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GENE BARRY, who has died aged 90, was best known for his starring role as a gentleman sleuth in the 1960s television series Burke's Law, and for his Broadway appearance in the 1980s hit musical La Cage aux Folles.
In Burke's Law, screened in Britain on ITV between 1963 and 1966, Barry starred as Amos Burke, a debonair Beverly Hills police chief of independent means and Olympian sexual dynamism who turned up at crime scenes in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce. The series was remarkable for the prolific number of guest stars (63 in the first eight episodes), who included Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sammy Davis Jr and Dorothy Lamour.
A spin-off series, however, Amos Burke, Secret Agent, failed to measure up to the expectations of a viewing public becoming accustomed to the macho glamour of the James Bond films.
Originally designed as a vehicle for Dick Powell, Burke's Law was revived in 1994 with a distinctly wrinklier Barry reprising the title role, this time helped by his on-screen son, played by Peter Barton.
By then, Barry's habit of adding "Burke's law" after each aphorism ("Never make fun of older women -- one day you'll be married to one. Burke's law" was a typical example) had become tiresome. A critic in The Daily Telegraph likened the comeback to a corpse which had been artificially resuscitated.
In The Adventurer (1972, also ITV) -- created by Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner, the...