“I just got a little fed up. I found it hard to believe people couldn’t remember any other films I’d ever done.”

Anthony Perkins in an interview with Robert Horton for The Herald, 1986

Equus (1975/1977)

Those of you who have paid attention might have some questions by now. What exactly did the young buck do between 1964 and 1975? Pick up twinks in tiny speedos by the French Rivera? Why is this called Anthony Perkins in 10½ Movies? What measure is half a movie? Why are there two years given for Equus? What is Equus?

Rest easy, my child. The answer to these questions is theatre. As mentioned in part I, Perkins had started his career on the theatre stage and had always remained committed to the art form. Between 1962 and 1973, he tended to choose movies for himself which had three things in common: They held high artistic merit to him, audiences were seldom as impressed as he was by them, and these projects tended to have a troubled production and often arrived late to the cinemas. Take, for instance, his first collaboration with Claude Chabrol, The Champagne Murders (1967): Conceptually interesting? Sure. Made by an absolute pro? You betcha. Co-starring certified dynamite like Maurice Ronet and Stéphane Audran? Ping ping ping. Very hard to enjoy? Sadly, yes.

In between hiatuses and releases, Perkins consistently managed to squish one or two plays in between, shuttling between the U.S. and Europe. While this meant that interest in his movie career was steadily decreasing, he did earn the admiration of the theatre crowd. His previously mentioned close friendship with Stephen Sondheim began on set of the 1966 ABC-TV-production Evening Primrose. It had given him the opportunity to showcase what most of his film projects wouldn’t: His talent for singing and his comedic timing. 

So when he was asked to appear in the play Equus, written by already renowned Peter Schaffer, to him, it was a golden opportunity his work on screen seldom afforded him. He was to play one Dr. Dysart, a psychiatrist tasked with treating an abnormal teenager called Alan. How abnormal is Alan? He just blinded six horses because he is sexually attracted to horses. You know, light evening material.

Equus is often read as an allegory for the clinical treatment of queerness. It must have hit pretty close to Perkins, who had never been entirely d’accord with his sexuality and who had been in constant therapy since the late 50s. He also wasn’t happy about his relationship with women. Both issues were something he hoped to resolve with therapist Mildred Newman, who had achieved national fame with her self-help book How to Be Your Own Best Friend. He became her patient in 1969. The diagnostic process was swift: Perkins, Newman attested, wasn’t so much gay as merely afraid of women. Her prescription was a mixture of one-on-one and electroshop therapy.

His partner Gorver Dale, it turns out, was also Newman’s patient (if that strikes you as unethical, it is) and would you look at that, he received the same diagnosis. In fact, most queer men walking through Newman’s door were by her judgement a confused secret straight, which says more about her attitude towards homosexuality than it does about Perkins. Stephen Sondheim, an unapologetic and iconic queen, openly called her treatments criminal. Dale split amicably from Perkins in 1971, got married and fathered actor James Badge Dale of 24 and The Pacific-fame (no, really, look it up). He holds her in high esteem to this day.

In 1973, Perkins, now 41, met photographer Berry Berenson. She was 25, but already quite known in the art scene and she was beautiful, had a cute laugh and a warm personality. According to the couple, it was love at first sight. Within weeks, Berenson had left her fiancé for Perkins and they had moved in together. Within months, they were married in their backyard garden, Berenson three months pregnant. When Perkins was booked for Equus in 1975, backstage, he juggled his one year old son, Oz, in his arms. 

Stephen Farber and Marc Green cite Perkins in their book Hollywood on the Couch (1993, p. 285) accordingly: 

“I owe the second half of my life to the years I spent in Mildreds office.”.

And he didn’t just mean his family which, as multiple co-stars and extras would attest over the years, made him, the restless and rootless, immensely happy. Since the years of being hunted by the papers for comments about his personal life and his hide-and-seek-games were over, he hoped that the focus could return where it ought to be: His career.

Maybe Equus wasn’t the best idea, since Perkins was put in thick rimmed glasses, a gigantic suit and overall seemed to embody Norman Bates during a midlife crisis, playing in front of homoerotic horseplay. Trouble is, he was also excellent in that role. 

