HBO and Robert Downey Jr. ("Iron Man") continue developing a "Perry Mason" dramatic TV series, based on stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, starring Downey Jr. as the world's greatest criminal defence lawyer:
The series will feature Mason's secretary 'Della Street', private investigator 'Paul Drake' and courtroom nemesis 'Hamilton Burger'.
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Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Downey will produce.
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As a defense attorney, 'Perry Mason' was featured in more than 80 'detective fiction' novels and short stories, most of which had a plot involving his client's murder trial. Typically, Mason was able to establish his client's innocence by implicating another character, who then confessed.
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Author Gardner had over 135 million copies of his books in print in North America in 1969.
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The character was also portrayed each weekday on a long-running radio series, followed by well-known depictions in film and TV including television's longest-running lawyer series, from 1957 to 1966 starring Raymond Burr, another series in 1973–1974 starring Monte Markham and Brett Somers and 30 made-for-TV movies filmed from 1985 to 1993.
In the first novel, "The Case Of The Velvet Claws" (1933), Mason described himself as: "...a lawyer who has specialized in trial work, and in a lot of criminal work. I'm a specialist on getting people out of trouble. They come to me when they're in all sorts of trouble, and I work them out.
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"If you look me up through some family lawyer or some corporation lawyer, he'll probably tell you that I'm a shyster. If you look me up through some chap in the District Attorney's office, he'll tell you that I'm a dangerous antagonist... but he doesn't know very much about me..."
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Many of Gardner's 82 "Perry Mason' novels were first published in serial format in "The Saturday Evening Post".
Sixteen novels also appeared in the "Toronto Star Weekly" in condensed form.