RKO General was the main holding company through 1991 for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and, after General Tire's reorganization in the 1980s, GenCorp. The business was based around the consolidation of its parent company's broadcasting interests, dating to 1943, and the RKO Pictures movie studio General Tire purchased in 1955. The holding company acquired the name of RKO General in 1959 after General Tire dissolved the film studio. Headquartered in New York City, the company operated six television stations and more than a dozen major radio stations around North America between 1959 and 1991.

RKO General still exists, at least nominally, registered as a Delaware corporation.^[1] In addition to broadcasting, its other former operations included soft-drink bottling and hotel enterprises. The original Frontier Airlines was a subsidiary from 1968 to 1985.^[2] In 1981, the company revived RKO Pictures on a small scale. It is as a broadcaster, however, that RKO General left its mark. Recognized as the owner of some of the most influential radio stations in the world and as a pioneer in subscription TV service, RKO General also became known for the longest licensing dispute in television history.

History[link]

Early days[link]

General Tire entered broadcasting in 1943, when it bought a controlling interest in the Yankee Network, a regional radio network in New England. The Yankee Network owned and operated four stations: flagship WNAC in Boston; WAAB in Worcester, Massachusetts; WEAN in Providence, Rhode Island; and WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut.^[3] With the Yankee Network purchase, General Tire also picked up its contracts with 17 independently owned affiliates and acquired a stake in the Mutual Broadcasting System, a cooperatively owned national radio network.^[4]

On June 21, 1948, the Yankee Network launched New England's third television station: Boston's WNAC-TV went on the air just days after WBZ-TV, also in Boston, and WNHC-TV, licensed to New Haven, Connecticut. The TV station's transmitter site also served a new FM outlet, the first and only station to be established under General Tire ownership. While the Yankee Network had been operating experimental FM stations since 1939, WNAC-FM was the first that would survive past the early 1950s.^[5]

In December 1950, General Tire purchased the Don Lee Broadcasting System, a long-standing West Coast regional network, for $12.3 million. This brought three more leading stations into the General Tire stable—KHJ (with its simulcasting sister, KHJ-FM) in Los Angeles, KFRC in San Francisco, and KGB in San Diego. The acquisition also expanded the company's holdings in the Mutual Broadcasting System.^[6] Under the terms of the deal, the Columbia Broadcasting System acquired Don Lee's Los Angeles television station, KTSL.^[7] In 1951, General Tire acquired its own station in the city when it bought KFI-TV from Earle C. Anthony, changing the call letters to KHJ-TV.

In 1952, General Tire purchased the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owner of WOR-AM-FM-TV in New York, from R.H. Macy and Company.^[8] Bamberger itself was a division of General Teleradio Inc., a Macy's subsidiary. In the deal, General Tire acquired the rights to the name General Teleradio, under which the company merged its broadcasting interests as a new division.^[9] The deal also gave General Tire majority control of the Mutual Broadcasting System.^[10] The company moved into Memphis, Tennessee in 1954 with its purchase of WHBQ radio and WHBQ-TV.^[11] Exiting two mid-sized urban markets that same year, General sold off WEAN to the Providence Journal and KGB to the San Diego station's general manager, Marion Harris.^[12] On the evening of July 8, 1954, WHBQ disc jockey Dewey Phillips introduced a song called "That's All Right (Mama)", the first ever recording to air on the radio by a local singer named Elvis Presley.^[13]

The RKO purchase[link]

General Teleradio's chairman, Thomas O'Neil (son of General Tire founder William O'Neil) recognized that his television stations needed access to better programming. In 1953, he tried to buy the film library of RKO Radio Pictures—including many of the most famous movies made by Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and Cary Grant—but was rebuffed by the studio's then owner, Howard Hughes. However, after Hughes failed in a bid to acquire total control of RKO, he sold the studio to General Tire for $25 million in July 1955.^[14] Merging RKO with General Teleradio to form RKO Teleradio Pictures, General Tire quickly recouped most of the purchase price by selling the primary rights to RKO's film library to C&C Television Corp, a subsidiary of beverage maker Cantrell & Cochrane, for $15.2 million. Historian William Boddy describes the sale of the RKO library as "the trigger for the flood of feature films to television in the mid-1950s."^[15]

On the broadcasting front, RKO briefly owned WEAT (AM) and WEAT-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida; they were sold off before the company's next reorganization in 1959.^[16] In 1956, WOR (AM) became the New York market's number one station with the success of its new "Music from Studio X." Hosted by John A. Gambling, the "easy listening" show was broadcast out of an innovative high-fidelity studio where, according to reports, "each clean new record was touched by a needle only one time."^[17] Also in 1956, a new General Tire subsidiary, RKO Distributing (which would later become part of RKO General), acquired a controlling interest in the Western Ontario Broadcasting Company, which operated CKLW-AM-FM-TV in Windsor, Ontario. The AM station, in particular, served a large swath of the U.S. Rust Belt, centered on the major market of Detroit.^[18] CKLW was also yet another shareholder in the Mutual Broadcasting System.

