William Talman

Hamilton Burger from Perry Mason Colonel Frank Griffith from The Invaders

Ah, William Talman. The perpetually unlucky district attorney on Perry Mason, and the reason why the series intrigued me many years ago.

Around the time I was high school age, my parents somehow got hooked on reruns of Perry Mason on a local station. I was often around when it was on, and it didn't take me long to be fascinated by several things.

I thought it was really cool that Lieutenant Tragg and Hamilton Burger were steady characters and not just oneshot characters from a single episode. I liked Hamilton immediately, finding him an excellent foil for Perry and liking his devotion to justice instead of being a cookie-cutter antagonist. And when I started seeing scenes that clearly showed mutual respect and even budding friendship despite their adversarial status in court, I couldn't get enough. In general, I find platonic relationships far more interesting than romantic ones, and Perry and Hamilton intrigued me to no end.

I soon found The Perry Mason TV Show Book online and began devouring most of it. I was disappointed to hear of the scandal in mid-season 3 and how William Talman was then absent for a time. But I was thrilled to hear how Raymond Burr and the fans really went to bat for him and didn't give up until CBS finally gave in and let him come back.

I stayed quite faithful to the series for some time, until I saw the episodes enough times over that I wanted a break. I can't remember how many the local station showed at that time. Nowadays, they skip quite a few so the turnaround is faster. When shown straight through, one episode every weekday, it takes practically a year to go through all nine seasons. That keeps everything quite fresh.

When Simon Oakland got me back into the series four years ago, I quickly picked up my enthusiasm where I had left off. That included beginning to look up William's other roles. And while he portrayed some very excellently chilling villains, I also found quite a few good guy roles to delight over. The Persuader, Two-Gun Lady, The Ballad of Josie, The Racket, and One Minute to Zero particularly thrilled me, although the latter two are heartbreaking and I have been known to cry while watching One Minute to Zero. Such a poignant, powerful role! It doesn't hurt that it's also about the only time William sings.

I really appreciate William's sense of humor and his devotion to family. He was never allowed to win on Perry, so he learned to accept that and poke fun at it. And he loved his family and friends so deeply. He even said Raymond was his best friend.

Hamilton remains my favorite Perry character. I even made a plushie of him using a pre-made blank doll from Jo-Ann's. I love it, but since the dolls only had one face shape and it's incorrect for his, I don't always like showing it around. However, as far as the clothes go, I sewed his much better than the Ginger and Lou dolls' afterwards.