Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Interrogating the Man Who Was Mason

I have recently been doing some research into the life and literary career of lawyer-turned-novelist Erle Stanley Gardner, and especially the work he did on his most famous creation, investigating attorney Perry Mason. So I was delighted to find this two-part interview with actor Raymond Burr today on YouTube. It was conducted in 1963 by Scottish-born Canadian journalist Jack Webster on the set of CBS-TV’s Perry Mason, during a break in that series’ filming.

In the course of their almost 20-minute conversation, they talked about Burr’s experiences on Perry Mason (which was then in its seventh production year; it would stay on the air until 1966), his acting background and previous tendency to play “heavies” in the movies, his childhood in the British Columbia, Canada, town of New Westminster, his interest in the Canadian film industry, and the public outcry over Mason actually “losing” a case on television.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, wow! Thank you : ). This is really cool!

David Cranmer said...

Mr. Webster's way of questioning began odd but once the interview warmed up, it was fascinating.

Thanks for posting this.

Jeffrey Marks said...

Did you know I'm 75,000 words into a biography of Erle Stanley Gardner?

If you have any questions or suggestions, I'm happy to talk to you about the book.

This was an interesting interview, though I agree it was awkward at first.