General Tire retained the broadcast rights to the RKO films in the cities where it owned television stations, but it had little interest in the studio itself. After a brief, half-hearted dip into the movie industry, General Tire shut down both production and distribution early in 1957. That summer, it sold its entire, majority stake in the Mutual network to a syndicate led by famed entrepreneur Armand Hammer.^[19] By the end of the year, the company had sold off the RKO Pictures studio facilities and backlot. Several unreleased films were put out by other studios and distribution exchanges through the spring of 1959. That same year, RKO Teleradio was renamed RKO General.^[20]

A leading broadcaster[link]

The classic RKO General station lineup was based around the WOR stations in New York City, the KHJ stations in Los Angeles, KFRC-AM-FM in San Francisco, WGMS-AM-FM in and near Washington, D.C., the WNAC stations in Boston, the WHBQ stations in Memphis, and the CKLW stations in Windsor/Detroit, which RKO purchased outright in 1963. The company later acquired radio outlets in the major markets of Chicago and Miami–Fort Lauderdale. Between 1960 and 1972, RKO owned a sixth TV station, WHCT, a UHF outlet in Hartford, Connecticut. After the Canadian government tightened rules on foreign ownership of radio and TV stations, RKO General was forced to sell off the Windsor group in 1970.^[21] In the mid-1970s, RKO sought to dispense with the FM outlets it had established in some of its oldest markets, while maintaining its presence on the AM dial: San Francisco's KFRC-FM was sold in 1977; around the same time, WHBQ-FM in Memphis was divested as well. An attempted sale of the company's Boston FM station was aborted.^[22]

In 1959, RKO and NBC reached an agreement on what would have been the highest-priced license transfer in broadcasting history to that time. The deal would have seen RKO acquire NBC's WRC-AM-FM-TV in Washington, D.C., swap WNAC-AM-TV and WRKO-FM (the former WNAC-FM) in Boston to NBC for that company's WRCV-AM-TV in Philadelphia, and sell the WGMS stations in Washington, D.C. to Crowell-Collier Broadcasting (as Federal Communications Commission [FCC] regulations at that time would not permit ownership of both the WRC stations and the WGMS stations). The deal was an attempt to resolve a controversy surrounding a 1956 swap of NBC and Westinghouse Broadcasting stations in Philadelphia and Cleveland. In 1960, the FCC ordered the 1956 swap reversed, and denied the proposed license transfers on what would prove to be the ironic ground that NBC would enter the Boston market as the product of its dishonesty in the Philadelphia transaction.

RKO General's lineup included some of the leading top 40 and urban contemporary radio stations in North America. In May 1965, KHJ (AM) introduced the highly successful Boss Radio variation of the top 40 format. Consultants Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, who had devised the restrictive programming style, soon brought it to RKO's AM stations in San Francisco, Boston, and Memphis, also with great success. The format helped Windsor's CKLW (AM) to become the dominant station not only in Detroit, but also in more distant cities such as Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio.^[23] Before long, many non-RKO broadcasters around the country were hiring the Boss Radio consulting team to convert them to the format, or simply imitating it on their own. In October 1972, KHJ-FM debuted Drake-Chenault's new automated rock oldies format, Classic Gold, another major hit.^[24] As WOR-FM and its later incarnations, rock-formatted WXLO and urban WRKS-FM, RKO's New York FM station pioneered a number of styles, including a more oldies-heavy version of Boss Radio and, later, so-called rhythmic formats. In 1983, it became one of the first major stations to play rap music on a regular basis.^[25] In late 1979, the company launched the RKO Radio Network.^[26] In 1981, the network began transmitting what has been claimed as the first national talk show delivered by satellite—the six-hour-long America Overnight broadcast out of Dallas and Los Angeles.^[27]

As a television broadcaster, RKO General was known as an operator of independent stations. New York's WOR-TV ran without network affiliation during its entire tenure with RKO, as did Hartford's WHCT. Los Angeles's KHJ-TV was a DuMont affiliate until 1955 and independent for its next 33 years under RKO control. Windsor's CKLW-TV was nominally an affiliate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, but was programmed largely as an independent.^[28] Two of the company's stations were run as network affiliates: Boston's WNAC-TV, originally a CBS affiliate, also aired DuMont and ABC programming during its early years. It became a full-time ABC affiliate in 1961, returning to CBS exclusively in 1972. Memphis's WHBQ-TV was a dual CBS/ABC station at its 1953 launch; it joined ABC full-time in 1956.

The company's independent television stations (including CKLW) were known for showing classic films under the banner of Million Dollar Movie. The trend-setting movie package was launched by WOR in 1954, nearly a year before General Tire's acquisition of RKO Pictures and its library. Into the 1980s, Million Dollar Movie—introduced by music from 1952's Ivanhoe and, later, Gone with the Wind—aired RKO productions and those of many other studios as well.^[29] In summer 1962, RKO General initiated on WHCT what became the first extended venture into subscription TV service. Until January 31, 1969, the station aired movies, sports events, concerts, and other live performances without commercial interruption. The operation generated income from installation and weekly rental fees for descrambling devices—provided by RKO's partner, Zenith Electronics—as well as individual program charges.^[30] During its final decade as a significant business entity, the company would reenter the movie industry that had given it its name, reviving the RKO Pictures brand in 1981 for a series of coproductions and then its own independent projects. This new RKO Pictures was involved in the production of about a dozen feature films, the best known including a 1982 remake of the RKO classic Cat People and the Vietnam War movie Hamburger Hill (1987).

