Raymond Burr when they began casting the role of Los Angeles district attorney Hamilton Burger in the CBS-TV series "Perry Mason". As a young man Burr weighed more than 300 lbs., which limited his on-screen roles. "But in radio this presented no problems, given the magnificent quality of his voice," reported "The Globe and Mail". "He played romantic leads and menacing villains with equal authority, and he earned a steady and comfortable income." Working steadily in radio since the 1940s, often uncredited, Burr was a leading player on the West Coast. He had a regular role in Jack Webb's first radio show,
Raymond Burr Religion. Burr's performance as the loyal friend of the imprisoned protagonist led to a contract with RKO Radio Pictures. Burr appeared in more than 50 feature films between 1946 and 1957, creating an array of villains that established him as an icon of film noir. Film historian Alain Silver concluded that Burr's most significant work in the genre is in these ten films: "Desperate" (1947), "Sleep, My Love" (1948), "Raw Deal" (1948), "Pitfall" (1948), "Abandoned" (1949), "Red Light" (1950), "M" (1951), "His Kind of Woman" (1951), "The Blue Gardenia" (1953) and "Crime of Passion" (1957). Silver described Burr's private detective