Anthony Perkins- I’ve been infatuated with him since I was a teen

Well, *someone* needs to post the first response:

MARY!!!

What a GORGEOUS, compelling, talented and unique man. I'm with you, OP. I used to feel so, so sad for Norman Bates because AP played him with such pathos. Psycho II? Forget it, I was weeping.

R2 ok you definitely are the bigger MARY

As a kid, I used to watch “Tall Story” whenever it popped up—quite often. I had a pre-teen crush on Tony. Jane was hot to trot.

Could you define Kant’s categorical imperative while suiting up for the big game against the Russians? Well?

He was so sexy

Young & ripe

And now the menthol cool vocal stylings of...

He gave a great blow job.

What was the movie Tony Perkins starred I'm where he was infatuated with an older woman?

r9 - Goodbye Again?

Him and Tab Hunter were the hottest of hot couples

Wikipedia:

[His father died in 1937 when Anthony was 5] "It was also during this 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.' This behavior continued on into his adulthood."

No wonder he was so neurotic. Other weird stuff like at age 5 wanting his father to die so he could have his mother to himself - and then feeling guilty when his father did die. And this at age 5?

Wonder if he was making all this shit up?

Yes r10 thank you. I've been searching for this movie title for so long

"Perkins was born April 4, 1932, in Manhattan, the son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins (1892–1937)"

Anthony Perkins, Neo-Georgian nepo baby!

Osgood Perkins

I loved him in Pretty Poison with Tuesday Weld. They were made for each other.

Neo-Georgian?

The following paragraph about AP's wife is nonstop "Whoa! What?!?! Oohhh. Wow! You don't say! Really??" I had no idea. I thought she was an also-ran actress and hausfrau, and I didn't realize she had died so notably.

[quote]Born in New York, Berry Berenson was mostly educated in Europe - her father was a diplomat whose great uncle was the art historian Bernard Berenson. Berry inherited her father's gift for languages. Berry Berenson, aged 53, was a passenger on the hijacked American Airlines flight 11 which crashed into the World Trade Centre. She was a fashion photographer and accomplished Hollywood film actor. A granddaughter of the fabled Italian couturier Elsa Schiaperelli, known for the promotion of shocking pink as a fashion shade, Berry showed she could lead a similarly colorful existence.

R18 you didn’t know that? We’ve spoken about it many times over the years.

Yeah, I dunno, R19. Maybe I just glossed over the stuff about her because I thought it would be boring. It's not!

Incidentally, in 2001 Tony Perkins and Berry Berenson's son, Oz Perkins, had an endearing, supporting role in LEGALLY BLONDE, which was a huge hit that summer and was still playing in theaters when 9/11 happened..

At the time, I was in college and became obsessed with the movie and all the characters/actors. I've always wondered how that period was for him. He lost his mother in a most horrific way almost exactly ten years to the day after his father's passing from AIDS complications. Perkins died on September 12, 1992.

Berry Berenson's sister is Marisa Berenson, who famously played 'Natalia Landauer' in the film version of CABARET.

Fuck you, r22, my mug got more attention in Barry Lyndon.

I'm with OP, although I think I may be a bit younger as Anthony Perkins wasnt really a major leading actor anymore by the time I was a teen, I can totally see the attraction, he is just so pretty

There was another thread on here that had pics of him just in swimming briefs and yeah they are definitely tingle inducing. If I saw those pics when I was a teen I can see how they would of changed brain chemistry, even more than the Jack Daniels I used to drink back then.

Those beautiful long slender legs were just heavenly

R24 I’m 37. I saw him as a teen in the 00s lol. Long after he died. I just became enamored

I wasnt really aware of him until later than that, but I can see how you got enamoured.

Here's one of the pics from that thread

He was very tall and thin with a beautiful face and great thick, dark hair and dark skin.

He was talented and had a haunted demeanor. Very good looking in an unconventional way

He had a very Mediterranean look to him. I’m not shocked he was never taken seriously as an actor. Back then “white” was not viewed as one big race.

I used to dream of being sandwiched between Tony and Tab.

If you're a Perkins fan and haven't read the biography Split Image, you should.

It gets into a bunch of sex stuff. The guy liked his kink! He would hire hustlers to pretend to break into his apartment and rape him, etc. He was also into bodybuilding before it was mainstream and was fixated on creating a beautiful masculine physique.

After his relationship with Tab Hunter, he was with the adorable Grover Dale for six years before they both married women. Sad they couldn't be happy as they were.

R31 most of those biographies are filled with made up bullshit.

He was the only non Australian actor who attempted an Australian accent in ON THE BEACH. For that, I respect him. He was also a campy delight in MAHOGANY.

I went to see ROMANTIC COMEDY on Broadway in high school. I really only knew AP from Psycho at that time. My cousin and I waited at the stage door (which was not the way it is today with barricades and throngs of people) and I got his autograph and then he rode away on his bicycle.

R34 Stars -- They're Just Like Us!

