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 could be noticed by directors and producers, and so the men she dated could present themselves in public as heterosexuals. The dates helped to disguise Wood's relationship with Robert Wagner, whom she later married. Burr reportedly resented Warner Bros.' decision to promote her attachment to another gay actor, Tab Hunter, rather than him. Robert Benevides later said, "He was a little bitter about it. He was really in love with her, I guess." Later accounts of Burr's life explain that he hid his gay sexuality to protect his career. "That was a time in Hollywood history when homosexuality was not