 He fell ill again in 1948, and in the early 1950s, began losing his sight to the point of almost total darkness in both eyes.He told The Daily Mirror on November 1958, “To me, it meant the end of everything I’d taken for granted.” In 1958 he underwent surgery to save his sight.In fact his sight was so limited by the time he played the county clerk on "Perry Mason" he had to be led around the set by his co-stars.