Anthony Perkins
American actor (1932–1992) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor, director, and singer. He is most notable for the role of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller Psycho, which made him an influential figure in pop culture and the realm of horror films.
This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (April 2023) |
Anthony Perkins | |
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Born | (1932-04-04)April 4, 1932 New York City, U.S. |
Died | September 12, 1992(1992-09-12) (aged 60) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Alma mater | Columbia University |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1953–1992 |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | |
Partner(s) | Tab Hunter (1955–1959) Grover Dale (1964–1971) |
Children | |
Parent |
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Born in New York City, Perkins got his start as an adolescent in summer stock programs, although he acted in films before his time on Broadway. His first film, The Actress, co-starring Spencer Tracy and Jean Simmons and directed by George Cukor, was a disappointment aside from winning an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, prompting Perkins to return to theatre. He made his Broadway debut in the Elia Kazan-directed Tea and Sympathy (1953), in which he played Tom Lee, a "sissy" cured by the right woman. He was praised for the role and after it closed, he turned to Hollywood once more, starring in Friendly Persuasion (1956) with Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire, which earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best New Actor of the Year and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film led to Perkins' seven-year, semi-exclusive contract with Paramount Pictures, where he was their last matinee idol.
In 1957, Perkins went on to appear in Fear Strikes Out. Paramount was keen to heterosexualize Perkins' image, leading to a string of romantic roles alongside Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, and Shirley MacLaine. He was able to land an occasional serious role, such as in the Broadway production Look Homeward, Angel, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award, and the 1959 film On the Beach with Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, and Ava Gardner. Although he was cast once again as a romantic lead in Jane Fonda's film debut, Tall Story, he was shortly thereafter cast as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), which established him as a horror icon and earned him a Bambi Award nomination for Best Actor, as well as a nomination and win for the International Board of Motion Picture Reviewers Award for Best Actor. Because his work with Hitchcock led to his being typecast, Perkins bought himself out of his contact with Paramount and moved to France, where he made his European film debut with Goodbye Again (1961). The film earned him a Best Actor Bravo Otto nomination and his second career Bambi Award nomination. He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and a David di Donatello Award for Best Actor for the role.
After appearing in European films featuring Sophia Loren, Orson Welles, Melina Mercouri, and Brigitte Bardot, Perkins returned to the U.S. in 1968, with a role in Pretty Poison, co-starring Tuesday Weld, his first American film in eight years. In the film's wake, he starred in commercially and critically successful films including Catch-22 (1970), Play It as It Lays (1972), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and Mahogany (1975).
Around the same time, Perkins decided to undergo conversion therapy, a pseudoscientific method of "changing" sexual orientation. He married Berry Berenson in 1973. He reprised his role as Norman Bates in Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986) and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990). The third installment in the anthology earned him a Best Actor Saturn Award nomination. His last film was In the Deep Woods, a television film broadcast a month after his death in September 1992 from AIDS-related causes.
Before his father's death, 1932–1937
Anthony Perkins was born April 4, 1932, in Manhattan, New York, the son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins (1892–1937) and his wife, Janet Esselstyn (née Rane; 1894–1979).[1] His paternal great-grandfather was the wood engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony.[2] Perkins was also a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland, Myles Standish and William Brewster, as well as colonist Roger Conant. Through an entirely paternal line, he was descended from John Perkins, who arrived in Boston from England in 1630 as part of the Puritan migration to New England.
Throughout his early years, Perkins did not see much of his father, who was busy in a variety of roles, the most prominent of which was his supporting role in the original motion picture adaptation of Scarface, released the year Perkins was born. Perkins' only fond memories of his father came from a 1937 vacation to Fire Island, though they spent little time together on the trip.[3] The Perkins family hired a French nanny, Jeanne, to look after their son, leading to Perkins fluency in French, which proved useful years later.[4]
Between his father's absences, Perkins was surrounded by females, the most influential of which was his mother. "I became abnormally close to my mother," Perkins recalled to People in 1983, "and whenever my father came home I was jealous. It was the Oedipal thing in a pronounced form, I loved him but I also wanted him to be dead so I could have her all to myself."[5] On September 21, 1937, Osgood Perkins died of a heart attack, just after the successful opening night of his newest play, Susan and God.[6] His father's death caused Perkins to feel intense guilt. "I was horrified," he said years later. "I assumed that my wanting him to be dead had actually killed him. I prayed and prayed for my father to come back. I remember long nights of crying in bed. For years I nursed the hope that he wasn't really dead. Because I'd see him on film, it was as if he were still alive. He became a mythic being to me, to be dreaded and appeased."[5]
After his father's death, 1937–1947