The licensing saga[link]

Troubles begin[link]

In 1965, RKO General applied for renewal of its license for KHJ-TV in Los Angeles. Fidelity Television, a local group, challenged the renewal, charging RKO with second-rate programming. Later, and more seriously, Fidelity claimed that General Tire conditioned its dealings with certain vendors on the basis that they would in turn buy advertising time on RKO General stations. Arrangements of this type, known as "reciprocal trade practices," are considered to be anticompetitive. RKO and General Tire executives testified before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), rejecting the accusations. In 1969, the commission issued an initial finding that Fidelity's claims were correct. That same year, RKO faced a license challenge for WNAC-TV in Boston, again charged with reciprocal trade practices. In 1973, the FCC ruled in favor of RKO in the Los Angeles case, pending findings in the still ongoing investigation of the Boston charges. When RKO applied for renewal of its license for WOR-TV in New York in 1974, the FCC conditioned this renewal on the WNAC-TV case as well.^[31]

On June 21, 1974, an administrative law judge renewed the WNAC-TV license despite finding that General Tire and RKO General had engaged in reciprocal trade practices. In December 1975, Community Broadcasting, one of the companies competing for the Boston station, asked the FCC to revisit the case, alleging that General Tire bribed foreign officials, maintained a slush fund for U.S. political campaign contributions, and misappropriated revenue from overseas operations. RKO expressly denied these and other allegations of corporate wrongdoing on General Tire's part during a series of proceedings that followed over the next year and a half. On July 1, 1977, however, in settling an action brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, General Tire admitted to an eye-popping litany of corporate misconduct, including the bribery and slush fund charges.^[32] Nonetheless, the RKO proceedings dragged on.

The loss of WNAC-TV[link]

After a half-decade in the most recent round of hearings and investigations, the FCC stripped RKO of WNAC-TV's license on June 6, 1980, finding that RKO "lacked the requisite character" to be the station's licensee.^[33] Factors in the decision were the reciprocal trade practices of the 1960s, false financial filings by RKO, and the gross misconduct admitted to by General Tire in nonbroadcast fields.

The basis for revocation, however, that would prove most damning was RKO's dishonesty before the Commission. In the course of the WNAC-TV hearings, RKO had withheld evidence of General Tire's misconduct, including the fact that the SEC had begun an investigation of the company in 1976. RKO also denied that it had improperly reported exchanges of broadcast time for various services, despite indications to the contrary in General Tire's 1976 annual report. The FCC consequently found that RKO had displayed a "persistent lack of candor" regarding its own and General Tire's misdeeds, thus threatening "the integrity of the Commission's processes."^[34] The FCC ruling meant that RKO lost the KHJ-TV and WOR-TV licenses as well.

RKO appealed the decision to the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals. The court upheld the revocation solely on the basis of RKO's lack of candor, writing in its opinion that "[t]he record presented to this court shows irrefutably that the licensee was playing the dodger to serious charges involving it and its parent company."^[35] However, the court interpreted the candor issue so narrowly that it applied only to WNAC-TV, and ordered rehearings for the WOR-TV and KHJ-TV licenses. RKO General again appealed, this time to the U.S. Supreme Court. On April 19, 1982, the court refused to review the license revocation. RKO had lost the case for good. As a result of the decision, RKO General sold WNAC-TV's assets to New England Television (NETV), a new company resulting from the merger of Community Broadcasting and another competitor for the license, the Dudley Station Corporation. As part of the settlement, the FCC granted a full license to NETV, which renamed the station WNEV-TV.^[36] The station has since become WHDH-TV.

Endgame[link]

In February 1983, the FCC began a concerted effort to force RKO out of broadcasting once and for all. It began taking competing applications for all of the company's broadcasting licenses.^[37] RKO, however, was about to get a partial, and temporary, reprieve. Congress passed a law, sponsored by New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, requiring the commission to automatically renew the license of any commercial VHF television station relocating to a state without one, “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” The only states qualifying at the time were Delaware and New Jersey, where no commercial VHF outlet had been licensed since 1962.^[38] On April 20, 1983, RKO General officially changed WOR-TV's city of license from New York to Secaucus, New Jersey, where it remains today.^[39] The FCC required the station to move its main studio to New Jersey and step up coverage of events in the state.^[40] Nonetheless, with featured programming such as New York Mets baseball games, WOR-TV maintained its identity as a New York station.^[41] Ironically, WOR radio was first licensed to nearby Newark, New Jersey, and didn't move to New York until 1941.^[42]

A year after the renewal of the WOR-TV license, General Tire reorganized its farflung corporate interests into a holding company, GenCorp, with General Tire and RKO General as its leading subsidiaries. The RKO Radio Networks operation was sold to United Stations.^[43] The WOR move did little to relieve the regulatory pressure on RKO General, and GenCorp put the station on the market early in 1986. MCA outbid Cox Communications and Group W for control of the station, receiving FCC approval for the purchase in late November.^[44] On April 29, 1987, MCA changed the station's call letters to WWOR.^[45]

The timing of the WOR-TV sale was fortunate for RKO. In August 1987, FCC administrative law judge Edward Kuhlmann found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to a long history of deceptive practices. He ordered RKO to surrender the licenses for its remaining two television stations and twelve radio stations. Among other things, he found that RKO misled advertisers about its ratings, engaged in fraudulent billing, lied repeatedly to the FCC about a destroyed audit report, and filed numerous false financial statements. Kuhlmann described RKO's conduct as the worst case of dishonesty in FCC history.^[46] After declaring that all of the employees responsible for the misconduct had been fired, GenCorp and RKO entered an appeal, claiming that the ruling was deeply flawed.^[47] However, the FCC let it be known that it would almost certainly reject any appeals and strip the licenses. It urged RKO to sell the stations before that became necessary.^[48] RKO's parent company, GenCorp, then battling a hostile takeover bid by an investor group, was hungry for cash as a result of paying a premium on its own shares to stave off the attack. Liquidation of assets on the verge of being lost was the obvious course.

