Film & TV / Theatre & dance
William Talman
1915–1968 · actor
Perry Mason's perpetually defeated district attorney Hamilton Burger, born in Detroit, who founded the drama club at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Encino, California
aged 53- Birth name
- William Whitney Talman Jr.
- Detroit years
- 1915–1930s
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
William Talman was born in Detroit in 1915, the son of Ada Barber and William Whitney Talman, a vice president of an electronics company. He grew up in the city's affluent orbit and attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, where he founded the drama club on the Eliel Saarinen-designed campus. He kept acting at Dartmouth College and at the University of Michigan before turning professional on the stage. Hollywood noticed him as a chilling villain: in Ida Lupino's film noir The Hitch-Hiker (1953) he played a psychopathic killer who terrorizes two fishermen on a Mexican road trip. That performance persuaded the producer of CBS's Perry Mason to cast him as Los Angeles District Attorney Hamilton Burger, who famously lost nearly every case to Raymond Burr's defense attorney over nine seasons (1957–1966). A heavy smoker, Talman died of lung cancer in 1968, after filming one of the first anti-smoking public service announcements made by a celebrity.
Highlights
- District Attorney Hamilton Burger in Perry Mason (1957–1966)
- The killer in Ida Lupino's film noir The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
- Founded the drama club at Cranbrook School
- Recorded an anti-smoking public service announcement shortly before his death (1968)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · early 1930s
Cranbrook School (today Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School)
Boys' school on the Cranbrook campus designed by Eliel Saarinen; Talman founded its drama club.
Studied here · 1930s
University of Michigan
Talman acted in theater here after Dartmouth.