“I saw Anthony Perkins in “Equus” around 1975. It was an amazing performance. I remember my knees were weak when I stood up at the end of the show. His performance as the therapist to that boy was incredible. Can’t remember who else was in the cast, but I’m still thinking about Anthony Perkins almost 50 years later.”

– Commenter @brianobrien7983 on Matt Baume’s video essay Psycho’s Norman Bates & the Hidden Life on Anthony Perkins

Yes, much prestige was to be gained and Perkins even got better reviews than the Anthony who had debuted the role (it was the Hopkins one, many years shy of the famous farva-bean-and-chianti-monologue).

This is where the encouraging part of the Equus-tale ends, because by 1977, when Sidney Lumet set out to adapt the play for the big screen, Perkins wasn’t picked to reprise his Dysart. No, that fell on Richard Burton, quite far from the height of his career and marked by alcoholism. Because the harsh truth was: Even a third-tier Burton carried more leading star-power than a top-tier Perkins did. The former had filled in for the latter a couple of times on stage, always before an euphoric audience. So even though Lumet evidently liked working with Perkins (Lovin’ Molly and Murder on the Orient Express, both 1974, attest to this), producers and audiences clearly had their eyes elsewhere.

This was, of course, a total misjudgement. Burton makes an honourable effort, but he just doesn’t bring the same neurosis and vulnerability that was Perkins’ core speciality. Without it, Dr. Dysart’s passionate involvement and later overidentification with his patient doesn’t quite land the same.

This injustice notwithstanding, Perkins took note and went on the lookout for his new niche.

Remember My Name (1978)

So, what do? Even as a devoted father, Perkins enjoyed having a bit of a career on the side, but he certainly wasn’t ready to tread the same muddy, commercial waters he had known with Paramount in the 50s. There was still terrific cinema being made in Europe, and finally, America seemed to catch up! New Hollywood with the ugliness of The French Connection and the emotional honesty of The Graduate was in full swing, and until he had earned back his credentials as a leading man, meaty supporting parts would do. And no one but indie-darling Robert Altman (3 Women) was to hand him that meat.

The drama Remember My Name wasn’t a directorial effort by Altman, he was the producer. No, lesser known Alan Rudolph sat in that chair, but on the bright side, he intentionally and passionately wanted Perkins, because his wife had seen Equus and we can assume she was as taken by him as brianobrien7983. 

The thespian of our hearts was to play a construction worker whose past catches up to him. In the shape of Emily (played absolutely brilliantly by Geraldine Chaplin). She has just gotten out of prison and starts following Perkins’ Neil Curry around. Little by little, we learn about her motivations and what put her in prison to begin with. Mostly, we observe her like an Iguana in a terrarium.

But Neil isn’t the only one having to look over his shoulder: His wife Barbara, caught between doubt, ennui and fear, is played by none other than real-life wife Berry Berenson.

Berenson’s foray into the acting game was as scrutinized by onlookers as the couple’s relationship. Many, like longtime friend Venetia Stevenson, were appalled, since they were convinced that Perkins was lying to himself and his wife. And remember Berenson’s jilted fiancé? His name was Richard Bernstein, and he swore up and down that he informed Berenson of her new lover’s sexual orientation (as fate would have it, Bernstein was gay himself. The woman knew how to pick ‘em.). She seemed to harbor no doubts about Perkins’ commitment to her. And she wasn’t totally alone: Of all people, his ex Tab Hunter was cautiously optimistic. So while they weren’t swimming in a pool of naysayers, Berenson still had somewhat of a reputation as a wallflower, especially since her older sister was glamorous top model Marisa Berenson. Thus, playing a supporting part next to her husband seemed a bit attention-seeking.

Of course, this perspective doesn’t even remotely do Berry Berenson justice. First of all, none of us would look great if we were constantly compared to our famous sibling. Secondly, by accounts of those who loved her, she was not at all a meek, naive woman being manipulated by an older queer man. Her son Elvis fondly recalled her trying to contact Otis Redding in a seance and being overall fun-loving, outgoing and just very cool. Berenson herself maintained that she had actively pursued Perkins. 

Back when Perkins was still Paramount’s sweetheart and sang corny ballads, a tweenaged Berenson had glued pictures of him in her diary, keeping her warm in the coldness of her Swiss elite boarding school. She had loved this man since she was twelve. Whatever others had to say about them, the couple’s devotion to one another remained palpable.