R29

He was a handsome dark-haired man with brown eyes, but he did not look at all Mediterranean. He was descended from four Mayflower passengers and was WASPY as the day is long. When he was being considered for Green Mansions, the director went to see him in a play to make sure he was dark enough to play a Venezuelan.

R32

There's only one really complete biography, Split Image by Charles Winecoff. While I find some of the author's judgments to be in error, it was exhaustively researched.

R34

I also saw Perkins in Romantic Comedy. Back when Broadway was more affordable.

R31

I've read Split Image. I wish Winecoff had not gone into detail about Perkins's sex life. It was salacious, intrusive, and unnecessary and I'll never be able to get the details out of my head. It was really unfair. Even though he was a public figure, he should have been able to live without every aspect of his life being shared with the public.

He had a penchant for toys, IIRC… its been almost 30 years since I read Split Image.

It's hard to imagine he was once an A-list young matinee idol. But a loss of baby fat from his face gave him a more sinister look. A couple dark roles and he fell off the covers of the movie mags, doing mostly skeevy characters the rest of his life.

R40 you mean sex toys?

R29

Perkins was taken very seriously as an actor. By the age of 28, he had been in 12 films and two Broadway plays and been nominated for an Oscar and a Tony. He was the last star to be heavily promoted by Paramount and was dubbed "The 15 Million Dollar Man." Great things were expected of him. Psycho, which came out in 1960, was the second highest-grossing film, after Spartacus. Despite the unfortunate typecasting of Psycho, which hurt his career, Perkins went on to win the best actor's award at Cannes for Goodbye Again in 1961. Although Perkins did not have the career he deserved his acting ability was respected throughout his life.

R41

If you've seen his early movies it's not at all hard to believe he was a matinee idol. He was absolutely beautiful, sweet, and charming. He also recorded many love songs aimed at teenagers. A few are good, but I prefer the recordings he made when he was older.

R42 Yes, big ones…

R44

Perkins also remained exceptionally boyish-looking until his late 30s. His youthful look hurt him as he sought more adult roles. Some people believe that the electroshock therapy he received as part of his conversion therapy in his late 30s aged him.

R32 knows about something she's never read because she heard about a book once.

Hey, cunt, "Split Image" is fine and accurate. Perkins was (in)famously contorted sexually, liked it rough, liked it nasty, everyone he knew outside his family knew all about it....

Why are you such a boring and wrong Karen Know-Nothing/Know-It-All, you cunt?

R25

I was aware of him when he was alive. I had seen Psycho and although I thought he was a handsome, talented actor, all that was before the Internet. Last year, realizing it was the 30th anniversary of his death, I began to read more about him and now have seen hundreds of photos of him, in addition to most of his movies, He really was gorgeous in his youth and remained handsome when he reached middle age.

R21

Berry Berenson died almost exactly nine years after her husband.

I saw him IRL in the mid 80s in Paris, he was the saddest looking man. Gloomy andquite, quite creepy

R7

This is a better version. It's from the cast recording.

I met him at the Boatslip in Provincetown in 1980. We went back to his room, did some lines, and I sat on his face for a couple of hours before we both sucked each other off.

R12

Anthony Perkins was not above embellishing or inventing facts to make a good story, but I don't think he would have made up something like that about his mother. They had a very fraught relationship. She was very controlling, but she also recognized that the only thing he seemed interested in as a boy was reading his father's old scripts so she managed to get a job at a summer stock theater so Tony could get acting experience while she worked in the box office. She didn't always seem to appreciate his talent or understand why people were impressed by him. When he finally got married and thought she would be pleased, she told him she hoped he was good enough for his wife, which wounded him deeply. She managed his finances for a while. He bought her an apartment in Manhattan. Although seemingly happy while married to his father, after Osgood Perkins's death, her only relationship was with a much younger woman and everyone assumed it was a lesbian relationship.

Part 1 of a podcast about Tab and Tony. The hosts, a young gay couple, were very sympathetic to Perkins, particularly his decision to do conversion therapy and get married.

Anthony Perkins program made for the Biography channel.

It was those eyes. Always the eyes. Those darting eyes.

R51

Split Image, a biography of Perkins, says that Frank Loesser, the composer of the musical Greenwillow, did not initially know that Perkins was a homosexual and that when he found out he made the song harder.

Perkins also performed roles and made recordings in French. Here's a song a version of which is sung in English in the film "Goodbye Again." The title means "When You Sleep Next to Me." It's about a lover who realizes the woman he's with is still in love with someone else and the situation is helpless.

How did his wife have two kids, by him, I presume, and not get the AIDS?

