents at Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia. On October 1, 1993, about 600 family members and friends paid tribute to Burr at a private memorial service at the Pasadena Playhouse. Although Burr had not revealed his homosexuality during his lifetime, it was an open secret and was reported in the press upon his death. The "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" wrote that "People" magazine was preparing a story on Burr's "secret life" and asked, "Are the inevitable rumors true?" It received sensational treatment in the tabloid press; biographer Michael Starr wrote