Raymond Burr

Raymond Burr was a Canadian-American actor celebrated for two of television's most iconic roles: Perry Mason (1957, two Emmy Awards) and Robert Ironside in Ironside (1967). He was gay and met actor Robert Benevides on the set of Perry Mason in 1960; the two were partners for 33 years, until Burr's death in 1993. Benevides gave up acting in 1963 to work behind the scenes, becoming a production executive on 140 episodes of Ironside and a production consultant on the later Perry Mason TV movies; the two also established a vineyard together in California's Dry Creek Valley, which Benevides renamed Raymond Burr Vineyards after Burr's death. During Burr's lifetime, the relationship was framed in interviews as a close friendship; only after his death did Benevides speak openly about its true nature. Burr invented fictional heterosexual backstories for the press throughout his career, reflecting the absolute impossibility of openness for a major American television star of his era.