An actor can wear many hats: entertainer, idol, hero and, apparently, legal adviser. While fans often look up to their favorite stars, some Perry Mason viewers may have taken their admiration for Raymond Burr a little too far.

Burr may have played an incredibly convincing defense attorney, but offscreen, he was simply an actor. Apparently, not all of his fans got the memo. Among the thousands of letters he received, many viewers actually wrote to ask him for legal advice!

"Of three thousand letters I receive per week, scores ask legal questions," Burr told the Deseret News during an interview.

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Of course, Burr wasn't qualified to offer legal counsel, but he did what he could to point fans in the right direction.

"Usually, I refer the writers to attorneys," Burr said. "I keep two secretaries busy answering these letters."

Although Burr wasn't a lawyer himself, he took pride in the show's efforts to portray the legal profession accurately.

"I believe our district attorney is as accurate a portrayal of a real-life prosecuting attorney," Burr said. "He relies upon the evidence gathered by his investigators, which he presents in a matter-of-fact manner."

Still, there was one part of Perry Mason that wasn't exactly representative of real-world courtroom proceedings: the attorney's nearly unbeatable record. Mason won the vast majority of his cases, with a loss being an exceptionally rare occurrence.

In fact, some legal groups apparently wanted to see Mason take a few more defeats.

"We've had some law groups ask us to let Mason lose once in a while," Burr said. "Why? If we did, the next thing they'd ask is that we allow a proper ratio of convictions to acquittals, and then we'd be doing a series called District Attorney Convicts."