Anthony Perkins
Perkins in 1975, by Allan Warren
Born	(1932-04-04)April 4, 1932 Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Died	September 12, 1992(1992-09-12) (aged 60) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation	Actor director singer
Years active	1953-1992
	Berry Berenson ​ (m. 1973)​
Children	Oz Perkins Elvis Perkins
Parent(s)	Osgood Perkins Janet Esselstyn Rane

Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 - September 12, 1992) was an American actor, director, and singer. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his second film, Friendly Persuasion (1956), but is best remembered for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and its three sequels. His other films include Fear Strikes Out (1957), The Matchmaker (1958), On the Beach (1959), Tall Story (1960), The Trial (1962), Phaedra (1962), Five Miles to Midnight (1962), Pretty Poison (1968), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Mahogany (1975), The Black Hole (1979), North Sea Hijack (1980), and Crimes of Passion (1984).

Early life

Perkins was born in Manhattan, New York City, son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins and his wife, Janet Esselstyn (née Rane). His paternal great-grandfather was wood engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony.^[1] He was five when his father died.^[2]

Perkins was a descendant of a Mayflower passenger, John Howland. He attended Brooks School and Browne & Nichols School, having moved to Boston in 1942, and then Columbia University and Rollins College.^[3]

Career

Perkins made his film debut in The Actress (1953). The film was a commercial disappointment. Perkins was first really noticed when he replaced John Kerr on Broadway in the lead of Tea and Sympathy in 1954. This renewed Hollywood interest in him.^[4]

Stardom

Perkins with Jo Van Fleet in the Broadway play Look Homeward, Angel, 1957

Perkins gained notice for his second film, Friendly Persuasion (1956), directed by William Wyler, in which he played the son of the lead character, played by Gary Cooper.

Subsequently, Perkins starred as troubled former Boston Red Sox baseball player Jimmy Piersall in the 1957 biopic Fear Strikes Out (1957) and in the two Westerns The Lonely Man (1957) (with Jack Palance) and The Tin Star (1957) (with Henry Fonda).

He released three pop music albums and several singles in 1957 and 1958 on Epic and RCA Victor under the name Tony Perkins.^[5] His single "Moon-Light Swim" was a moderate hit in the United States, peaking at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957.^[5] He showcased his musical talents in The Matchmaker (1958) with Shirley Booth and Shirley MacLaine.

A life member of the Actors Studio,^[6] Perkins also acted in theater. In 1958, he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Look Homeward, Angel (1957-59) on Broadway. He played the role of Eugene Gant.^[7]

In film, he appeared in This Angry Age (1958) for Columbia and Desire Under the Elms (1958) for Paramount, with Sophia Loren. He was then cast in The Matchmaker (1958).

Perkins was Audrey Hepburn's love interest in Green Mansions (1959), one of Hepburn's few flops. He was a doomed lover in On the Beach (1959) and played a college basketball champion in Tall Story (1960), best remembered for being Jane Fonda's film debut.

On Broadway, he starred in the Frank Loesser musical Greenwillow (1960), for which he was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

Psycho

Publicity photo of Perkins from the 1960 film Psycho

Perkins in youth had a boyish, earnest quality, reminiscent of the young James Stewart, which Alfred Hitchcock exploited and subverted when the actor starred as Norman Bates in the film Psycho (1960).^[8] The film was a critical and commercial success, and gained Perkins international fame for his performance as the homicidal owner of the Bates Motel. Perkins' performance gained him the Best Actor Award from the International Board of Motion Picture Reviewers. The role and its multiple sequels affected the remainder of his career.^[9]

Europe

Perkins appeared in the film Goodbye Again (1961) with Ingrid Bergman, which was shot in Paris.

He appeared in a short-lived Broadway play, Harold (1962), then was featured in a series of films shot in Europe: Phaedra (1962), shot in Greece with Melina Mercouri and directed by Jules Dassin; Five Miles to Midnight (1962) with Sophia Loren; Orson Welles' version of The Trial (1962, from the Kafka novel); Le glaive et la balance (1963), shot in France; and Une ravissante idiote (1964) with Brigitte Bardot.

With Charmian Carr in Evening Primrose, 1966

Perkins made a film in Mexico, The Fool Killer (1965), then returned to France for a cameo in Is Paris Burning? (1966).

Return to the U.S.

For American television, Perkins appeared in Evening Primrose (1966). He then went to Broadway to appear in a play by Neil Simon, The Star-Spangled Girl (1966-67).

He starred in another French film, The Champagne Murders (1967) for Claude Chabrol, then made his first Hollywood movie since Psycho, Pretty Poison (1968) with Tuesday Weld. It was not a box office success, but has become a notable cult favorite.^[10]

Supporting actor

Perkins moved into supporting roles in Hollywood-feature films, playing Chaplain Tappman in Catch-22 (1970) and appearing in WUSA (1970). Off-Broadway, he appeared in and directed Steambath (1970).

