Anthony Perkins born 4 April 1932 (d. 1992)Actor Anthony Perkins is best known for his role as Norman Bates in the classic Hitchcock thriller Psycho (1960).
He made his first film in 1953 and was Oscar nominated for his second film Friendly Persuasion (1956). Many felt he should have been nominated for Psycho, and would have been offered better roles as a result. He appeared in a number of acclaimed roles in films such as Catch-22, (1970), The Trial and Murder On the Orient Express (1975) and on Broadway. But his later career saw him doing mostly made-for-TV movies and Psycho sequels. His persona as an actor was frail, delicate and agitated, and this seems to have reflected his actual nervousness.
Primarily homosexual, Perkins had a number of relationships with men in the 1950s and 60s, including Tab Hunter, writer/model/actor Alan Helms, Rudolph Nureyev and dancer/choreographer Grover Dale, with whom he had a six year relationship prior to his marriage. Perkins may have married for fear of an expose of his homosexuality in Confidential magazine - his wife, Berry Berenson was sixteen years his junior. Dale also married, 10 days before Perkins. Perkins and Berry had two sons, Osgood (Oz) and Elvis.
Anthony Perkins died from an AIDS related illness in 1992.
As a further tragic footnote, his widow Berry Berenson was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11, the flight that was hijacked and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.