Exiting the media business[link]

Over the next four years, RKO dismantled its broadcast operations. Its original AM station in Boston, whose name it had changed from WNAC to WRKO in 1967, and its FM station in the city, at that point known as WROR, were sold to Atlantic Ventures.^[49] In New York, WOR (AM) was acquired by Buckley Broadcasting and WRKS-FM (the former WOR-FM) went to Summit Communications. The company's two radio stations in the Washington, D.C., market were sold to Classical Acquisition Partnership.^[50] In Los Angeles, the KRTH (formerly KHJ) radio stations were purchased by Beasley Broadcasting, which in turn sold KRTH (AM) to Liberman Broadcasting. Liberman renamed the station KKHJ, then restored the original KHJ calls in 2000. In 1988, the decades-long licensing saga of KHJ-TV officially came to an end: Under an FCC-supervised deal, the station's license was granted to the company that had raised the original challenge to RKO General, Fidelity, which then transferred it to the Walt Disney Company. For the station and its assets, Disney paid $324 million, with RKO collecting approximately two-thirds and Fidelity the remainder. Disney would rename the station KCAL-TV the following year.^[51] During this period, the company also divested its radio stations in Chicago and Miami–Fort Lauderdale, as well as the remaining assets of its movie-related operations. By the turn of the decade, its last significant media holdings were the WHBQ TV and AM radio stations in Memphis and KFRC (AM) in San Francisco. In 1990, the Memphis stations were sold to Adams Communications. The following year, KFRC was sold to Bedford Broadcasting and RKO General was out of the entertainment business.^[52]

Former holdings[link]

Television stations[link]

Radio stations[link]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• GenCorp—Company History corporate history with particular emphasis on RKO General; part of Funding Universe website
• Boss Radio Timeline part of the Boss Radio Forever website
• "A Day in the Life: The Federal Communications Commission" article by Nicholas Johnson and John Jay Dystel, Yale Law Journal vol. 82 (1973)
• "General Tire Profit Due to RKO Unit" brief business article, New York Times, March 24, 1981

Raymond Burr
From the film Please Murder Me (1956)
Born	Raymond William Stacey Burr (1917-05-21)May 21, 1917 New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Died	September 12, 1993(1993-09-12) (aged 76) Healdsburg, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1940–93
Spouse	Annette Sutherland ?-1943 (her death) Isabella Ward 1948-1952 (divorced) Adrina Laura Morgan ?-1955 (her death)
Partner	Robert Benevides 1960-1993
Children	Michael Evan Burr 1942-1953

Raymond William Stacey Burr (May 21, 1917 – September 12, 1993) was a Canadian actor,^[1] primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.^[1] His early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film,^[2] usually as the villain.^[3] He won two Emmy Awards in 1959 and 1961^[4] for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons between 1957 and 1966. His second hit series, Ironside, earned him six Emmy nominations, and two Golden Globe nominations.^[4] He is also widely known for his role as Steve Martin in both Godzilla, King of the Monsters! and Godzilla 1985.

In addition to acting, Burr owned an orchid business and had begun to grow a vineyard. He was a collector of wines and art, and was very fond of cooking.^[5]

After his death from cancer in 1993, Burr's personal life came into question as details of his known biography appeared to be unverifiable.^[6][7]

In 1996, Raymond Burr was ranked #44 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.^[8]

Early life[link]

Burr was born Raymond William Stacey Burr in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada,^[5] to William Johnston Burr (1889–1985), an Irish hardware salesman,^[9] and his wife Minerva (née Smith, 1892–1974), a concert pianist and music teacher, who was of English and Scottish descent.^[9] After his parents divorced, Burr moved to Vallejo, California^[5] with his mother and younger siblings, Geraldine and James Edmond. He attended a military academy for a while and graduated from Berkeley High School.^[10]

In later years, Burr freely invented stories of a happy childhood. He told the Modesto Bee in 1986, for example, that when he was twelve and a half years old, his mother sent him to New Mexico for a year to work as a ranch hand. He was already his full adult height and rather large and "had fallen in with a group of college-aged kids who didn't realize how young Raymond was, and they let him tag along with them in activities and situations far too sophisticated for him to handle."^[11] He developed a passion for growing things and, while still a teenager, joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year.^[11] Throughout his teenage years he had some acting work, making his stage debut at age 12 with a Vancouver stock company.^[5]

Burr may have served in the Coast Guard, but never in the United States Navy as he and his publicists later claimed.^[12] Nor was he seriously wounded in the stomach during the Battle of Okinawa in the latter stages of World War II.^[13] Other invented biographical details that were made include years of college education at a variety of institutions, world travel, an acting tour of the United Kingdom, and success in high school athletics.^[14] Such claims were accepted as fact by the press during his lifetime^[1][5] and by his first biographer.^[15]

Early career[link]

In 1937, Burr began his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1941, he landed his first Broadway role in Crazy with the Heat. He became a contract player at RKO studio, playing a film noir villain in Raw Deal (1948).

Burr appeared in over 60 movies between 1946 and 1957. In 1976, Richard Schickel cited his performance in Pitfall (1948) as a prototype of film noir in contrast with the appealing television characters for which Burr later became famous.^[16] He received favorable notice for his role as an aggressive prosecutor in A Place in the Sun (1951), co-starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Shelly Winters. Perhaps his best-known film role of the period was that of a suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly.^[1][5] He played the part of reporter Steve Martin in Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956).^[17]

Burr emerged as a prolific television character actor in the early-to-mid 1950s. He made his television debut on the April 24, 1952 episode "The Tiger" of Gruen Playhouse on the DuMont TV network. (At about the same time, Burr guest-starred on an episode of The Amazing Mr. Malone on ABC.) This part led to other roles in such programs as Dragnet, Chesterfield Sound Off Time, Four Star Playhouse, Mr. & Mrs. North, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, The Ford Television Theatre, and Lux Video Theatre.

