Raymond Burr Is Back as TV’s Perry Mason to Defend a Law Student Accused of Murder

Perry Mason has a confession. “In 9 years of defending every criminal television could produce, I actually lost three cases,” he says.

Mason’s real life character, Raymond Burr, lets out a booming laugh. “No, I’m not perfect,” he says.

Congress had approved a civil rights bill to protect voting rights and the South was in the midst of black student demonstrations when, in 1957, Burr made his television debut as Mason, the daunting defense lawyer who pounded each week into prosecutor Hamilton Burger.

The show, which became the television highlight of the week in dozens of countries, made Burr a star and a rich man.

Now, after playing Mason for 9 years and the wheelchair-bound ex-police chief in “Ironside” for 8, Burr is back as Mason.

“I play him 32 years older and, I hope, wiser,” Burr, 71, said in an interview. “I hope I don’t slow him down although I have hurt my knees a couple of times and I sometimes work using a cane.”

Burr returns with his secretary Della Street, played by Barbara Hale, in a 2-hour special, “Perry Mason: The Case of the Lethal Lesson” to be shown 9 p.m. Sunday on NBC.

“I would not do the show without Barbara,” Burr said simply. Burr is known in Hollywood as a complex person who is very private, never stops working and who has an intense loyalty to a small circle of close friends.

“I love acting and directing and I love all that has to do with the theater,” Burr said. “I believe people liked Perry Mason because they felt if they ever got into trouble they would like him on their side, someone who cares,” Burr said.

“People ask me if I ever wanted to become a lawyer. I tell them ‘no, I have enough trouble just being an actor.’ ”

In the latest Perry Mason, Burr defends a law school student after a fellow student is murdered. No longer will he be facing Burger or have private detective Paul Drake working for him. The characters who played those roles, William Talman and William Hopper, are long since dead.

But Burr confidently expects to win this case.

He did not always have such good relations with his character, created by Erle Stanley Gardner. “Mason never once, in 9 years, had a sense of humor,” he says. “Mason never once had a home to go to.”

After 9 intensive years of playing Mason 6 days a week in the series and living mainly in a cottage on the studio grounds, Burr said he reluctantly agreed to a 10th season.

“And then it was announced in the newspapers the series had been canceled,” he said. “That was the first I knew of it.

“Seven minutes after I finished my last scene in the series a person came into my dressing room and asked for my wristwatch. I had worn the watch as a prop for 6 years--after 7 minutes they wanted it back.”

He seldom visits Hollywood these days if he is not filming there. “There is nothing wrong with Hollywood,” he said. “But I love somewhere else.”

That place is the wine-growing country of Sonoma. “I have just put in 15 acres of grapes, I raise sheep for wool and I have chickens and ducks and fruit trees,” he said. “I love acting and I also love farming.”

Burr’s private life has been scarred by tragedy. His first wife, English-born Annette Sutherland, was killed in 1943 when she was in an aircraft shot down by German forces. He married again and was divorced and his third wife died of cancer. His son died of leukemia at the age of 10.

Born in Toronto, Burr grew up in Vallejo, Calif., but returned to Toronto to launch his acting career at the age of 19. He played with a repertory group in Britain and was on Broadway before appearing in his first film, “A Place in the Sun,” when he was 25.

In “Rear Window,” starring James Stewart, Burr had a taste of the other side of the law, playing the murderer.

After 17 years as Perry Mason and Ironside, Burr is not worried about not being accepted by the public in other roles. He remembers how during the years of portraying the crippled Ironside he received thousands of sympathetic letters from people who were convinced that he was paralyzed in real life.

“I still go back to the theater,” he said. “The public will accept me in other roles.”