The gay Canadian actor Raymond Burr, who played television’s Perry Mason and died in 1993, made the island nation of Fiji his second home. In 1965, he purchased the island Naitauba, and made it his own private sanctuary. In 1977, on another piece of land he acquired, he opened the Garden of the Sleeping Giant on a plantation estate, where he fancied himself a botanist. “He was a keen grower of this dainty flower and, with his partner Robert Benevides, hybridised an estimated 1500 varieties before leaving Fiji in 1983,” notes The Australian. “One was named for Barbara Hale, the actress who played his secretary Della Street in the Perry Mason series.” Burr, of course, is no longer with us, but his nursery remains. “It is a botanic wonderland on a steepish block, entered via a mesh-covered walkway lined with cultivated orchids – chartreuse, pink, creamy white, buttercup yellow – growing in pots perched randomly on rock walls, and perennial epiphytes that sprout from trees and stumps. Each is gorgeous, fragile, with petals variously shaped like frilly slippers, tiny starfish and lunging spiders. The estate then opens out via wooden boardwalks and stone paths to plantings of laden mango trees, frangipani and palms (including traveller palms with their fan-like fronds), groves of bamboo and a lovely feeling of wildness, with the forested foothills of the Nausori Highlands in the distance. It’s these hills that give the garden its esoteric name, as the corrugated ridge is said to resemble the body of a sleeping giant.” This sounds absolutely beautiful, and the type of place gay actors in the 1950s could only dream of. Burr, then, was fortunate to make it his reality.
escapes
The Secret Garden of Eden Perry Mason‘s Raymond Burr Created For Himself
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Jon
Ray spent his professional life tortured by the possibility of exposure. . .He was a sweet man and a talented actor. Think of the times. . .Think of your great-granfather before slamming his closet. These were different times.
Jon
“and the type of place gay actors in the 1950s could only dream of.”
And I would add, the type of place that anyone who has experienced natural beauty would dream of.
Joseph
such an amazing place!
Jon
It truly is sad that most young people don’t understand, and really have no interest in history beyond “Milk”. . .those of us who lived it are now so proud of todays youth. . .and yeah, we weren’t all TV stars in a closet.
ossurworld
Burr was a true gentleman.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No. 1 and 2: Jon
Easy with the great grandfather talk!
The first boy I ogled, without quite understanding why I was fascinated in boys, was Tony Dow as the then junior high schooler Wally Beaver; the first teen/twenty was Ricky Nelson. And the first man, none other than Perry Mason/Raymond Burr. Okay, I was watching reruns of the 1950s shows, but that steely young Perry Mason, yahoo!
I learned that Burr was a fellow gay in the late 1980s; it seems he was involved with a dean at McGeorge; and their relationship known openly within the law school’s community.