Today I was watching an old episode of Perry Mason. So old that he didn't have a beard ... so I
thought I’d google Raymond Burr to find out something about his life.
However, Raymond had already forseen this …
to the point where Wikipedia almost holds its hands up and says “Sorry, we dunno - there's too many conflicting stories”.
Raymond it seems was a homosexual at a time when this was
the kiss of death to a Hollywood career so he invented stories to try and disguise
the real situation of his life.
However,
he didn’t just tell a few white lies, Burr invented himself entire parallel
life histories – some of which contradicted each other but fortunately the press
were too dumb to pick up on this during his lifetime. Indeed, Mr Burr it seems was a near pathological liar and the lies
he invented about himself and his life in order to conceal his homosexuality included some
absolute whoppers so huge you have to wonder if they were actually neccessary or his lying was simply pathological. Such as…
Claiming he joined the US navy in 1944 when he was really in
the Coast Guard
Claiming he had been widowed twice (he was briefly married
once – it failed within months for obvious reasons).
Claiming one of his fake ex-wives died in the 1943 plane
crash that killed Leslie Howard. Being dead
made her strangely hard for anyone to interview.
Claiming to have a son called Michael Evan who died of
leukemia in 1953 at the age of ten.
Claiming to have taken a year off to take his dying son on a
tour of the US when he was clearly working filming for most of the year he
claimed to have taken off. Fortunately
IMDB hadn’t been invented in those days so he actually got away with that one.
Claiming to have had another wife called Laura Andrina
Morgan who died of cancer in 1955. Again
this and the fact she probably never existed anyway made it difficult for the
press to interview her.
Eventually Mr Burr found inventing these stories of having
been married to ladies who had mysteriously died of cancer or in plane crashes and
having had children who had mysteriously died of leukemia somewhat taxing. So much so that in the late 60s he decided that it might just be simpler if he just got a beard. So he started spending a lot of time in public places with Natalie
Wood.
Wood’s agent sent her on dates with famous closeted
homosexual Hollywood stars in need of beards in order to raise her
profile. This helped disguise Burr’s
real relationship with Robert Benevides while helping Wood to disguise her
affair with Robert Wagner who she later married.
It seems Mr Burr became somewhat unhappy when Ms Wood went on pretend dates with other homosexual men in search of beards…
On November 29, 1981, Wood drowned near Wagner’s yacht
Splendour while it was moored near Catalina Island. Two witnesses, who had been on a boat nearby,
stated they had heard a woman scream for help during the night. It was claimed by Dennis Davern (the captain
of the yaught) in 2011 that he had lied to the PoPo to hide the fact that Wagner and Wood had an argument about the nature of her
relationship with Christopher Walken who was also on the boat that night and
claims he saw nothing shortly before her death but …
Robert Wagner is 89.
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