Canadian actor Raymond Burr was BOTD in 1917. Born in New Westminster, British Columbia, his parents divorced when he was six, and he was raised in Vallejo, California by his mother. He began appearing in plays in his early teens, and joined the Pasadena Playhouse in the late 1930s. After moving to New York, he made his Broadway debut in 1940. Offered a contract by RKO Pictures, he moved to Hollywood in 1946, becoming a reliable character actor in thrillers and film noirs. His most notable roles include a wife-killer in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and a policeman who has a torrid affair with Barbara Stanwyck in Crime of Passion. He is best known for playing criminal defence lawyer Perry Mason in the CBS television series of the same name. Premiering in 1956 and running for nine seasons, it made Burr a household name, winning him two Emmy Awards. He repeated his success in the 1967 drama serial Ironside, playing a wheelchair-bound police detective, which ran for eight seasons. His career floundered in the 1970s, though he made a successful comeback in a 1985 Perry Mason television films, spawning a further 25 films over the next decade. Burr married actress Isabella Ward in 1948, divorcing four years later. He was in a discreet 33-year relationship with Robert Benevides, with whom he ran an orchid business and a vineyard in California, and eventually buying an island in Fiji. Burr’s homosexuality was well-known in showbiz circles but kept hidden from media and his fanbase. Burr invented and circulated a number of false biographical details throughout his life, including serving in the US Navy during World War Two, a second marriage to a woman who died in a car accident, a son who died of leukaemia, and an affair with Natalie Wood (concocted by publicists to detract attention from Burr’s sexuality and Wood’s affair with Robert Wagner). He died in 1993 aged 76. Details of his homosexuality and relationship with Benevides were released after his death.