And Perkins’ support for his wife’s ambitions were part of a broader pattern of behaviours: Feminism was very en vogue since the start of the 70s. And he was eager to be a part of the movement. In the previously mentioned People-interview, he proudly proclaimed “Feminism has liberated me, too!” (the last time me too meant something nice in Feminist discourse) and he stressed that he and Berenson took equal part in all matters child-rearing. She had picked the elegant hyphenated “Berenson-Perkins” as her legal name following their wedding. Neither of these things had become too en vogue yet, if ever. 

As far back as 1958, Perkins had shown true allyship by demanding equal pay for his The Matchmaker co-star Shirley MacLaine, who earned a whopping 50,000$ less than him. This act is made all the more poignant by the fact that he liked neither the movie nor MacLaine – once again, please refer back to your study notes and recall that he had to dispel rumors of watering her like a neglected houseplant in part I. It’s not surprising that his reputation as a director’s favourite was far eclipsed by his reputation as the thinking actress’ favourite screen partner.

And projects like First You Cry (1978), a TV movie chronicling the true story of a journalist’s fight against breast cancer, and Mahogany (1975), a rags-to-riches-vehicle, stand to prove: Anthony Perkins was always ready and eager to step aside and let the performance of a leading lady shine. In these cases, we’re speaking about legends like Mary Tyler Moore and Diana Ross, respectively. And in the latter case, he was even able to address a subject he was equally passionate about: Race politics. In the 1960s, he had walked right behind Martin Luther King Jr. to Selma, campaigning for the rights of African-Americans. In Mahogany, he gets to play a fashion photographer who also serves as the personification of White fetishization.

While he threw himself into that role confidently, skin-tight jeans and bucketloads of homosexual subtext included, he found himself genuinely troubled by Remember My Name’s Neil Curry. Producer Altman remembered it thus:

„[…] I think the blue-collar aspect of it worried him. I told him, ‘You don’t have to be born with a hammer in your hand to take on that situation. This guy’s got a strange past.‘”

(as cited in Split Image, p. 373)

At times, Perkins considered himself so terribly miscast he threatened to quit. One’s bound to agree with him if a construction worker was the character’s genuine identity, but once his secret is revealed, Perkins makes perfect sense in the role. And as it often happened, he got some of the best lines (“They make a poor Zombie here!”) and he seems all too aware that his main job is complimenting Chaplin’s terrific performance.

This certainly doesn’t make Remember My Name a good reference point for Anthony Perkins’ repertoire. He only marginally stands out in an excellent cast (also featuring baby Jeff Goldblum!). His potential for ensemble pieces had already been used very effectively by Mike Nichols in Catch-22 (1970), and maybe the path of the character actor would have proven more fruitful. 

Psycho II & Psycho III (1983 & 1986)

Oh, the 1980s. The decade prior, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist had highlighted horror movies as a cinematic mass event, with screenings much in the spirit of Psycho. John Carpenter’s Halloween gifted the Slasher its wings. After the sexual liberation and the rise of the sleazy-slick Italian Giallo genre, naked skin was now more than allowed. It had been only a matter of time until Universal would take a peek into its (undoubtedly very full) property-drawer and get talking about a Psycho-revival.

Financially, Perkins was doing a-okay, even if he was doing mediocre TV projects (among others a British adaptation of Les Miserables in which he played a very passable Javert). He hadn’t played in the top billing-sphere for quite some time. He was also in that uncomfortable position in which people called him a has-been, but the papers were still nosy enough to scold him over an arrest for possession of Marihuana. At least all other possible scandals were eclipsed by his marriage. If you look at it from that perspective, his life was running smooth as melting butter and he could have played many a theatre stage to rave reviews.

But maybe this setting reminded him too much of the Equus-debacle to fully dedicate himself to a stage career. Maybe he wanted his sons to see their dad as the big star he had once been. Maybe he thought to himself “They’re gonna do it anyway, at least I could see to it that they do it well.”. And leaving Norman to a nutter like Christopher Walken (who was the prime contender)? No, sir. 