During this time, Burr's distinctive voice could also be heard on network radio, appearing alongside Jack Webb in the short-lived Pat Novak for Hire on ABC radio, as well as in early episodes of NBC's Dragnet.^[3] He also made guest appearances on other Los Angeles-based shows, such as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and landed a starring role in CBS's Fort Laramie (1956),^[18] which depicted 19th-century life at old Fort Laramie.^[19] One year later, Burr became a television star as Perry Mason.

[edit] Perry Mason and Ironside

In 1956, Burr auditioned for the role of District Attorney Hamilton Burger in Perry Mason, a new courtroom drama based on the highly successful novels written and created by Erle Stanley Gardner that was to air on CBS. William Talman tried out for the title role. The producers of the show allowed Burr to try for the title role and when Gardner, who was present at the audition, saw him he declared, "He is Perry Mason."^[3] Mason eventually became the role with which Burr was most closely identified.^[20] The series ran from 1957 to 1966, and Burr won Emmy Awards^[4] in 1959 and 1961 for his performance as Perry Mason. The series has been re-run in syndication ever since.^{[citation needed]} Beginning in 2006, the series has become available on DVD, with each calendar year seeing the release of one season as two separate volumes. Though Burr's character is often said never to have lost a case, he did lose two murder cases in early episodes of the series, once when his client misled him and another time when his client was later cleared.^[21]

In the early 1960s, Burr narrated one film and appeared in several others sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service. They were designed to educate the public about accident prevention.^[22]

Burr moved from CBS to Universal Studios, where he played the title role in the television drama Ironside, which ran on NBC. In the pilot episode, San Francisco Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside is wounded by a sniper during an attempt on his life and is left an invalid in a wheelchair. This role gave Burr another hit series, the first crime drama show ever to star a disabled police officer. The show, which ran from 1967 to 1975, earned Burr six Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.^[4] Burr's weight, always an issue for him in getting roles, became a public relations problem when Johnny Carson began making jokes about him during his Tonight Show monologues. Burr refused to appear as Carson's guest from then on and told Us Weekly years later: "I have been asked a number of times to do his show and I won't do it. Because I like NBC. He's doing an NBC show. If I went on I'd have some things to say, not just about the bad jokes he's done about me, but bad jokes he does about everybody who can't fight back because they aren't there. And that wouldn't be good for NBC."^[23] In later life his distinctive physique and manner could be used as a reference that would be universally recognized. One journal for librarians published a writer's opinion that "asking persons without cataloging experience to design automated catalogs...is as practical as asking Raymond Burr to pole vault."^[24]

NBC failed in two attempts to launch Burr as the star of a new series. In a two-hour television movie format, Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence aired in February 1976 with Burr again in the role of the lawyer who outwits the district attorney. Despite good reviews for Burr, the critical reception was poor and NBC decided against developing it into a series.^[25] In 1977, Burr starred in the short-lived TV series Kingston: Confidential, a critical failure that was scheduled opposite the extraordinarily popular Charlie's Angels. It was cancelled after thirteen weeks.^[26] Burr took on a shorter project next, playing an underworld boss in a six-hour miniseries, 79 Park Avenue^[27] One last attempt to launch a series followed on CBS. The two-hour premiere of The Jourdan Chance aroused little interest.^[28]

In 1985, Burr was approached by producers Dean Hargrove and Fred Silverman to star in a made-for-TV movie Perry Mason Returns.^[29] Burr recalled in a 1986 interview, "They asked me to do a new "Godzilla" the same week they asked me to do another Perry Mason, so I did them both."^[30] He agreed to do the Mason movie if Barbara Hale returned to reprise her role as Della Street.^[31] Hale agreed and when Perry Mason Returns aired in December 1985, her character became the defendant.^[29] The rest of the original cast had died, but Hale's real-life son William Katt played the role of Paul Drake, Jr.^[29] The movie was so successful Burr made 26 more before his death.^[1] Many episodes were filmed in and around Denver, Colorado.^[2]

By 1993, when Burr signed with NBC for another season of Mason films, he was using a wheelchair full-time because of his failing health. In his final Mason movie, The Case of the Killer Kiss, he was shown either sitting or standing while leaning on a table, but only once standing unsupported for a few seconds.^[32] Twelve more Mason movies were scheduled before Burr's death, including one scheduled to film the month he died.^[33]

In 1993, as he had with the Perry Mason TV movies, Burr decided to do an Ironside reunion movie. In May of that year, The Return of Ironside aired, reuniting the entire original cast of the 1967-1975 series.^[34] Burr's illness precluded any further such reunions.^[33]

Other work[link]

In 1973, Burr starred in one-hour television drama, Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was John. He portrayed Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, as he tried to prevent the forced return of Jewish children from Istanbul to Nazi Germany.^[35]

Burr co-starred in such TV films as Eischied: Only The Pretty Girls Die and Disaster On The Coastliner (both 1979), The Curse of King Tut's Tomb and The Night the City Screamed (both 1980), and Peter and Paul (1981). He also had a supporting role in Dennis Hopper's controversial film Out of the Blue (1980) and spoofed his Perry Mason image in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982).

