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BURR, RAYMOND (1917–1993). Canadian actor.
Though born in British Columbia, Burr moved to California as a teenager
and, after service in the military during World War II, drifted into film
acting; among other small roles in his early years, he can be observed as a
Communist plotting to destroy America with biological warfare in The Whip
Hand. But he earned his first starring role, in Bride of the Gorilla,
as a man working in the Southern American jungle who, because of a native
curse, begins turning into a gorilla every night. In a film that is largely an
embarrassment to everyone involved, Burr actually manages to do some real
acting; but then again, when you're working with Lon
CHANEY, Jr., even a phoned-in performance might seem
impressive. With this film in his resume, I suppose it was only natural that in
another film, Gorilla at Large, he was suspected of being the man who
was donning a gorilla suit to commit murders; but even though this film was
much better than people might think (featuring Lee J. Cobb and Anne Bancroft,
of all people), it clearly wasn't going to do much to advance his career. That
job was left to Alfred HITCHCOCK, who shrewdly
recognized that Burr could be both menacing and unexpectedly sympathetic as the
murderer observed by James Stewart in Rear Window (1954).
Now clearly ready for bigger and better things (which would take the
form of the long-running television series Perry Mason [1957-1965] and Ironside
[1967-1975]), the young Burr earned one more genre credit by starring in the
American version of Inishiro
HONDA's Godzilla as reporter Steve Martin, visiting
witness to the catastrophes caused by the enormous dinosaur. Viewed today, with
a knowledge of the now-available Japanese original, Burr's scenes can seem
intrusive, visibly different from the rest of the film in their quality and
ambience, but he did bring some genuine emotion to the role and undoubtedly
contributed to the film's American success. At the time, he surely had no idea
that two decades later, after his star would spectacularly rise and
spectacularly fall, he would be summoned back to play the same part in a
big-budget sequel to the original film, Godzilla 1985—still completely
superfluous to the plot, but doing his best to contribute something to the
film.
In the uneasy period between the end of Ironside and his
successful return to the Perry Mason character in a series of television
movies, Burr accepted a number of supporting roles in very weak films,
suggesting a film career in freefall, though he was effective in a cameo
performance as a judge in the otherwise ineffective Airplane II: The Sequel.
But he stoically endured whatever circumstances he found himself in, sustained
by his longtime relationship with actor Robert Benevides, until liver cancer
ended his life in 1993. He remains part of the cultural zeitgeist today almost
entirely due to endless reruns of Perry Mason, so that only science
fiction fans may still appreciate his talents outside the courtroom.
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