Anyhow, that’s how Psycho was followed up by Psycho II, 23 years later. Vera Miles also returned as Lila Crane, but the female leading part fell to a young, relatively unknown 22-year-old actress called Meg Tilly, who earned Perkins’ ire in no time. She had grown up without a television (a curious origin story, considering her profession) and didn’t understand why everybody on set made such a huge fuss about her co-star. From his side of the fence, he probably really enjoyed being treated like a proper movie star for the first time in a while and felt that Tilly was raining on his parade. She is one of the few people who can give negative testimony about working with Perkins. If he got a base amount of respect, the other party was generously showered with praise, encouragement and jokes. And the cast and crew had good reason to be in high spirits: The script, penned by Tom Holland (eventual director of Fright Night, not Spider-Man) was shaping up to be a pretty darn decent successor.

Because Psycho II remembers what made the original so captivating: The dual nature of Norman Bates. We meet him again in a sombre courtroom setting. More than 20 years have passed since his arrest and the court debates whether he is ready to be released after an undoubtedly heroic amount of therapy sessions. He says aye, his lawyers say aye, the judge says aye, Lila Crane, a woman turned bitter and cold, says nay. Nevertheless, Norman is sent back home, accompanied by a well-meaning psychologist (Robert Loggia). And Norman really does try hard not to fall victim to Mother’s call again. As such, he leaves running the Motel to a slimy new manager (Dennis Franz) and tries his luck working in a diner’s kitchen instead. But when a pretty, open-minded waitress colleague of his (Meg Tilly) is in need of a place to stay and mysterious messages start springing up like daisies on his dead front lawn, Norman’s psyche seems in peril once more…

Perkins still plays Norman with a lot of boy-next-door-charm, but adds enough self-awareness to make the character safely sympathetic. The chemistry with Tilly is doing its magic (on screen, at least) and Psycho II delivers some spectacular twists right between “as piercing as a knife in the shower” and “as far out of the window as Mother Bates’ rotting corpse”. 

Of course, the appeal doesn’t lie in coherent storytelling or daring original direction. Psycho II has no claim for either. No, the movie manages to create more than a base amount of joy for its viewership by the fact that it looks, feels and plays like a Psycho-Fanfiction. If AO3 had existed in 1983, some young scribe could have levelled accusations of plagiarism upon Holland, because this baby is so full of tropes it makes you positively giddy. And that really is the heart of the matter: Fanfic-fanfare may be decried, but it is a genre from fans and for fans. Psycho II was clearly written by someone who loves the original, but doesn’t just wanna rip it off, and it caters to people who love Psycho and have patiently waited 20 years for more.

Accordingly, Psycho II became a surprise smash hit in the busy-and-booked summer of ‘83, persevering against fierce competition like Return of the Jedi, Flashdance, Risky Business and Stayin’ Alive. For a brief, beautiful moment in time, Perkins was a matinee idol once more. He did the whole talk show circuit and served as guest of honor for special screenings, where he was celebrated like 1962 never passed. So it is little surprise that he instantly said yes when Universal called three years later to play Norman a third time – especially since the role of director came attached.

Perkins had already taken first baby steps in that direction as a theatre director for Star-Sprangled Girl and Steambath. He also had a crystal-clear vision what he wanted this project to look like: Psycho III would look and feel like Blood Simple, the debut by a pair of brothers from Minnesota by the names of Joel and Ethan Coen. This influence would become palpable in the way colourful lighting works against shabby interiors, for this time, bright neon illuminates the aged cabins of Bates Motel.

Oz Perkins describes Psycho III in Queer for Fear as a “dirty movie”. With lots of affection, it needs’t be remarked. Of course he had been brought along to set, and even as a youngster his father’s difficult relationship with sexuality hadn’t gone unnoticed. Or how his father looked at Jeff Fahey, who plays a young drifter called Duane. There’s also Diana Scarwid’s part as this installment’s leading lady for Norman, a pretty and pretty suicidal nun, which invariably invokes the treasured Nunsploitation-genre.