Burr reprised his 1956 role in Godzilla, King of the Monsters! in Godzilla 1985: The Legend Is Reborn.^[36] The film won Burr a nomination for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor.^[37] Burr delivered the film's closing lines: "For now, Godzilla - that strangely innocent and tragic monster - has gone to earth. Whether he returns or not, or is never again seen by human eyes, the things he has taught us remain."^[38]

Burr also worked as media spokesman for the now-defunct British Columbia-based real estate company Block Bros. in TV, radio, and print ads during the late 1970s and early 1980s.^[39]

In 1983, he made a rare stage appearance when he starred in the thriller Underground at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto and after a UK tour, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London.^[40]

On January 20, 1987, he hosted the television special that later served as the pilot for the long-running series Unsolved Mysteries.^[41]

Personal life[link]

Burr married actress Isabella ("Bella") Ward on January 10, 1949. They lived together for less than a year and divorced after four years. Neither remarried.^[42] At various times in his career, Burr or his managers offered biographical details that appear spurious or unverifiable. These include marriage to Scottish actress Annette Sutherland, supposedly killed in the same plane crash as Leslie Howard. A son, Michael Evan, was said to have resulted from another invented marriage to Laura Andrina Morgan. Burr provided the only evidence of the boy's existence and death from leukemia at age 10.^[43] As late as 1991, Burr told Parade magazine that when he realized his son was dying, he took him on a one-year tour of the United States. He said, "Before my boy left, before his time was gone, I wanted him to see the beauty of his country and its people."^[1] His publicist knew that Burr worked in Hollywood throughout the year he said he was touring with his son.^[44] As with Burr's claims to have served in the U.S. military, many of these fictions were believed and widely reported.^[5][45]

In the late 1950s, Burr was rumored to be romantically involved with Natalie Wood.^[6] Wood's agent sent her on public dates so she could be noticed by directors and producers and so that the actors could present themselves in public as heterosexuals. The dates also helped to disguise Wood's intimate relationship with Robert Wagner, whom she later married.^[46] Burr felt enough attraction to Wood to resent Warner Bros.' decision to promote her attachment to Tab Hunter instead. Robert Benevides later said: "He was a little bitter about it. He was really in love with her, I guess."^[47][48]

Sexual orientation[link]

In the mid 1950s, Burr met Robert Benevides (1929–present), a young actor and Korean War veteran, on the set of Perry Mason. According to Benevides they became a couple about 1960 and he gave up acting in 1963^[49][50] and later became a production consultant for 21 of the Perry Mason TV movies.^[51] Together they owned and operated an orchid business and then a vineyard,^[52] in the Dry Creek Valley. They were partners until Burr's death in 1993.^[51] Burr left Benevides his entire estate, including "all my jewelry, clothing, books, works of art,...and other items of a personal nature."^[53]

Later accounts of Burr's life explain that he hid his homosexuality to protect his career. In 2000, AP reporter Bob Thomas recalled the situation:^[49][54]

It was an open secret...that he was gay. He had a companion who was with him all the time. That was a time in Hollywood history when homosexuality was not countenanced. Ray was not a romantic star by any means, but he was a very popular figure...if it was revealed at that time in Hollywood history [that he was gay] it would have been very difficult for him to continue.

Art Marks, a producer of Perry Mason, recalled Burr's talk of wives and children: "I know he was just putting on a show....That was my gut feeling. I think the wives and the loving women, the Natalie Wood thing, were a bit of a cover."^[55] In 2006, Dean Hargrove, who worked on Perry Mason Returns, said: "I had always assumed that Raymond was gay, because he had a relationship with Robert Benevides for a very long time. Whether or not he had relationships with women, I had no idea. I did know that I had trouble keeping track of whether he was married or not in these stories. Raymond had the ability to mythologize himself, to some extent, and some of his stories about his past...tended to grow as time went by."^[56]

A 2007 memoir by actor Paul Picerni described several experiences with Burr about 1951 on the set of A Place in the Sun, when he felt Burr expressed sexual interest in him. He wrote: "I saw him staring at me. With his big blue eyes. And with this strange expression on his face. For the first time in my life, I felt like a DAME. Then it hit me: He'd been giving me all this bullshit about his wife and his two kids in London, when in fact he was gay, and he was makin' a move on me!" He remembered Burr "was a great guy and very subtle in his homosexuality."^[57]

Hobbies[link]

Burr had many hobbies over the course of his life: cultivating orchids, collecting wine, art, stamps, and seashells. He was interested in cooking, flying, sailing, and fishing. According to A&E Biography, Burr was also an avid reader with a retentive memory. He was also among the earliest importers and breeders of Portuguese Water Dogs in the United States.^[58]

He developed his interest in cultivating and hybridizing orchids into an orchid business with Benevides. Over twenty years, their company, Sea God Nurseries, had nurseries in Fiji, Hawaii, the Azores, and California, and was responsible for adding more than 1,500 new orchids to the worldwide catalog.^[49] Burr named one them "Barbara Hale Orchid" after his Perry Mason costar.^[59][60]

Raymond Burr Vineyards

Together Burr and Benevides cultivated Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Port grapes, as well as orchids, at Burr's farmland holdings in Sonoma County, California. After Burr's death, Benevides named the property after Burr: "I finally decided it should be called Raymond Burr Vineyards. He didn't want it named after him, I know that. We had talked about that possibility and he didn't like that at all, but we're making great wines now. It's a memorial to him, to his idea, and I think it deserves to be named after him."^[49] The land is still in production and is known as the Raymond Burr Vineyards.

