Paul Drake was the private detective in the Perry Mason series of murder mystery novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mr. Drake is described as tall and slouching, frequently wearing an expression of droll humour. He is friend and right hand man to Perry Mason, a highly successful criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles. In 1957, the CBS television network launched a series based on Gardner's characters. William Hopper, son of actress and columnist Hedda Hopper and stage legend DeWolf Hopper, auditioned for both the Perry Mason and Paul Drake roles and was chosen for Drake, with Raymond Burr filling the role of Mason. Allen Jenkins played a variation of the Paul Drake character, referred to instead as Spudsy Drake, in two of the 1930s films based on Gardner's novels The Case of the Curious Bride and The Case of the Lucky Legs (both from 1935 and starring Warren William as Perry Mason). Eddie Acuff took over the Spudsy role in 1936's The Case of the Velvet Claws. When Perry Mason was revived for what would prove to be a highly successful series of made-for-TV movies in 1985, the Paul Drake character was not revived, since Hopper had died in 1970. Instead, Drake's son Paul Jr. served as Mason's private investigator in the early films. The younger Drake was played by William Katt, the real-life son of Barbara Hale, who played Della Street both in the original TV series and the TV movies.