If Psycho II has traces of fanfiction, Psycho III is fanfiction peanut butter. It would be a reach to describe the result as finger-licking good, though. Perkins undoubtedly put a lot of love, effort and know-how into the optics: Duane’s motel room, adorned with your raunchiest dollar store softcore porn is a great example, and if you’re in it for blood and guts, you, the humble viewer, will be rewarded with a terrific death scene in a telephone booth that can claim Dario Argento as its long-lost surrogate father. But where it matters most, and that’s always the story and its characters, the movie lacks tempo and credibility. And for that we do have to point at Anthony Perkins, lead actor. As great as a job he does behind the camera, he is barely there in front of it. Psycho III is the series’ first installment that features a pretty monotone Norman who seems more like a caricature of Perkins’ past performances.

That makes the movie only slightly less entertaining, but still tangibly less nourishing than its predecessors. If Psycho is a cake homemade by your grandma (delicious, singularly spectacular, a stroke of genius), Psycho II is your own attempt at re-creating the recipe (different, but surprisingly well done) and Psycho III is what you get at the bakery (looks great and technically firm, but ultimately so-so).

No words shall be wasted on the fourth installment of the Psycho-franchise. Maybe there would’ve been something to talk about if Perkins could’ve acquired Pretty Poison-director Noel Black to step into the director’s chair. As it stands, the last chapter of our story must be found outside of Bates Motel.

Crimes of Passion (1984)

Squeezed in between his new adventures as Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins had another hot offer come in. British director and enfant terrible Ken Russell sought to make a movie about a fashion designer who leads a double life as a prostitute. She falls in love with a client and gets stalked by a crazy priest.

Believe it or not, but contrasted with Russell’s projects past, present and future, that idea is downright tame. In 1971, he had caused a real hysteria for the British censorship board with The Devils. He had exhausted the limits of the cinematic medium with music pictures like Listomania and Tommy (both 1975). Never once did Ken Russell pitch a concept that would allow his producers to find peaceful sleep. If you want a taste, take this scene from his biopic about Gustav Mahler. It perfectly illustrates what Ken Russell was all about: Everything’s allowed, as long as it’s provocative and loud. 

Recently, Russell had landed a hit with Altered States (1980), which had been surprisingly popular with audiences and critics who liked its cryptic and raw nature. Then again, it was based on a script by Paddy Chayefsky (Network, Marty). If you adapt late-stage Chayefsky and critics don’t suck your dick (pardon my German), that is entirely on you. Anyhow, for Crimes of Passion (which has the much better German title China Blue – bei Tag und bei Nacht/ transl. China Blue – Day and Night), he didn’t have to ask Perkins twice. 

Kathleen Turner, of Body Heat (1981)-fame, was to play the lady of the night called China Blue. Relative unknown John Laughlin was cast as amateur sleuth, client and later lover Bob Grady. Leaving the part of the naughty Father to Perkins, which he was all too happy about. Once more, he was the director’s darling simply by virtue of wanting the exact same things as Russell. The script penned by Barry Sandler was all about human relationships, but both director and star envisioned a more captivating game of cat-and-mouse between China Blue and Reverend Shayne. Especially the portrayal of frigid American hypocrisy piqued Perkins’ interest. He, who had been so brutally shaped by America’s sexual norms, wanted to have his revenge now – by hitting it over the head with a silver suitcase full of dildos. 

If there is any talk about Anthony Perkins’ later career at all, people mostly seem to opine two things: That he only played shallow imitations of his famous Psycho-role and that he didn’t put a lot of effort into them. The first one contains a salty pinch of truth, the second one doesn’t. He sweats and screams with the utmost passion in, well, Crimes of Passion, bible and cocaine in hand, and he plays exactly as maximalist as Russell undoubtedly intended. If this movie was a child, it had been ruined at conception, because Russell and Perkins had overruled script writer Sandler, who had been completely right: The strengths of China Blue’s story lie within the exorcism of intimacy and monogamy. It’s a shame there’s too little of that in the final product, even if Crimes of Passion is a visual candy factory. You’ll find many of those in Russell’s filmography. 

You’ll find a lot of the same problems here as in other Russells, too: Too much provocative screeching and blasphemous naughtyness will get tiring sooner or later, and in this case, it’s pretty soon. Reverend Shayne is what we in expert circles call ‘a bit much’. But the character and Perkins’ performance gain a lot of appeal if you don’t take them literally, but as a metaphorical personification of China Blue’s struggle with herself. 

