The island, 5800 miles from Ironside's San Francisco stamping grounds, is in Fiji. A traveller making perfect connections can reach it from the West Coast in 32 hours. It's 11 hours by jet to Nadi, the airport on Fiji's biggest island. Then it's five hours by a pitted, unpaved road to Suva, the capital and main town. Burr's visitor is now just 165 miles southwest of Naitauba but he's only halfway there.

There are mail boats which stop at Naitauba regularly, which is to say about twice a month. If the traveller misses one, he will have a two-week wait for the next. But if he's in a hurry he can get to Burr's place in a fast 16 hours aboard the Maroro, a 40-year-old steamer that can be chartered at exorbitant rates.

At the end of the marathon shlep is a tidy little tropical kingdom. It is some 3000 acres, one-third of it volcanic and the other two-thirds elevated limestone. It has 12 sandy beaches and, on the north coast, deep caves gouged into 100-foot limestone cliffs. Its inhabitants are all Fijians, except for Burr. And its nearest neighbor is another island, 54 miles away.

Burr bought the island in 1965 from a German lady who'd owned it for decades. The price is reported to have been $150,000 but its value today [1970] is estimated at $400,000. The German lady, according to one of Burr's friends in Fiji, "didn't exactly bother to advertise that the house had termites. It was riddled with them. That's not unusual, of course, since the house is 70 or 80 years old. Almost any wooden building in Fiji that old will have unwanted visitors."

The termite problem was solved quickly enough. Burr saw to that himself. Being a man of considerable size, he didn't want to be walking around on floors that could give way under him at any moment. Burr bought powerful insecticides, stuck putty in the cracks himself and painted everything personally. The insects departed. Even termites aren't going to mess around with a man of Raymond Burr's determination.

Burr's island has 1500 plantable acres and 175 inhabitants. All of them who work, work for Burr. They harvest his coconuts, feed his cattle, teach in his school, clean his house. It all belongs to Burr — there is no private enterprise — and it's a profitable plantation. Which is not to say that Burr is getting rich with it.

Most of the profits are reinvested in livestock or equipment or improvements in living conditions. It's a feudal setup and Burr is lord of the manor. He doesn't buddy with the peasants or drink with them. He dispenses goodies. He binds up their wounds. He discourses on world affairs. He blesses the children. He receives the elders. He is King Raymond the First.

The natives have no television and Ironside means nothing to them. To them he is just "the Boss."

The Boss rises at 5 A.M. and dons his royal raiment: sneakers and a sport shirt so loose it resembles a muumuu. He usually ignores the royal coach, a Land Rover, and surveys his kingdom on foot. He checks fences, examines crops, looks over the cattle and inquires about copra production, which comes to about 300 tons a year. Copra (dried coconut meat) is the biggest cash crop, although Burr is trying to diversify the island's agriculture.

Burr, admittedly a compulsive do-gooder, has built a clinic, where he often takes on the job of diagnosing and prescribing for the patients. When he has a difficult case he will describe the symptoms to a doctor in Suva by radio. And sometimes he will have medicines flown and airdropped to the island.

The Boss says he has "20 years of projects for Naitauba, and by the time they are finished I expect I'll have enough new ones to last another 20 years." He is improving sanitary conditions and providing electricity. For money he has a herd of cattle, 100 acres of macadamia nuts and 22 orchid plants in addition to the coconut palms. The orchid plants are rather experimental, but Burr hopes they'll turn into something commercial.

For pleasure, Burr has stocked the island with pheasants, pigeons, parakeets and doves. Still on the drawing boards are guest houses, water-storage tanks, upgraded roads, horses and buggies for transport. The island is virtually self-sufficient for food, thanks to Burr's efforts. It has corn, pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys, along with a variety of vegetables and tropical fruits. A few delicacies and condiments, unfortunately, are still unavailable. This occasionally makes Burr sad because gourmet cooking is one of his avocations.

When the Boss is planning some Lucullan tasty and finds he's minus a vital ingredient, he gets on the radio. There are no telephones on Naitauba but usually Burr manages to raise on his short-wave set someone who can dial up his secretary in Beverly Hills. She then starts the vital item on its arduous journey across the Pacific.

Burr ended up in Fiji after a brief flirtation with the Caribbean. "The neighboring property developers put a quick end to privacy," he says. And he almost acquired a place in Hawaii until he realised that a 40-story hotel was taking root next door. But privacy is not the only reason he chose Fiji. He finds the people strong, efficient and refreshingly unmaterialistic. In addition, Burr is an Anglophile from Canada who enjoys Fiji's British tradition. The islanders have just attained dominion status but they still play cricket and put the Queen on their postage stamps.

The Fijians have another tradition, cannibalism, that could be bothersome to a man with a meaty frame which sometimes hits the 275-pound mark.

Happily, the natives seem to prefer religious missionaries to actors. The last time they ate one was around the turn of the century.

Burr currently spends about two months of the year on Naitauba, but friends say they expect him to increase that in the near future. He has talked about the idea of quitting his series and moving lock, stock and scrapbooks to the island, but no one thinks he is likely to do it. His Fiji acquaintances predict he'll probably try to spend six months in Naitauba and for the remaining six months he'll work hard earning enough money to return for six months more.

However much time he decides to spend there, he'll be well-housed. A new home is now under construction. It will be an air-conditioned, hilltop mansion on a curving bay with a white sand beach. The architect's drawings are ambitious, calling for a diamond-shaped floor plan and few interior walls, the whole house to be largely open to sea and sky. It will have a partial plexiglass roof, a volcanic rock retaining wall, a waterfall and a reflecting pool at the entrance.

Presumably it will be termiteproof. Add houseman and cook and let's put it this way: a little grass shack it ain't. But rest easy, Ray. Even with this house, nobody, but nobody, will drop in on you.