Raymond Burr became one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces, starring in Perry Mason and Ironside across decades of television. But behind the fame, Burr built an entire fictional life to hide who he really was.
For years, he told reporters heartbreaking stories — a wife lost in a plane crash, a second wife who died of cancer, a young son who died of leukemia. None of it had ever happened.
“You find out how little you mean to someone,”
Burr once said, in an interview with People, describing a woman he claimed had once been the love of his life — another story that later turned out to be fabricated.
The truth, according to his biographer Michael Starr, was that Burr was gay — something that could have ended his career entirely in that era of Hollywood.
“I know he was genuine in liking and disliking people; I don’t think he hid that. But I just know he was putting on a show for the other things about wives and children,”
Perry Mason producer Art Marks said, in an interview for Starr’s biography Hiding in Plain Sight.
In 1960, Burr met actor Robert Benevides on the set of Perry Mason — and the two quietly built a life together that lasted 33 years, running an orchid farm and vineyard side by side, all while keeping their relationship largely hidden from the public eye.
When Burr passed away in 1993 at age 76, he left his entire estate to Benevides — the quiet confirmation of a devotion he was never able to speak about openly. 
He told the world his wife died in a plane crash, and his son died of leukemia. None of it was true. 😳
