Raymond Burr (with Warren Kemmerling) in a publicity still from Godzilla 1985. Photo courtesy of Raymond Burr Vineyards.
While going through some of my old files, I came across a short memo I wrote in mid-2007 that I ultimately didn't know what to do with. I contacted Raymond Burr's longtime companion, Robert Benevides of Raymond Burr Vineyards. I phoned Mr. Benevides to ask if Mr. Burr had ever shared any stories about the making of his two Godzilla movies (Godzilla King of the Monsters and Godzilla 1985) with him.
It turned out that Mr. Burr indeed had, but, given that Mr. Benevides' memories were brief, I couldn't turn them into an article. So what to do? Unfortunately, indecisiveness got the better of me, so I simply didn't do anything with Mr. Benevides' comments. But, having rediscovered them in my files, I quickly realized they'd make a rather intriguing blog post. My memo, as written in July 2007, is below:
Robert Benevides, Raymond Burr‘s longtime companion, remembered what Burr had told him about his working on the first Godzilla film: “He worked on it for two days in a telephone booth, basically, and they cut him into the film. He loved to tell that story about how, during that period, he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood by the hour because he had gotten so much money for those two days, that if you [extrapolate] it over the time period, he would have been the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. That‘s what he used to tell me.”
It turned out that Mr. Burr indeed had, but, given that Mr. Benevides' memories were brief, I couldn't turn them into an article. So what to do? Unfortunately, indecisiveness got the better of me, so I simply didn't do anything with Mr. Benevides' comments. But, having rediscovered them in my files, I quickly realized they'd make a rather intriguing blog post. My memo, as written in July 2007, is below:
Robert Benevides, Raymond Burr‘s longtime companion, remembered what Burr had told him about his working on the first Godzilla film: “He worked on it for two days in a telephone booth, basically, and they cut him into the film. He loved to tell that story about how, during that period, he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood by the hour because he had gotten so much money for those two days, that if you [extrapolate] it over the time period, he would have been the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. That‘s what he used to tell me.”
“The first one, he always
said that he worked two days to do all those shots in the phone booth.”
