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Overview (4) |
Mini Bio (1) |
Spouse (1) |
Trade Mark (2) |
Trivia (34) |
Personal Quotes (19) |
Salary (2)
Overview (4)
| Born | in New York City, New York, USA |
| Died | in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (pneumonia as a complication of AIDS) |
| Nickname | Tony |
| Height | 6' 1½" (1.87 m) |
Mini Bio (1)
Anthony Perkins was born April 4, 1932 in New York City to Janet Esselstyn (Rane) and Osgood Perkins, an actor of both stage and film. His paternal great-grandfather was noted engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony.
Perkins attended the Brooks School, the Browne & Nichols School, Columbia University and Rollins College. He made his screen debut in The Actress (1953), and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar Friendly Persuasion (1956). Four years later, he appeared in what would be his most memorable role to date, Norman Bates in Psycho (1960).
- IMDb Mini Biography By: tony.r.vario@gmail.com
Spouse (1)
| Berry Berenson | (9 August 1973 - 12 September 1992) ( his death) ( 2 children) |
Trade Mark (2)
Nervous, sweet but often unbalanced characters.
His eternally boyish good looks.
Trivia (34)
Despite popular belief, Anthony Perkins never boycotted the film Bates Motel (1987). At a 1988 horror convention, Perkins stated that he had no involvement in the film and that he watched it when it originally aired. He called the film: "just terrible".
Son of Osgood Perkins.
Entered Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in September 1950. Also on campus during his first year were Fred Rogers (of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968)) who graduated in 1951 and John Reardon, class of 1952. In 1953 he was offered a leading part in the movie The Actress (1953). Almost immediately after returning to his studies he left to replace John Kerr in "Tea and Sympathy" on Broadway. He never completed his degree but was given an honorary degree by the college some 20 years later.
On September 11, 2001, his widow and mother of his two sons, Berry Berenson was one of the 58 victims on AA-11 out of Boston that terrorists crashed.
Brother-in-law of Marisa Berenson.
Attended prestigious Buckingham Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Other alumni include The Sopranos (1999) actress Ari Graynor, jazz musician Nate Peterson and Broadway star Lizzie Rose.
Auditioned for the role of the Phantom in the original Los Angeles production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera". He lost the role to Robert Guillaume.
Charles Winecoff's book "Anthony Perkins: Split Image" (Alyson Books, first published in 1996; 2006 10th Anniversary Revised Edition) illuminated Perkins' early life, his homosexuality, his later drug use and life with his family. Some contributors to the biography were Janet Leigh, Hilton A. Green, Jeff Fahey, John Gavin and Joseph Stefano, plus an impressive number of Perkins' friends and relatives. His wife, Berry Berenson, however, did not participate. According to the book, Perkins contracted the AIDS virus around the time of Psycho III (1986) and kept the illness secret for six years until his death so he could keep working and not worry his friends and his two sons. The only person who knew he was sick was his wife Berry. Anthony officially found out that he was HIV positive when the tabloid "National Enquirer" wrote a story about it in 1990. Author Winecoff amended his book with a chapter about the death of Berry Perkins nine years after the death of her husband, as a passenger on board the ill-fated American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11th, 2001.
Was cremated and the superscription on his urn reads "Don't Fence Me In".
Was into psychoanalysis and was treated by Dr. Mildren Newman in New York starting in the early 1950s and continuing into the late 1970s.
During 1990, he got a blood sample taken due to a palsy on the side of his face. The "National Enquirer" illegally had Tony's blood sample tested for the AIDS virus, and found out that it was positive. Later that year, the "National Enquirer" wrote a story about his battle with AIDS, but the ironic thing was that he only found out that he was HIV positive from this article. He suspected that he probably was, but he never checked for it before the article was written.
Had agreed to voice the dentist on The Simpsons (1989) episode "Last Exit to Springfield" but died before work began. The role then went to Hank Azaria.
Was nominated twice for Broadway's Tony Award: in 1958, as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Look Homeward, Angel", and in 1960, as Best Actor (Musical) for "Greenwillow".
Shares his birthday with director Andrei Tarkovsky.
Was a huge admirer of Orson Welles, and was even planning on writing a book about him, but aborted the project in fear of upsetting his idol. Welles later said that he would have loved the idea.
His performance as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) is ranked #4 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Didn't have sex with a woman until he was 39 years old. He lost his virginity - as People magazine worded it - to Victoria Principal in 1971.
Became an ordained minister and performed the marriage of director Ken Russell to his second wife, Vivian Jolly, in 1983.
Was a fan of Elvis Presley.
Had a Top 30 Billboard hit in 1957 with the single "Moonlight Swim".
Anthony Perkins campaigned at a rally for Governor Michael Dukakis in UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, the night before the U.S. presidential election of 1988 (Mon, 7 Nov 1988).
Was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport in 1984 for possession of eight grams of marijuana and three spots of LSD. In 1989 he was arrested again at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff for illegally importing 1.3 grams of marijuana.