Sadly, Crimes of Passion is a clear marker for Perkins’ personal downward spiral: His health was visibly deteriorating. For decades, he had been on a string of strict diets and worked out excessively in between takes; By now, he had become rail thin. Kathleen Turner didn’t remember their shared days on set fondly:

“I have always thought Crimes of Passion was a very powerful film – some of my best work I think. Not an easy job though. Antony Perkins I can say because it was common knowledge on set was doing god knows what drugs and Ken at that time was still drinking heavily. So that created difficulties that didn’t need to have been there. I walked into Ken’s trailer at 6 o’clock in the morning and was asked if I wanted a glass of wine. No thank you, Ken.”

– in a Q&A for The Guardian, 2014

By her assertion, the sweating and hysterics were also less of a thespian effort and more of a side effect of the benzyl nitrate she allegedly saw him hoovering in like a vacuum before each take. Her account matches up with loads of others from that era. 

One explanation for this steady increase in drug use was the disappointment not only regarding his acting career, but his budding directorial one: Soon thereafter, Psycho III would meet pretty lukewarm reception. Perkins was aware that a spot behind the camera would have been an asset in light of his fading looks. We are, of course, speaking in Hollywood terms; For a man in his late 50s, he still looked great, but the tabloids had run gossip about his body ever since he had started approaching his naughty forties. For someone as image-conscious as him, the pressure was way up. And like a lot of us tend to do when we feel close to the boiling point, he sought safety on reliable ground. No more big experiments, no more fancy-pants art projects. B-horror-schlock was a genre that would always welcome him with open arms, appreciative fans and a steady paycheck. Which doesn’t mean that it was all terrible – as late as 1988, Perkins was doing wonderful and self-satirizing work in a delightful film called Destroyer, which ought to be talked about more one day, but not today. 

Overall, he wasn’t given much quality to work with. More notable entries into his IMDb-page include the Jekyll-and-Hyde-on-coke-adaptation Edge of Sanity (1989), which has a decent fanbase given its silly approach, or A Demon in My View (1991), which was just plain bad. Nevertheless, it gives us opportunity to register that nothing is black and white (well, Psycho is, but you catch my drift); Michael Simkins, who had a bit part in the film, remembered working with Perkins thus:

“[…] despite his frailty and air of innate sadness, he bore the ignominy of this parody of a Psycho with quiet dignity, giving each scene his best effort, never complaining, never talking about the old days, and happy to chat with the other actors. In return, all he asked was that nobody talked about how good he had been in Psycho. It was the least we could do in return for his grace and fortitude.”

– taken from Simkins’ contribution for The Guardian, 2002

Those cheap cashgrab-projects had another advantage: They kept him insured.

What follows now is heavily contested. The first story given is that Perkins went to have a mole on his face removed, unexpectedly needed a blood transfusion, and got a bad batch. It happened frequently at the time. One story said that a nurse got his blood tested without his permission and leaked his status to the tabloids. That story also said that Perkins learned that he had caught HIV in the supermarket, browsing the newsstand.

It isn’t true. Once again, with refreshing honesty, Oz Perkins refutes these claims in Queer for Fear. Those were lies his mother told, they all told, to protect the unpatriarchical patriarch of the family. Because they loved him, and they wanted to shield him from the unavoidable tsunami of gossip. Especially since Rock Hudson, who had stolen a Bambi from the elder Perkins once, had passed from AIDS in 1985, everybody was talking about the illness and who might have it. It would have been all too easy for the press to dig up his drug use, his visits to gay bars and his ongoing affairs with men. Maybe Perkins really got HIV through a bad blood transfusion, but most likely, he didn’t. It shouldn’t matter. But back then, it did.

We don’t know for sure what Berry Berenson knew or didn’t know about her husband. She probably was still a firm believer in what she told The New Yorker in 1977:

“I can’t imagine not viewing marriage as a lifelong thing […] To me, a marriage is like raising children —if you’re  willing to put in the energy, you can work it out.”

