James Earl Jones' character Lee Atkins was lucky that Raymond Burr...
didn't guest star on the show.
Perry Mason would have busted his race-card playing butt around the courtroom.
Yes, James Earl Jones character of Lee Atkins was a character that viewers loved to hate or just plain hated. He was loosely based on the real-life lawyer of Johnny Cochran (before he became internationally famous with the 1995 trial of OJ Simpson).
The producers of the show wanted Jones to come back to play Lee Atkins for a few more times, but he turned them down for he was committed to his other TV show "Gabriel's Fire".
He pulled the same "race card" in an episode of "Picket Fences" a decade later! I loved that show too! ;-/
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Love to hate? I actually liked him, mostly because James Earl Jones is so cool
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