In 1965, Burr purchased the Naitauba, a 4,000 acres (16 km²) island in Fiji. There, he and Benevides oversaw the raising of copra (coconut meat) and cattle, as well as orchids.^[49][60] They spent two months a year there and Burr planned to retire there permanently. Medical problems made that impossible and he sold the property in 1983.^[61]

Philanthropy[link]

Burr was a well-known philanthropist.^{[62][63][64][65]} He gave enormous sums of money, including his salaries from the Perry Mason movies, to charity. He was also known for sharing his wealth with friends. He sponsored 26 foster children through the Foster Parents' Plan or Save The Children, many with the greatest medical needs.^[11] He also gave money and some of his Perry Mason scripts to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California.^[65] Burr raised money for the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida, donating a considerable collection of Fijian cowries and cones from his island in the Fijis.^[65] In 1993, Sonoma State University awarded Burr an honorary doctorate.^[66] He supported medical and education institutions in Denver, and in 1993, the University of Colorado awarded him an honorary doctorate for his acting work.^[67] Burr also founded financed the American Fijian Foundation that funded academic research, including efforts to develop a dictionary of the language.^[68]

Burr made repeated trips on behalf of the United Service Organizations (USO). He toured both Korea and Vietnam during wartime and once spent six months touring Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. He sometimes organized his own troupe and toured bases both in the U.S. and overseas, often small installations that the USO did not serve, like one tour of Greenland, Baffinland, Newfoundland, and Labrador.^[69] Returning from Vietnam in 1965, he made a speaking tour of the U.S. to advocate an intensified war effort. As the war became more controversial, he modified his tone, called for more attention to the sacrifice of the troops, and said: "My only position on the war is that I wish it were over."^[70] In October 1967, NBC aired Raymond Burr Visits Vietnam, a documentary of one of his visits that received mixed reviews, ranging from "The impressions he came up with are neither weighty nor particularly revealing" (Chicago Tribune) to "His questions...were intelligent and elicited some interesting replies." (Los Angeles Times).^[70]

Illness and death[link]

During the filming of his last Perry Mason movie in the spring of 1993, Raymond Burr fell ill. A Viacom spokesperson told the media that the illness might be related to the malignant kidney that Burr had removed that February.^[33] It was determined that the cancer had spread to his liver and was at that point inoperable.^[71] Burr threw several "goodbye parties" before his death on September 12, 1993, at his Sonoma County, California ranch near Healdsburg.^[5] He was 76 years old.

Burr was interred with his parents at Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. On October 1, 1993, a gathering of about 600 family members and friends of Burr mourned him at a memorial service at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California.^[72] The private memorial was attended by Robert Benevides, Barbara Hale, Don Galloway, Don Mitchell, Barbara Anderson, Elizabeth Baur, Dean Hargrove, William R. Moses, and Christian I. Nyby II.

R. William Ide III, president of the American Bar Association, paid tribute to the way Burr's Perry Mason presented lawyers "in a professional and dignified manner" and helped "to educate many people who previously had not had access to the justice system." Though lawyers once complained of the character's implausibly perfect track record, Ide complimented Burr because he "strove for such authenticity in his courtroom characterizations that we regard his passing as though we lost one of our own."^[21] The New York Times added that Mason "made the presumption of innocence real...[and] also made lawyers look good.^[21] Not long before Burr died, Mason was named second after F. Lee Bailey in a poll that asked Americans to name the attorney, fictional or not, they most admired.^[21]

Because Burr had not revealed his homosexuality during his lifetime, initial press accounts gave it sensational treatment. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that People magazine was preparing a story on Burr's "secret life" and asked: "Are the inevitable rumors true?"^[6][7] The Sunday Mail invented a feminine Burr "wearing a pink frilly apron and doing the ironing. He fussed around like the woman of the house."^[73]

Burr bequeathed his estate to Robert Benevides and excluded all relatives, including a sister, nieces, and nephews. His will was challenged by a niece and nephew, Minerva and James, the children of his late brother, James E. Burr, without success.^[74] The tabloids estimated that the estate was worth $32 million, but Benevides' attorney, John Hopkins said that was an overestimate.^[75]

Recognition[link]

Burr won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series twice, in 1959 and 1961, for his performance as Perry Mason. He was also nominated a further seven times, once for Mason and six times for Ironside. For the latter role, he was also nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama.

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, awards the Raymond Burr Award for Excellence in Criminal Law.^[21]

Burr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6656 Hollywood Blvd.^[76]

In 2008, Canada Post issued a postage stamp in its "Canadians in Hollywood" series featuring Burr.^[77]

Burr received the 2009 Canadian Legends Award and a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto. The induction ceremony was held on September 12, 2009.^[78]

The garden at the entrance to the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in Florida honors Burr, who was a benefactor and fund-raiser for the Museum.^[79]

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre in New Westminster, British Columbia, opened in October 2000, near a city block bearing the Burr family name, and closed in 2006. Originally a movie theatre, under ownership of the Famous Players chain (as the Columbia Theatre), it was an intimate, 238-seat theatre. Initial plans included expanding the venue to a 650-seat regional performing arts facility. When in operation, it was the custom to have a picture of Raymond Burr included somewhere on each set, with the first toast on the opening night of every production always dedicated to his memory. The Centre was commonly referred to as the "Burr Theatre," or simply as "the Burr." It is owned by the City of New Westminster, which placed it for sale on 15 June 2009.^[80]