Perkins had the lead in a TV movie, How Awful About Allan (1970) and supported Charles Bronson in the French movie, Someone Behind the Door (1971). He starred in Chabrol's Ten Days' Wonder (1971). Perkins was reunited with Weld when he supported her in Play It as It Lays (1972). He was also in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972). He co-wrote, with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, the screenplay for the film The Last of Sheila (1973).

Perkins was one of the many stars featured in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). He co-starred with Beau Bridges in Lovin' Molly (also 1974).^[11] He enjoyed success on Broadway in Peter Shaffer's 1974 play Equus (where he was a replacement in the leading role originally played by Anthony Hopkins).^[12]Off-Broadway he directed The Wager (1974).

Perkins supported Diana Ross in Mahogany (1975) and hosted television's Saturday Night Live in 1976. He co-starred with Geraldine Chaplin in Remember My Name (1978) and had roles on television, playing Mary Tyler Moore's husband in First, You Cry (1978) and Javert in Les Misérables (1978). He was featured in Walt Disney's The Black Hole, in 1979. He had another Broadway success with Bernard Slade's 1979 play Romantic Comedy. Perkins was a villain in North Sea Hijack (1980) and one of many names in Winter Kills (1980). He also starred in the 1980 Canadian film Deadly Companion (also known as Double Negative).

Later career

Perkins in 1983

Perkins reprised the role of Norman Bates in Psycho's three sequels. The first, Psycho II (1983), was a box-office success twenty-three years after the original film.

Perkins went to Australia to appear in For the Term of His Natural Life (1983). After The Glory Boys (1984) for British television, Perkins made Crimes of Passion (1984) for Ken Russell.^[13] He then starred in and directed Psycho III (1986).

Perkins had supporting roles in Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story (1987), and Destroyer (1988). He directed but did not appear in Lucky Stiff (1988). Perkins starred in some additional horror films, Edge of Sanity (1989), Daughter of Darkness (1990), and I'm Dangerous Tonight (1990). He played Norman Bates again in the made-for-cable film Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990).

Perkins appeared in six television productions between 1990 and 1992, including Daughter of Darkness (1990) and hosting a 12-episode horror anthology series titled Chillers (1990). He made his final appearance in In the Deep Woods (1992) with Rosanna Arquette. He had agreed to provide the voice for the role of the dentist, Dr. Wolfe, in The Simpsons episode "Last Exit to Springfield" but died before the part could be recorded. In the end, the character was voiced by Simpsons regular Hank Azaria.^[14]

Perkins was portrayed by British actor James D'Arcy in the 2012 biographical drama Hitchcock, which starred Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren as Alma Reville.

Personal life

Perkins was extremely shy, especially in the company of women.^[15] According to the posthumous biography Split Image by Charles Winecoff, he had exclusively same-sex relationships until his late 30s, including with actor Tab Hunter, artist Christopher Makos, dancer Rudolf Nureyev, composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and dancer-choreographer Grover Dale.^[16] Perkins has also been described as one of the two great men in the life of French songwriter Patrick Loiseau.^[17]

Perkins reportedly had his first heterosexual experience at age 39 with actress Victoria Principal^[18][19] on location filming The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean in 1971.^[15] He met photographer Berinthia "Berry" Berenson, the younger sister of actress and model Marisa Berenson, at a party in Manhattan in 1972.^[15] They married when he was 41 and she was 25, on August 9, 1973 and had two sons: director Oz Perkins (b. February 2, 1974) and musician Elvis Perkins (b. February 9, 1976).^[20] Perkins and Berenson remained married until his death. In 2001, on the day before the ninth anniversary of his death, Perkins' widow died at age 53 in the September 11 attacks aboard American Airlines Flight 11. She was returning to her California home following a holiday on Cape Cod.^[21]

Death

Perkins was diagnosed with HIV during the filming of Psycho IV: The Beginning, and died at his Los Angeles home on September 12, 1992, from AIDS-related^[22][23][24]pneumonia at age 60.^[25] His urn, inscribed "Don't Fence Me In", is in an altar by a bench on the terrace of his former home in the Hollywood Hills.^[26]

Filmography

Television

Stage

Discography

References

Further reading

• Bergan, Ronald: Anthony Perkins: A Haunted Life. London: Little, Brown and Company, 1995; ISBN 0-316-90697-2.
• Hilton, Johan: Monster i garderoben: En bok om Anthony Perkins och tiden som skapade Norm Bates. Stockholm: Natur & Kultur, 2015; ISBN 978-91-271-3430-0. (in Swedish)
• Capua, Michelangelo "Anthony Perkins. Prigioniero della Paura." Torino, Lindau, 2003; ISBN 978-8867082759

External links

• Anthony Perkins on IMDb
• Anthony Perkins at the Internet Broadway Database
• Anthony Perkins at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Anthony Perkins at the TCM Movie Database
• Anthony Perkins at AllMovie
• Psycho star Anthony Perkins on playing Norman Bates
• Anthony Perkins interviewed by Mike Wallace on The Mike Wallace Interview March 22, 1958