In times of crisis, the family stuck together. AIDS became the family secret. You can still find pictures the Berenson-Perkins family took for Hello! Magazine in celebration of Perkins’ 58th birthday, Berenson and his sons, only teenagers, clinging to him, all smiles, with the headline reading: “THE HAPPIEST OF FAMILY OCCASIONS DESPITE HURTFUL RUMOURS ABOUT HIS HEALTH”. Perkins was quoted: 

“I’m in excellent health and I try to keep it that way. Gaining weight would probably keep speculation at bay but I don’t believe in being heavy just to please people.”

Even if you never personally knew Perkins, even if you’ve got no skin in the game, looking at that cover feels like a punch to the chest. I don’t recommend it.

Aware that his days were numbered and in order to stay close to home, Perkins tried his hand at a sitcom. The Ghost Writer was clearly conceived as a send-up to The Addams Family but got axed after one pilot episode. It’s a bloody shame – once again, the actor proved how funny he could be on screen when given the opportunity, seldom afforded in a career spanning nearly 40 years.

On September 12th, 1992, Anthony Perkins died at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his loved ones. In a posthumous statement, he finally came clean about his AIDS-diagnosis and stated that he had learned a lot more about humanity through his illness than in the cutthroat Hollywood business. There was a fair amount of controversy. The L.A.-scene clutched its pearls – were those the words of an embittered man, still hung up over his early peak on his deathbed?

There was one thing Perkins certainly wasn’t bitter about at all. In one of his last messages to his sons, he advised them to not wait for a woman as great as their mother – they’d die waiting, unmarried.

Anthony Perkins – That’s Why.  

For the longest time, I didn’t know how I would answer the central question: Why Anthony Perkins?

And then I stumbled upon an interview actor James D’Arcy did in 2012. He played Perkins in a bit part in the film Hitchcock about, well, Hitchcock, but also about his genius wife Alma and the tumultuous making of Psycho. And then it hit me – from what D’Arcy says, it’s clear he mostly relies on Charles Winecoff’s biography Split Image. Can’t blame him, you’ll have noticed I’ve generously done that more than a few times while writing this article series. But then I went back to Wikipedia. Most, nearly all, sources trace back to Winecoff. And that comes at a price.

To be crystal clear: I’ve got no personal ire towards Winecoff. Why should I, never met the man. Split Image is clearly well written and researched and a huge labour of love, but I’m pretty sure not for Perkins. The book is full of demeaning comments about his career, his personal life, his looks and especially about his marriage. It is also full of numerous unsubstantiated, unnecessarily graphic details of Perkins’ sex life, so full in fact that I had to put down the book and blink during my Sunday readings on my favourite park bench. And being prudish has never been one of my many flaws. 

In most instances, these details feel, well, intimate, like something neither you nor I or anyone else in the world should be able to purchase for a few [insert currency]. There is one account that is not detailed enough: Accusations that Perkins sought the services of local child prostitutes while filming This Angry Age in Thailand in 1959.

These accusations may well be true. Perkins wouldn’t be the first seemingly kind man who abuses his power, even more so when his alleged victims were so disadvantaged and so unlikely to speak out against him. But Winecoff doesn’t treat it as seriously as this. He treats it like all the other gossip around that time of Perkins travelling the globe and fooling around with young men. But there is a world of difference between a ten year old Thai boy and a consenting 20 year old man in Greece or France or New York.

This narrative becomes especially unbalanced if you consider how Winecoff portrays the way Perkins spoke about the sexual abuse his mother inflicted on him (even though Perkins never put it that harshly). Those are framed as unbelievable and as a silly grab for attention. Sure, Winecoff found testimonials to cement this, but biographies aren’t works of neutral historytelling. They always are told from the perspective of their writer, with a narrative in mind and hand-picked sources to corroborate. 

All that bias makes its way into Wikipedia and into many more sources about Perkins. I’ll talk about my sources for this article series in a bit, but one documentary, produced by ARTE, felt oddly familiar in its approach. Do you want to guess which expert pops up, 10 minutes in? Why, it’s Charles Winecoff. It is always Charles Winecoff.

D’Arcy played Perkins accordingly in Hitchcock, very neurotic, the clear colours of a pansy. Wikipedia might have a larger entry for the actor now, but whoever worked on that also copied Winecoffs opinions about Perkins’ work. And those opinions are seldom favorable. It gets even worse when we cover private affairs.

