Eldergays, tell me about Anthony Perkins's nasty side

Ugh, that queen is such a smelly old twat

We've discussed this before

(I have no idea, but you insisted)

He backstabbed his boyfriend Tab Hunter for a movie role. That’s all I have.

He was cunty to Meg Tilly and Juliette Cummings while shooting the Psycho sequels. He didn’t care for attractive young women it seems. He got along like a house on fire with brassy faghag Lee Garlington though.

He proved he could act (yet again, since we lost faith after Psycho) in Les Miserables.

His Javert chewed the scenery a lot less and showed displeasure and dogmatism much better than Malkovich

As seen on Twitter today.

R6 is Desire Under the Elms a good movie?

No, r7.

He and Sondheim were an item in the late 60s - early 70s.

This thread is fucked up. A few minutes ago there was a query at r7 whether Desire Under Elms is worth watching (it isn't) and an answer also pointing out that in the later 60s - early 70s Perkins and Sondheim were an item.

R4

The story is that he overheard Meg Tilly asking why people were treating him like the star and fussing over him. The excuse given for her was that she grew up in a remote section of Canada in a household without a TV. Even if true, how do you not know that Anthony Perkins gave a renowned performance in the original film and is literally the reason for the sequel you're in?

Juliette Cummins was in Psycho III, which Perkins directed. According to IMDB, she was almost fired after she made an unintentional joke about his homosexuality. Psycho III came out in 1986, 13 years after Perkins had married and officially converted to heterosexuality.

Didn’t Meg recently reveal that she’s on the spectrum?

R11

I wouldn't know. She's never interested me as a performer so I don't know much about her. But even if she were on the spectrum, that's no excuse. She had no idea of the significance of Psycho and Perkins's role in it?

Jennifer must be too. Sutton too.

R10 He didn’t officially convert to anything. In ‘86 he tried to pick me up at the infamous Circus of Books store in West Hollywood. A few years later I saw him at the urinals in a movie theater where he showed off his cock to me and began moaning and stroking it. It was long and wrinkly, slightly yellowish. The first time at the bookstore freaked me out. I kept thinking about Janet Leigh. But at the theater, I probably would have gone into a stall with him, just for the experience. But my movie was about to start and I left.

R10

Yeah, he did. After sleeping with Victoria Principal or getting married he gave interviews discussing his new-found heterosexuality and the implication, if he didn't say it directly (it was too long ago for me to remember), was that he was done with homosexuality. He told the director Sidney Lumet that he was in therapy to stop being gay because he "didn't want it anymore."

I remember sitting somewhere with a magazine and being shocked: "Tony Perkins was gay?" The general public didn't know. And in the 1970s if you were an entertainer and were making a public announcement about your sexual orientation you would say you were straight, not bi.

I remember your anecdote about being cruised by him. I think you said that in the bookstore he stood close to you and kept angling the cover of a book called "Shuttlecock" in your direction.

This is a vulgar question, but I assume he was uncircumcised? Many non-Jewish men of his generation would not have been.

R14

Sorry, R15 was addressed to you.

Didn’t he have a thing for hiring male escorts and doing “intruder ravishes poor sleeping homeowner” role play?

His left side was nasty.

R17

I've read that.

As a young man, Perkins always had a very healthy libido. He had lots of casual adventures and some boyfriends. But after he married and got older it almost seems as if he had a compulsion to seek hookups. Is that too much armchair psychology on my part?

I remember a sad scene toward the end of his life when his co-star from the musical Greenwillow happened to see him in a grocery store. They had worked together in 1960 when Perkins was young and handsome and "as virile as anyone." His former castmate was shocked by how gaunt and sick he looked and how little hair he had. She thought he pretended not to notice her because he had been flirting with a young male cashier and was embarrassed that she had seen him.

To hearken back to a thread that was closed yesterday, yes, I feel for Anthony Perkins.

R20

Yes, I feel sorry for Anthony Perkins.

R15 I’m surprised you remember the Shuttlecock detail. Perhaps he publicly renounced his homosexuality, but he clearly was interested in men and was pursued that interest. He was aggressive. Maybe all he wanted was to put on a show. As I said, I never did anything with him. Either way, he didn’t see like someone who fully rejected homosexuality, maybe just leading a double life or had serious issues.

