Perry Mason actor Raymond Burr was secretly gay and almost everything he said about his life was a lie!!!!!

Old news to most of us, OP.

He had a fling with wood, but naughtily.

OP...You are quick!

OP...I hate to tell you. Rock Hudson was a secret homo!

For anyone who was a Howard Stern fan in the 90s, do you recall Jackie the Jokeman telling a story about a friend of his going to a party on Burr's Hawaii estate and that Burr was dressed with a flower in his hair and his shirt was tied at the bottom the way a hot girl would to expose her stomach.

Howard also said he'd known Burr was gay even as a little kid because when he'd do VO work at Howard's father's radio studio, he'd be all butch when recording and then become quite "nelly" the moment he was was off-air.

OP, how secret was it when the LA Times included his male longtime companion among survivors in the obituary?

If it’s TLDR for you, scroll to the last paragraph in the link.

I am shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked!

Thank you for that bit from the Stern show. I actually don’t know that much about him but did know he was gay. Any other stuff that was known?

Who knew Natalie Wood was such an all purpose beard?

Well, obviously Robert Redford and Robert Wagner.

How many other gay men in Hollywood had "R" names?

Did the studios automatically assign Natalie Wood as the beard to them?

Did they all play poker or poke him together and they just spontaneously came up with the idea together?

I'm pretty sure this is why we have the coronavirus now.

I don't do the devil speaking in tongues thing.

I have my own situation.

How could he get away with such barefooted lies? Even back then.

I knew he was gay because he tried to pick up my father...right in front of me. I was about ten at the time, but I knew what was going on.

R12 those are some real Trumpian lies he sold

I'm sure not much different than some A list actors today.

[quote]then become quite "nelly" the moment he was was off-air.

Don't associate me with that blob

You don't associate fat, ugly men with homosexuality

He was only fat and ugly in middle age and later.

He was quite average looking at a young man.

Everybody watching the televised 1954 premiere of A Star Is Born saw Ray Burr with his gorgeous male date, "a boy just back from Korea". Starts at 6:45.

I thought Raymond Burr never married because little bodies don't like it when big bodies fall on them.

I never knew that, I am surprised.

Such old, old "news."

John Mahoney had a fake wife for a while. It's just something that generation did.

But John Mahoney didn't invent two fake dead wives, a fake dead kid, and fake war wounds, R24.

I remember Bill Cosby narrating a tribute on TV to Burr just after he passed away/

[quote]Why should this be, for a man who was both very rich and very successful? It all came down to his terror that he would lose the role of Perry Mason and his entire career as a leading actor if he was exposed as gay and sharing his life with a male lover.

[quote]Such fears seem preposterous in these more enlightened times. But, in the Hollywood of the 1950s, they were by no means groundless.

HA! That's hilarious. This shit still happens to this day in Hollywood. Leo, Bradley, Chris Pine, the list goes on and on.

OP, did you also know that Broderick Crawford was Joan Crawford's sister?

No, but he WAS Helen Broderick’s son.

Wonder what happened to the mysterious 'Frank Vitti' who accompanied Burr to the "A Star Is Born" premier?

"For several years in the 1950s, according to an excerpt from "Hiding in Plain Sight", a 2008 biography of Burr written by Michael Starr, another young Korean War veteran named Frank Vitti shared Burr's home and was identified in some publications as his nephew."

R11- Robert Redford was a GAY BOY

R23 John Mahoney? Really? I was laughing through this thread because of all the obvious gay references and then I stumbled on the John Mahoney post. I'm stunned (and thrilled!) - had no idea.

Raymond and "nephew" Frank Vitti.

Good heavens, Rose...the next thing we know, you're going to tell us Liberace wasn't actually head over heels for Sonja Henie.

Only in the '50s could Raymond Burr take a young marine to see a Judy Garland movie and nobody suspect a thing.

Chris Pine? Never heard that one before! He seems very straight.

Nephew, you say, why didn't I think of that?

I wonder if OP has heard the tragic news about JFK yet.

Years ago someone said to me, half in jest, that the reason Ironside was in a wheelchair was that it was the only way the director could stop Raymond Burr swishing it up.

[quote]How could he get away with such barefooted lies?

What the hell is a "barefooted" lie?

[quote]He was only married once to Isabella Ward and had no children

This was news to me. I had always heard that the only wife he "had" was the fake one.

R19 that is a wonderful clip. Thank you for sharing.

Robert Redford is gay? Since when?

I think the guy in R19's video clip is the same Frank Vitti who was his lover for many years

r42 Are you new here? EVERYONE is gay.

Raymond Burr lived with his spousal equivalent happily for more than 30 years. Who cares that he lied to fool the press and throw people off his trail? It was just to protect his career and his personal life from prying eyes. By the standards of his day, he was not as twisted about his gayness as most guys were. It's too bad that he didn't live a generation later though. I don't think he would have felt the need to hide like that. In the end, his story is one of the 'successful' ones. It's much better than what happened to Rock Hudson.

Was Raymond Burr out in his private life and only closeted for professional reasons (unavoidable back then)?

I wonder if he and Rock ever got together?

It's been widely know that Ms. Ramona Burr has been with the program for decades - until her passing - poor dear. As well as Ms. Libby Rachie, Roxanne Hudson and countless others who walked on the 'wild side' of life.

May those girls rest in peace.

[quote] I wonder if he and Rock ever got together?

R47 thinks if two guys live in the same state and both are gay they must’ve hooked up.

SMH.

Based on that picture at R32, Burr must have turn that little pocket gay in half. Unless Burr was the bottom. Whatever happened to Mr. Vitti? And did Confidential every write anything about Burr?

[quote]And did Confidential every write anything about Burr?

"The Case of the Miss Who Was a Mister-y"

TV Star Parade article