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It was on the set of Perry Mason that Raymond Burr first met Robert Benevides, the man who would eventually become his companion and partner of more than thirty years. As the story goes, Burr and Benevides’ relationship blossomed after they discovered their individual interest in, and knowledge of, the hybridization of orchids.

Together they started Sea God Nurseries with orchid ranges in Fiji, Hawaii, the Azores Island, and Southern California. Over a twenty-year period, their hybridization was responsible for more than fifteen hundred new orchids being added to the worldwide catalogue. Also with Benevides, Burr opened a successful Rodeo Drive art gallery. Two of Burr’s many foster children were Italian. He and Benevides sometimes combined art-buying excursions to Italy with visits to his foster son and daughter.

Nine seasons, 271 episodes, and two Best Actor Emmy wins later, Perry Mason won his last case. (Contrary to popular belief, Burr as Mason did lose one case, in the October 17, 1963, episode "The Case of the Deadly Verdict", when his client withheld critical evidence.)

A 1963 health emergency caused Raymond Burr’s absence from four of the series’ episodes. Guest lawyers, played by Bette Davis, Hugh O’Brien, and Walter Pidgeon, filled in. The actor barely took time to exhale before returning to the weekly grind in the highly successful Ironside (1967-1975), this time on NBC, in which he played paralyzed police detective Robert Ironside. Following Ironside, Burr made several pilot shows that never went to series. Later, he enjoyed a one-season run as an investigative reporter on NBC's Kingston: Confidential.

By the mid 1980s, the portly actor and some of his series co-stars, returned for the first of twenty-six, two-hour made-for-TV Perry Mason movies. In 1986, Burr wanted to grow grapes on his and Robert’s Dry Creek Valley property in Sonoma County, California. As Benevides told Passport magazine, following his spouse’s death, “Raymond said, ‘I think we should put in some grapes.’ He’d always had this dream about having a winery because he loved to cook. That was his favorite thing of all, cooking for people. Of course, he couldn’t cook for less than 20 people at a time, but he loved it. We’ve been making wine ever since.”

To this day, Robert Benevides oversees the award-winning Chardonnay and Cabernets at Raymond Burr Vineyards.

In addition to the Perry Mason movies, a similar series of Ironside movies was planned, but the actor’s declining health halted production. Diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 1992, Burr completed Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss, then retreated with Benevides to their Sonoma Valley ranch, where the TV icon spent his final days dispersing his wealth through charities, gifts to friends, and the development of grant and trust programs. In the last two weeks of his life, Raymond Burr hosted farewell parties for his friends and foster children.

Of Burr’s final morphine-sedated day, Benevides told TV Guide, “He finally accepted death. Up until then he had been fighting like an army of men to keep from dying. It was in the end, a sweet death.” Raymond Burr made his final exit on September 12, 1993. He’s buried in New Westminster, British Columbia, the town where he was born that is now home to the Raymond Burr Performing Arts Center, housed in the town’s historic Columbia Theater building.

As Raymond Burr’s life came to a close, the accomplished, beloved, generous celebrity’s favorite quote was one of his own creation. Not surprisingly, it reflected sound advice. “Try and live your life the way you wish other people would live theirs.”

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