Selected filmography[link]

See also[link]

• List of celebrities who own wineries and vineyards

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Hill, Ona L. (1999). Raymond Burr: A Film, Radio and Television Biography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0833-2. 
• Hofler, Robert (2005). The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1607-X. 
• Starr, Michael Seth (2008). Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 1-55783-694-9. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Raymond Burr

• Raymond Burr Vineyards
• Raymond Burr at the Internet Movie Database
• Raymond Burr at the MBC Encyclopedia of Television
• Complete biography of Raymond Burr
• Raymond Burr at the TCM Movie Database
• Raymond Burr at Yahoo! Movies
• Raymond Burr at the Internet Broadway Database
• Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre - New Westminster, BC

Daniel Bryan
Bryan addressing the audience in a promo.
Ring name(s)	American Dragon[1] Bryan Danielson[1] Daniel Bryan[1][2]
Billed height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)[3]
Billed weight	210 lb (95 kg)[3]
Born	(1981-05-22) May 22, 1981 (age 31)[4] Aberdeen, Washington[4]
Resides	Las Vegas, Nevada[1][5]
Billed from	Aberdeen, Washington[1][3]
Trained by	William Regal[6][7] Texas Wrestling Academy[4][7] Rudy Boy Gonzalez[1][7] Shawn Michaels[1][3][7] Tracy Smothers[1] Masato Tanaka[1]
Debut	October 4, 1999[8]
Website	BryanDanielson.net

Bryan Danielson^[4] (born May 22, 1981)^[4] is an American professional wrestler signed to WWE and appearing on its SmackDown brand. Danielson works with WWE under the name Daniel Bryan. He has also been known by the ring name, and later nickname, the American Dragon.^[4][9]

In professional wrestling, Danielson is former Ring of Honor World champion,^[10] a two-time Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World champion,^[11] a one-time Westside Xtreme Wrestling Heavyweight champion,^[12][13] a one-time FIP Heavyweight Champion and a one-time World Heavyweight Champion in WWE.

As well as these World Championships, Danielson also won the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship once in Pro Wrestling Noah and is officially recognized as the final ROH Pure Champion, as he unified the Pure Title with the ROH World title in 2006.^[14] He also won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in New Japan Pro Wrestling with Curry Man.^[4]

Until 2009, Danielson primarily competed on the independent circuit. ROH was generally regarded as his home promotion^{[citation needed]}, but he also worked in FIP, PWG, and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). He has also worked internationally, most notably in Pro Wrestling Noah through ROH's involvement in the Global Professional Wrestling Alliance, a global organization of cooperative promotions that allow their competitors to travel abroad to other companies.^[15] He also competed in a handful of matches in WWE before signing an actual contract with the company in 2009.^[1][16]

In June 2010, shortly after the end of the first season of the WWE NXT show in which Danielson participated, WWE announced that he had been released from his contract.^[17] He returned to WWE in August at SummerSlam, and won the WWE United States Championship the following month.^[18][19] On July 17, 2011, Bryan won the SmackDown Money in the Bank ladder match.^[20] On December 18, 2011, Bryan cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on Big Show to become World Heavyweight Champion.^[21][22]

Professional wrestling career[link]

Early career (1999–2004)[link]

Danielson's first exposure in wrestling was as a backyard wrestler competing for Backyard Championship Wrestling (BCW) under his real name with the nickname "The Dagger". There he won the promotion's Heavyweight Championship.^[1] After Danielson graduated from high school in 1999, he decided to pursue wrestling professionally and initially attempted to train at Dean Malenko's wrestling school. Due to its subsequent closure, however, he instead trained under Shawn Michaels and Rudy Gonzalez at the Texas Wrestling Academy.^[23][7] Danielson debuted in Michaels' promotion, the Texas Wrestling Alliance (TWA), and on March 21, 2000, he won his first professional wrestling championship, when he teamed with Spanky to win the TWA Tag Team Championship by defeating Jeromy Sage and Ruben Cruz.^[4]

Bryan Danielson during his early years on the independent circuit.

As Danielson continued to tour the country, he was signed to a developmental deal by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to work in their developmental system where recently signed performers train and refine their skills before debuting on WWF's television programming, and was assigned to Memphis Championship Wrestling (MCW). There, Danielson gained exposure, and was trained by WWF competitor William Regal. In a 2012 interview, Danielson credited Regal as being instrumental in the development of his career.^[7] It was during this time that Danielson adopted his well-known moniker "American Dragon".^[24] WWF severed its ties with MCW in 2001, releasing Danielson from his contract, but not before he won the MCW Light Heavyweight Championship and the MCW Tag Team Championship with Spanky.^[4] Danielson returned to the company on later dates after it was renamed World Wrestling Entertainment to compete on its secondary programming, Velocity and Heat, initially as enhancement talent before being allowed to compete in longer matches; he once wrestled future WWE Champion John Cena in a losing effort.^[25][26]

Danielson also toured Japan with the promotion, Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) with fellow trainee from the Texas Wrestling Academy, Lance Cade, competing in several tag team matches.^[1][8] He returned to the country after his release from the WWF, competing in Japan's premier promotion, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). In NJPW, he used his American Dragon persona, and donned a red, white, and blue mask reminiscent of a dragon.^[27] As a part of the junior heavyweight division, Danielson had success in both singles and tag team competition in the company, the latter of which culminated on March 12, 2004 when Danielson (sans mask) won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship with Curry Man from division veterans, Jado and Gedo, on the Hyper Battle tour.^[28]