Barbara Hale, Who Played Perry Mason’s Loyal Secretary, Dies at 94

Barbara Hale, a movie actress who found her most famous role on television as Perry Mason’s steadfast secretary Della Street on more than 270 episodes of the Perry Mason series, has died. She was 94.

Barbara Hale died at her home in Sherman Oaks, California, on January 26, 2017, of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Hale was surrounded by family when she died Thursday at her Los Angeles area home, said Jaqueline Stander, an agent for Hale’s son, actor William Katt (The Greatest American Hero, Carrie).

“She was gracious and kind and silly and always fun to be with,” Katt posted on his Facebook page Thursday, calling Hale a wonderful actress and a “treasure as a friend and mother.”

Barbara Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, a daughter of Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener, and his wife Wilma Colvin. She had one sister, Juanita, whom Hale’s younger daughter was named for. The family was of Scots-Irish ancestry.

In 1940, Hale graduated from Rockford High School in Rockford, Illinois, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to become an artist. Her performing career began in Chicago, when she started modeling to pay for her education.

Acting career

Film

Hale moved to Hollywood in 1943, and made her first screen appearances playing small parts (often uncredited). Her first role was in Gildersleeve’s Bad Day. She was under contract to RKO Radio Pictures through the late 1940s.

She appeared in Higher and Higher (1943) with Frank Sinatra and sang with the crooner; played leading lady to Robert Mitchum in West of the Pecos (1945); enjoyed top billing in both Lady Luck (1946) opposite Robert Young, her first “full stardom” and “her fifth A picture”, and The Window (1949) with Arthur Kennedy, and co-starred in Jolson Sings Again (1949), with Larry Parks playing Al Jolson and Hale as Jolson’s wife, Ellen Clark.

She played the top-billed title role in Lorna Doone (1951), co-starred with James Stewart in The Jackpot (1951), with James Cagney in a 1953 drama, A Lion Is in the Streets, and opposite Rock Hudson in 1953’s Seminole. She then appeared in 1955’s The Far Horizons with Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston, also working with some of Hollywood’s best-known leading men of the day.

Television

Hale was considering retirement from acting, when she accepted her best known role as legal secretary Della Street in the television series Perry Mason starring Raymond Burr as the titular character. The show ran from 1957 to 1966, and she reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason television films (1985–95).

She co-starred with Joel McCrea in a 1957 western, The Oklahoman, but there were few leading roles thereafter. Hale did have a featured role in the 1970 ensemble film Airport, playing the wife of a jetliner pilot (Dean Martin).

Hale’s career became inextricably linked with that of Perry Mason co-star Burr, including her 1971 guest-starring role on his next series, Ironside, in an episode titled “Murder Impromptu,” followed by their 1980s and early ’90s TV movies together.

Her last onscreen appearance was a TV biographical documentary about Burr that aired in 2000.

Radio

Hale’s activity in radio was more limited. She appeared in five episodes of Family Theater (1950–1954) and in one episode each of Lux Radio Theatre (1950), Voice of the Army (1947), and Proudly We Hail (syndicated).

Spokesperson

Barbara Hale also is remembered as a spokesperson for Amana, makers of Radarange microwave ovens, memorably intoning, “If it doesn’t say Amana, it’s not a Radarange.”

Private life and death

In 1945 during the filming of West of the Pecos, Hale met actor Bill Williams. They married June 22, 1946, and were the parents of two daughters, Jodi and Juanita, and a son, actor William Katt. Katt played detective Paul Drake, Jr., with her in several made-for-television Perry Mason movies. She also guest-starred as the mother of Ralph Hinkley (played by Katt) in a 1982 episode of The Greatest American Hero (Episode 29, “Who’s Woo in America”), and appeared as his mother in the movie Big Wednesday (1978).

Bill Williams died of cancer in 1992, after 46 years of marriage. Hale was also a cancer survivor. She became a follower of the Bahá’í Faith.

Accolades

Hale was recognized as a Star of Television (with a marker at 1628 Vine Street) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960. She won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series in 1959 and was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Series in 1961.

She was presented one of the Golden Boot Awards in 2001 for her contributions to western cinema.