After his father's death, Perkins was once again surrounded entirely by women. A consistent female companion in Perkins' life was burgeoning playwright Michaela O'Harra, whom his mother had taken a liking to. Perkins's childhood friend, John Kerr, recalled the relationship between O'Harra and Perkins' mother: "My mother said–I don't know if she used the word lesbian ... but that was just [what it felt like] to me: 'Oh, they're having a lesbian relationship.' You know, something like that." Although her sexuality has been disputed, it is widely agreed that Perkins's mother was not heterosexual.[7][8] It was also during that time that Perkins's mother began to sexually abuse him. "She was constantly touching me and caressing me. Not realizing what effect she was having, she would touch me all over, even stroking the inside of my thighs right up to my crotch." The behavior continued into his adulthood.[5]
In 1942, when Perkins was ten, the family moved to Boston. Due to her connections in the theatre industry, his mother was able to gain a position at the nearby American Theatre Wing's Boston Stage Door Canteen. She managed much of the canteen's activities, and the job gave the pair money to live on.[9] On days when she was busy, Perkins was sent to stay with his grandmother.[10] Due his mother's neglect, Perkins began to rebel at the overcrowded public school he was attending, and was labelled a "gifted drifter". To quell his rebellious habits, his mother shipped him to Brooks School,[11] forty minutes outside of Boston. The placement was disastrous: Perkins's childhood habit of stuttering returned again, and he shied away from any athletic pursuits. His mother, however, forced him into playing baseball. It was the first time in his life that Perkins was singled out,[12] and the resulting pressure led to long absences from school during his second year after suffering back-to-back cases of scarlet fever. Subsequently, Perkins sank to the bottom of his class.[13] He soon made a deal with his mother that if he got good grades, she would allow him to return to Boston the next year for schooling. That year, Perkins ranked in the top third of his class. His headmaster commented: "Tony Perkins is considerably more mature than the rest of his contemporaries, and is impatient with many of their schoolboy interests." Perkins was allowed to transfer.[13]
Summer stock, 1947–1950
As he matured, Perkins' lack of a father began to weigh on him. "As Tony grew older and saw other boys with their fathers," his mother remembered, "he badly missed his own father. And the only identification he could have with his father was through theater ... I began to realize that he was acquiring an unusual interest in [performing] ... A friend was running a summer stock company, and I approached him to ask whether Tony might play some small parts",[14] launching Perkins' adolescent summer stock career. At Perkins' first summer stock company, Brattleboro Summer Theater in Vermont, he played some minor parts in Junior Miss, Kiss and Tell, and George Washington Slept Here, and ran the box office, where he earned $25 a week and an Equity card.[15]
Keeping her word, the following year, his mother sent him to Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, an all-boys school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[16] Smaller class sizes caused Perkins to stand out, earning him a reputation as the class magician and pianist.[17] He was renowned for his lisping Roddy McDowall impression, which he often performed in the halls between classes.[18]
In 1948, Perkins returned to summer stock with a different company. His mother had found a job as a manager for the Robin Hood Theatre in Arden, Delaware, where Perkins once again ran the box office and earned stage experience.[19] His most memorable performance was in Sarah Simple, in which he played a near-sighted twin. It was here that Perkins met Charles Williamson, the first boy he ever developed a crush on.[20] The following year, Perkins joined the varsity tennis team and the glee club at his school, and was made co-literary editor of the school newspaper, The Spectator, to which he contributed occasional articles.[21] Around this time, once again singled out as "the other", Perkins began to question his sexuality.[22]
College, 1950–1953
Around the time Perkins's sexuality began to burgeon, many of his fellow students were thinking about college. Many Browne & Nicholas alumni were looking forward to a future at Harvard University, and Perkins, whose grades were too low to qualify, was the only student persuaded to attend Rollins College in Florida, after a representative toured the school.[22] However, that did not keep him from returning to Delaware that summer, where he once again worked at the Robin Hood which had become one of the most prosperous and important summer stock programs in the country. It was there that he grew reacquainted with old friend Charles Williamson, going out to lunch and swimming with him during breaks.[23] It was at that time that Perkins developed a crush on Williamson, who recalled: "He never expressed his homosexuality during the summer of 1950. He did not act on it at all. At the time, I was very much in the closet and repressed. We both shared that."[24] It was also around that time that Perkins played Fred Whitmarsh in Years Ago, a role that he performed again just a few years later in the screen adaptation.[25]
Perkins did not experience similar camaraderie at Rollins College that fall. Known as a Christian all-American school, Rollins College was nestled in the heart of Florida, and Perkins had arrived just after Congress had named homosexuals and Communists enemies of equal danger.[26] There were a few exceptions: Fred Rogers, who graduated from the college the following year, let Perkins use his piano, something he greatly appreciated.[27] Perkins appeared in numerous stage productions at the school and moved around fraternities constantly, something that got on the nerves of his mother. It was at Rollins that Perkins reportedly first started experimenting with his sexuality with other men.[28]
Shortly after Perkins's arrival, a large group of homosexual students, many of whom were Perkins's friends, were expelled from Rollins and even arrested, after a fellow student had beaten one of them.[29] However, due to Perkins's connections with the theater professor, he was spared. That only led to high levels of tension between him and the rest of the student body, who knew of Perkins's sexuality.[30] As a result, Perkins transferred to the elite Columbia University.[31]