What struck me as soon as I read the introduction to Split Image was the high level of Schadenfreude that creeped out of the pages. Winecoff describes how he briefly met Perkins in his later life, how closeted the latter seemed and how hilariously gay his outfit was. This anecdote screamed “Look at that pathetic fag, lying to himself with a straight marriage!”. As a queer person, I don’t know how you portray someone like that. I remember my years in the closet with shame and fear and guilt, and I avoid making judgement calls about other queer people like the plague. And, most importantly, I don’t know shit about Perkins.

Berry Berenson tragically died on 9/11 as a passenger on board of American Airlines Flight 11. Yes, her sons had to live through that as well. Oz and Elvis Perkins have shown remarkable composure despite it all. 

As mentioned, Oz Perkins has become a successful horror film director, Elvis Perkins is a musician. They work together a lot and they do good work. They talk about their parents from time to time, and modern attitudes towards the LGBTIQ+-community seem to help them tell amore complete version of their parents’ love story. And it is a love story. Berenson might not be able to talk about it any more, and even their sons don’t know Anthony Perkins’ deepest truths. Was he gay? Was he bisexual? Was Berenson a lucky exception? Who knows? Certainly not me, and I honestly doubt Perkins knew for sure. I’m pretty sure he loved her as much as she loved him though. Scroll back up to the interview they did together on how they met. The eyes never lie, Chico. Even if they belong to an Oscar-level-actor.

There is a lot of ambiguity and nuance in this world, and as people, we never know how to deal with it well. I think Perkins’ life and the readings of it is a prime example. Here, try it out: 

1. Conversion therapy is deplorable. It also doesn’t work.

2. You can find out that you’re bisexual after many years of living a happy gay life. (As a matter of fact, that happened to me. Bisexuality, it could happen to you!)

In the context of Perkins’ story, these sentences feel iffy. They shouldn’t hold places in the same life. And maybe they don’t, since we don’t know if 2 applies to him. The point is that reality is more complex than semantics and logic. Life is a universe. 

But I am still kinda dodging the question. Why Anthony Perkins? Because I can’t paint a complete picture of him either, but I wanted to paint a prettier one. Winecoff can paint his, that’s alright, that’s fine. But imagine dying and your eulogy is written by someone who couldn’t stand you, who thinks little of what you did with your life. Would you like that to be the final word on you? Anthony Perkins deserves more, I think. He spent the last 65 years in the shadow of a role Hitchcock bequeathed to him and 30 in a role assigned to him by one lone biographer. I’ve seen Perkins’ movies and heard his songs for myself. There was so much more to be found than Norman Bates.

Anthony Perkins deserves to be rediscovered by us. 

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I am heavily indebted to the following sources:

As much shit as I have talked about it, Split Image by Charles Winecoff is essential reading on Anthony Perkins – but its critical analysis should also be essential practice.

The documentaries Tab Hunter Confidential (The Film Collaborative), Queer for Fear (Hulu), Perkins, l’acteur derrière la porte (ARTE), Anthony Perkins: A Life in Shadows (A&E) and Psycho’s Norman Bates & The Hidden Life of Anthony Perkins by Matt Baume all approach their subject from different angles and it was a blast contrasting and comparing the perspectives on Perkins. I especially recommend the first two, as Oz Perkins’ and Tab Hunter’s tributes to him are really heartwarming and their candor is a gift.

I could not have persevered without and got valuable background information on some of Perkins’ more obscure projects from the following articles: Payback is a Bitch by Jeff Stafford, Ken Anderson’s takes on Remember My Name and Mahogany, Tuesday & Tony: Borderline Personalities by Rachel Walther and More Than Norman Bates: The Musical Career of Anthony Perkins by Xanthe Pajarillo. Walther and Pajarillo go into detail about two aspects I only touched on briefly, namely Perkins’ professional partnership with Tuesday Weld and his musical career. All of these works are wonderful and reminded me why writing is such a fun thing to pursue.

Lastly, a special shoutout to YouTube user Mercy. They seem to have dedicated themselves to upload clips of a wide array of Perkins’ filmography over the last few weeks, and as per usual when others work, I yield rewards. When I first published this article series in German, there wasn’t a lot of great footage online of some of his best performances, like Five Miles to Midnight or Fear Strikes Out. So thanks, Mercy!