Raymond Burr (May 12, 1917 – September 12, 1993)

Raymond Burr had a role as American news reporter Steve Martin in the 1956 film Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which he reprised in the 1985 film Godzilla 1985. Burr was a Canadian actor who had a lengthy Hollywood film career and portrayed the title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. Burr’s early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television, and film, usually as the villain. He portrayed the suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window (1954). He won Emmy Awards for acting in 1959 and 1961 for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons (1957–1966) and reprised in a series of 26 Perry Mason TV movies (1985–1993). His second TV series, Ironside, earned him six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations.

Raymond Burr died due to liver cancer in 1993. He was ranked number 44 of the 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time by TV Guide magazine in 1996.

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.”

In 2008, Canada Post issued a postage stamp in its “Canadians in Hollywood” series featuring Burr. Burr received the 2009 Canadian Legends Award and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto. The induction ceremony was held on September 12, 2009. A 2014 article in The Atlantic that examined how Netflix categorized nearly 77,000 different personalized genres found that Burr was rated as the favorite actor by Netflix users, with the greatest number of dedicated microgenres.