R22

I remembered the detail because it was vivid, funny, and had the ring of truth. Although I don't believe most people are interested in spreading unflattering stories about Perkins 30 years after his death, sometimes on DL I read distorted versions of anecdotes that I encountered in the biography by Charles Winecoff, or in articles or documentaries. I have to remind myself not to accept every story I read. I didn't have any doubt about yours, though.

I don't for a minute think that Perkins ever stopped being gay. He wanted the world to think that and that may have been his personal desire, but being gay was who he was. He was deeply conflicted. Sometimes when he was on his way to see his conversion therapist, he would stop off to visit an extremely handsome gay man. Earlier, they had tried to have a sexual relationship, but the man was too intimidated because of who Perkins was so they settled into a friendship. But the man used to wonder why Perkins was visiting a homosexual on his way to therapy that was supposed to make him stop being homosexual. After he was married, Perkins would ask his gay friends and even acquaintances like coworkers to tell him in detail about their sex lives. He always claimed he was no longer gay but most of his friends thought he was lying.

[quote]This is a vulgar question, but

Stop right there, missy! We don't allow such things on the DataLounge!

R4

He got along with Mia Sara on the set of Daughter of Darkness, a 1989 vampire film. He was surprised that a person her age knew so many tunes from the American Songbook.

R9

Desire Under the Elms is quite worth watching.

R3 It's not clear what happened. Warners Bros. refused to buy the rights to Fear Strikes Out for Tab Hunter. They supposedly didn't like his agent, Henry Willson. They would have known or possibly seen Hunter in the TV version of FSO and presumably if impressed they'd have acquired the material for him.

If Perkins asked Paramount to get the rights for him, yes, it is weird to go after something your boyfriend wanted, but it really wasn't available to Hunter at that point.

R5

Perkins gave a lot of memorable performances between Psycho and Les Misérables. Sometimes, he was the best thing in the movie.

[quote] "His left side was nasty."

His right side was probably worse.

I liked him in Psycho. Real Life can be messy. I'm sure he was conflicted and did the best that he could at the time, being in the public eye, self preservation naturally comes into play.

It’s an odd thing - older more flaming gay stars from that period do , hunker down as they approach retirement - Alan Bates shacking up with another female “companion”, Cary Grant, the two Larries…

But all actors are liars, so what do you expect?

According to Kathleen Turner in her autobiography (though I don't trust her as she is one of the biggest cunts in Hollywood) Perkins talked Ken Russell to trying to make Turner nude in some of their scenes together in Crimes of Passion.

To her credit Turner stood her ground. Whilst her contract had some nudity it was as explicit as what Russell wanted her to do at the urging of Perkins.

Also, Perkins treated tab Hunter really badly stealing Fear Strikes Out off him.

Warhol speculated that Chris Makos was one of the hustlers Perkins would hire to 'break in', tie and gag him, and have his way with him.

The contortions of Perkins's troubled life - not least the burden cast by that justly iconic role - would make a fascinating biopic. Starring perhaps Andrew Garfield.

R32

Again, no one knows exactly what happened with Fear Strikes Out. Hunter did say that learning Perkins was going to do it changed their relationship, but they didn't immediately break up over it, they remained together for some time. Although I feel bad for Hunter, you can't have something stolen that didn't belong to you in the first place.

R34

People are always saying that Garfield should play Perkins in a biopic. I don't see it. He's nowhere as handsome or charming as Perkins. He's a perfectly good actor and seems like a nice person but seeing his name constantly brought up is making me dislike him.

I haven't seen Hitchcock, the fictional movie about the making of Psycho, but I know James D'Arcy in it. I liked him in Master and Commander and some other things, but again, he looks nothing like Perkins.

R30

Real Life can be extremely messy. As the years pass, you also get stuck in your life and everything that's gone before and can't extract yourself. You muddle through. A couple of weeks ago, I listened to a two-part podcast called "Coffee and Tequila" on Anthony Perkins' and Tab Hunter's relationship and their lives afterward. The hosts are a gay married couple who appear to be in their mid-to-late 20s. They were very sympathetic to Perkins' problems and understood why he and some other gay men of their generation thought the only solution to their problems was to do conversion therapy and marry women. I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been judgmental. Young people often are. But these two guys grasped the historical context.

They make some minor errors, some of which are corrected at the top of the second part, but it's worth listening to.