Closeted TV Star Raymond Burr Lived a Life of Lies!
Posted by Michael Musto at 8:45 AM, April 21, 2008
My emails are generally clogged with shit about erections and elections and constant updates on what amazing thing Ashlee Simpson just said on Ryan Seacrest's radio show. So I was thrilled to finally get something urgent and important--to me, anyway! It said there's a book coming out in May by New York Post TV writer Michael Seth Starr, all about the secret life of the weird and famous Raymond Burr! Who? Raymond Burr, silly! He was a mega TV star--picture Kiefer Sutherland, but with more gravitas--whose off-camera script was apparently even more elaborate than the ones he acted out on the tube. In fact, the guy's intricately detailed straight life was every bit as much of a sham as that of...oh, any number of people. Listen up to the release and learn it, kids:
"Hiding in Plain Sight is the first full biography of Raymond Burr, one of the most popular TV actors of all time. He was the lead actor on the top-rated TV shows Perry Mason and Ironside, which between them ran uninterrupted for 20 years—a feat that has never been equaled."What is largely unknown is that Burr was leading a secret gay life at a time when exposure would have been career suicide. So to deflect questions, he created an elaborate cover story for himself as a grieving husband and father. He claimed to have been twice widowed—he said his first wife died in a plane crash and his second marriage ended with his wife's tragic early death from cancer. And there was also a dead son—little 10-year-old Michael who lost his brave battle with leukemia. Neither of the wives nor Michael ever existed. But that didn't stop these lies from being perpetuated again and again, up to and including his obituary in the New York Times. Why Burr chose this tactic can never really be known, but Starr offers some compelling theories."
Gosh! Thank God we've come so far that today's stars can all live completely open, honest lives without any deception whatsoever. Right, wink wink?
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