After fifty years, has it gotten any better? I don't think it has.
The Hollywood closet.Raymond Burr, who had just struck it rich with “Perry Mason,” was big and burly and gay as they come. Back in those good old days to be gay was a big no-no, and the poor man was terrified to be outed once he became a pop culture idol.
He was a TV star, and did not have a big movie studio behind him to protect him, so he did the next best thing. He invented three deaths, one of his non-existent first wife whom he claimed had died in the same air crash as Leslie Howard, the death of his non-existent second wife, who supposedly died of cancer just after the birth of their son, and then, for good measure, he claimed his non-existent son also died from the disease after having spent a year travelling around the world with his father Raymond.
Burr also fabricated military service during World War Two, including a non-existent Purple Heart. Reporters didn’t dare ask any questions about Burr’s agony, which was just as well. Natalie Wood, as troubled a child star as it was possible to be, went after Burr, convinced their tragic lives had many things in common, including great sexual appetites. She was deeply disappointed but never let on, as the sweet person that she was.