He was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard; and for Motion Pictures at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
Both he and Dallas Buyers Club founder Ron Woodroof died of AIDS on September 12, 1992.
Along with Vera Miles and Virginia Gregg, he is one of only three actors to appear in both Psycho (1960) and Psycho II (1983).
Although he played Edward Binns' son in Lovin' Molly (1974), he was only sixteen years his junior in real life.
According to Tab Hunter's autobiography, Perkins and Hunter were in a relationship in the mid to late 1950s. He was also linked with Grover Dale, Alan Helms, Patrick Loiseau and Christopher Makos (per each of them), as well as many unconfirmed paramours reportedly including Erik Bruhn, Timmy Everett, Rudolf Nureyev, Teno Pollick and Stephen Sondheim. Perkins and Dale shared an apartment for 6 years.
The assassination of Martin Luther King & the U.S. release of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) happened on his 36th birthday.
Prior to playing his best remembered role as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), Perkins had been an innocuous, rather generic younger leading man, co-starring with the likes of Sophia Loren and Jane Fonda. After the release of Psycho, Perkins found romantic leading roles hard to come by, and eventually came to resent the impact his most famous film had on his career.
Tuesday Weld "bearded" for him when she was 15 and he was 27.
Passed away on the six-year anniversary of the release of Captain EO (1986).
Personal Quotes (19)
I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life.
[statement made shortly before his death, on why he was private about his battle with AIDS] I chose not to go public about this because, to misquote Casablanca (1942), I'm not much at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of one old actor don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
[part of his last letter, given to his sons after his death] Boys, don't try to find a woman as wonderful as your mother to marry because if you do, you'll stay single your whole lives.
[on playing Norman Bates in Psycho (1960)] Not many people know this, but I was in New York rehearsing for a play [Frank Loesser's "Greenwillow"] when the shower scene was filmed in Hollywood. It is rather strange to go through life being identified with this sequence knowing that it was my double. Actually, the first time I saw Psycho and that shower scene was at the studio. I found it really scary. I was just as frightened as anybody else. Working on the picture, though, was one of the happiest filming experiences of my life. We had fun making it - never realizing the impact it would have.
I have a lot of affection for Norman Bates and a lot of sympathy. So does the audience, I think. He's not just a monster. He's tortured. The real secret of the Psycho movies is that they're tragedies first and horror movies second.
The violence in the Psycho movies is born out of plot, passion and character... Don't just dispatch people by six to the reel and say it's entertainment.
[on playing Norman Bates and the Psycho movies] I think it's my favorite role as well. So many thousands of people have come up to me on the street and in hotel lobbies and in department stores and have shared their experiences of seeing the films with me. It's always been with the greatest amount of pleasure that they've done so. They've told me stories about the dates they had with their future wives, and they've told me stories about sneaking out of the bathroom window and seeing it against their parents orders - and many stories like that, which have imprinted it into their minds. Always with a feeling of having been entertained and having been taken in by the story and having a good time. Of course, I enjoy that.
[on playing Norman Bates] It is the Hamlet of horror roles, and you can never quite get enough of playing Norman Bates. It's always interesting.
[on Norman Bates] I do have affection for Norman as a person. He does the best he can out of the diminished circumstances with which his personality stranded him, and Norman's childhood was difficult and traumatic. Norman is, at heart, a benevolent soul, with a dark side, but Norman's conscious mind is always on the positive things in life.
[on dating Victoria Principal] It was a case of spontaneous combustion. I tried everything I could think of, because I thought I might never get another chance.
Hitchcock thought of Psycho (1960) as a comedy. When it first came out, it was greeted with screams of laughter. People laughed all the way through, so much so that he declared it was the first time he had ever been outthought by an audience. He knew it was going to be funny, but he didn't realize it was going to be that funny.
I'd grown up almost exclusively in female company. Males seemed rough and frightening.
[on his acting] I was always very keen. I would do anything they asked of me.
[on his mother] Just a strong-willed, dominant, New England kind of woman. She controlled everything about my life, including my thoughts and feelings. "Finish your homework. Put your toys away. Take a bath now. Where are you going? What are you reading? Why are you doing that?" She felt she was taking responsibility, but she was really taking control.
Women's liberation has liberated me too.
[on his wife] I look at women closely - they fascinate me. But we've been together 11 years now and I've never seen another woman I could love as much as I love Berry.
Haven't bought a stitch of clothing in the last 15 years. I just keep what they give me to wear in my pictures.
I had wild fantasies, but my erotic experience was mostly solitary. Along the way I'd had homosexual encounters, but that kind of sex always felt unreal to me and unsatisfying. And I had never had sex with a woman-the very thought of it terrified me.
[on typecasting] It was frustrating. I had plenty of offers, but not for the lighter roles, the comedy roles I had always felt would be the main strength of my career. Even today, I don't get as many of those offers as I'd like.
Salary (2)
| Psycho (1960) | $40,000 |
| Edge of Sanity (1989) | $666,000 . |
