'Perry Mason' Actor Raymond Burr told co-star Richard Anderson, it's "all about the casting."

Richard Anderson (left) with Raymond Burr (right) in a scene from Burr's classic CBS series, "Perry Mason."Photo byPinterest.com

[Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the commentary and quotes that appear in this article are from the author's direct interview with those mentioned.]

Overview

The original Perry Mason TV series starring Raymond Burr initially aired on CBS from 1957 to 1966. All these decades later, the show remains popular in syndication (and was recently reimagined in a new edition starring Matthew Rhys).

Actor Richard Anderson, best known as Lee Majors' boss on The Six Million Dollar Man, had made several appearances on Perry Mason. Anderson would also later appear in Perry Mason Returns, the first of several popular TV-reunion movies based on the original series.

As Anderson, who died in 2017, recalled in an interview from 1992, for Raymond Burr, "It was all about the casting."

According to Anderson, Burr believed that casting is "the key to the success" of any TV show, feature film, or stage play. "Ray felt that if you didn't have the right casting, then it wasn't going to work."

Perry's Cast

No doubt there was perfecting casting of the original Perry Mason TV series. In addition Raymond Burr in the leading role, Barbara Hale played Della Street, Perry's loyal secretary; William Hopper (son of Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper) played dedicated private detective Paul Drake; William Talman was the perfectly grumpty prosecuting attorney Hamilton Burger; and Ray Collins was the ideally suspicious Lt. Dragg.

Post Perry

Following the cancelation of Perry Mason on CBS, Raymond Burr switched networks to NBC with a second long-running hit series called Ironside (1967-1975). That show also featured stellar casting choices in the guise of Barbara Anderson, Elizabeth Baur, Don Galloway, and Don Mitchell.