"I got the sense that a lawyer could do good things for folk and was important to our community. Barbara Hale, who played the steadfast secretary Della Street opposite Raymond Burr on the legendary courtroom drama Perry Mason for nine seasons and 30 telefilms, has died. Reruns of the show have long been a reliable presence on American TV stations and cable networks, but it was arguably the most popular, and for the longest period of time, in Portland, Oregon. Hale met fellow RKO contract player Williams (real name: HermanKatt) on the set of West of the Pecos (1945), and they married in 1946. The action kicks off when defense attorney E.B. Hale also played a murder suspect on a 1971 episode of Burrs follow-up to Perry Mason, the NBC crime drama Ironside. She was 94. He and his mother moved to Vallejo, California, Barbara was born on 18 April 1922, as one of two children. Thus, she could not have continued as his secretary (and effective partner) and she did not want to give up this aspect of her life. Biography of Della Street, Perry Mason's More Than Secretary Della Street is Mason's only evident (though not sharply delineated) romantic interest. Intriguingly, as Begler notes, Dohneys extremely powerful and corrupt dad brought in his own security force to take over the investigation which may have had something to do with the cases lack of resolution. You\'ll receive the next newsletter in your inbox. All Rights Reserved. Marrying the Ghost of Karl Lagerfeld at the 2023 Met Gala. William Hopper. What Shows Have Been Renewed or Canceled? ), Della was to a great degree, a woman who knew what everybody was thinking, Hale said in a 1993 interview with the Chicago Tribune. You've been sticking up for criminals and now you can see the other side of the picture. William Hopper auditioned for both the Mason and Drake roles. After appearing in such films as The First Yank in Tokyo (1945), The Boy With the Green Hair (1948), The Window (1949) and, with her husband, The Clay Pigeon (1949), Hale delivered perhaps her most notable movie performance in the Columbia sequel Jolson Sings Again (1949), playing a nurse and the singers new wife. In 1947, she featured in one episode of Voice of the Army. The Oliver Twist-inspired February 1966 installment "The Case of the Twice-Told Twist" is otherwise a run-of-the-mill Perry Mason episode, except for the fact that it was produced in full color the only episode in the original series run not presented in black-and-white. The couple married in June 1946 and stayed together for 46 years until Williams' death on September 21, 1992. Paul Drake (character) - Wikipedia in the long-running series of novels, films, and radio and television programs featuring Perry Mason, the fictional defense attorney created by Erle Stanley Gardner . In the film adaptations made in the 1930s, Della Street was portrayed by five different actresses: Helen Trenholme, Claire Dodd, Genevieve Tobin, June Travis, and Ann Dvorak. Then when production got moving along, Rhys realized his initial aversion to remaking Perry Mason was even more misguided, because he had few concrete, preconceived notions of the show and its main character. In 1934, just a year after the first Perry Mason novel delighted readers, the first Perry Mason movie, The Case of the Howling Dog, hit movie houses. deputy sheriff; a photo salesman; and even as a singer in nightclubs. Drake's son was played by William Katt, real-life son of Barbara Hale, who played Della Street both in the TV series and the TV movies. What Shows Have Been Renewed or Canceled? On television, Della Street was played by Barbara Hale in the series, for which she received an Emmy Award, and in the 30 made-for-TV movies.