R60

I don't know for certain, but I suspect that they weren't sexually active or were extremely careful, probably the former. Berry Berenson may have had a thing for gay men. Sixteen years younger, she developed a crush on Perkins when she was 12. She kept a scrapbook and always wanted to meet him. When she finally managed to do that in her early 20s, she was already engaged to another gay man, Richard Bernstein, an artist who was the cover editor of Interview magazine. He looked sort of like a more bohemian version of Anthony Perkins. Berenson persuaded Perkins to do an interview and a photoshoot. At first, Bernstein helped her because she didn't have much experience, but later stopped attending the sessions. Then one day Berenson said she was leaving him for Perkins. According to Split Image, Bernstein got drunk and stoned and went to Perkins's townhouse to beg him to give her up, saying he had invested so much time in Berry and was sure that he could live as a straight man with her. Perkins said they should let her make up her own mind. According to his obit, Bernstein died at age 62 of AIDS and had a female companion. In other words, his fate was similar to that of Perkins.

Oh goody, yet another thread about Anthony Perkins!

"I met him at the Boatslip in Provincetown in 1980. We went back to his room, did some lines, and I sat on his face for a couple of hours before we both sucked each other off.

Yeah, sure Jan!

I looked up the kids, Elvis and Oz, on Wikipedia and I guess they look like him. But he had a pretty generic face - and she kinda looked like him too. So who knows? It doesn't matter - hope the boys are happy.

R61

Perkins's kids were teenagers at the time he died. In a recent documentary, his older son, Oz Perkins, confirmed that his mother knew he was queer and helped protect him. She may have thought he had become straight when they married, but she must have realized the conversion therapy didn't take. In interviews soon after her husband's death, Berry pretended to have no idea how her husband contracted HIV. But in his circle, it was well known that he had an active sex life with men that he did little to hide.

R64

I've never heard it suggested that Perkins's kids weren't his kids or that he and Berry, in their interpretation of marriage, weren't happy. He was apparently a devoted father who helped take care of his kids and he enjoyed the role of family man. He also liked the appearance of normality after growing up gay in a homophobic society with his only parent being his controlling mother who didn't always understand him.

Stabbed Tab Hunter in the back by stealing the film role of baseball player Jimmy Piersall in FEAR STRIKES OUT. In the documentary TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL, Tab talks about how Perkins did some kind of behind the scenes maneuvering to get the part, and then casually mentioned it to Tab, who was quite hurt (and would have been far better in the role). Still, Tab speaks of him very decently throughout the whole documentary.

Gays have hated on Tony Perkins because he apparently was quite happy with his wife and children (in his way of course).

Whatever TP got up to in Europe or elsewhere with boys and men he apparently for most part considered himself straight by then. Berry Benson to best anyone knows was not HIV+, so either that side of their marriage died down (not at all uncommon), or something else was up.

TP told his wife quite a bit, perhaps not whole truths but still. Berry Perkins knew that French twink her husband seduced and fucked. Extent of her knowledge we don't know; but she was happy to hear from him when he rang the Perkins home; gushing about how "happy Tony will be to hear from you...". Mrs. Perkins had no problems helping said twink and his partner get tickets to play TP was starring in, nor with them going to see her husband backstage.

Then again Berry Benson had a huge schoolgirl crush on Tony Perkins. TP in turn turfed Grover Dale out of that West 23rd street home they'd shared when BB moved in and subsequently became Mrs. Tony Perkins.

It wasn't a well kept secret what TP got up to with boys and other men, so BB must have heard or been sat down at some point during courtship. They still married and produced two children. You can clearly see in any picture of TP and his wife/children he was quite happy with both. He loved being a husband and father.

I fell in love/lust with Anthony Perkins when, as a youngster, I first saw him in “The Friendly Persuasion”. I thought, at the time, that I just wanted to comfort him regarding the loss of his brother in the American Civil War; it was only later I realized, actually, that I just wanted to suck his dick ( well…yes…I can, at times, be a bit dense). A number of years later, as a college frosh, I listened with prurient interest and envy as I listened to a frat brother talk about Antony’s dick being long enough that he could tie it in a bow ( have absolutely no idea if that was true or not).

R67

Anthony Perkins was far more focused on his career as an actor than Tab Hunter.

TP was a Broadway "theatre" actor who went out to California on a mission. If what Tab Hunter claims is true it was and still is common enough not just in acting but performing arts as well. In short it wouldn't be first nor last time a friend threw another friend under a bus to get a part.

R55 Because two random douchegays know all about a guy who’s been dead for decades.

Phaedra was another movie where he was paired with an older woman, his stepmother.

Desire Under the Elms was a movie where Sophia Loren was his stepmother who he hooks up with as well.

R67

It's not entirely clear what happened. Tab Hunter was trying to get more serious roles. He was in a one-hour TV adaptation of Fear Strikes Out. It was well-received, but his studio, Warner Brothers, didn't act when he asked them to get the movie rights for him. Some said it was because Hunter's agent, Henry Willson made the approach and was hated (very sleazy guy, look him up). It wasn't Tab's role to lose and Anthony Perkins had much more experience and acclaim as a dramatic actor.

R71

They read biographies of Perkins and Hunter and watched the documentary Hunter made based on his book. Imagine, they educated themselves.

As a youth and young even into early middle age Tony Perkins was HAF.

Sadly WASP men in common with their English (or British if you will) cousins tend to hit that wall sometime in late middle age or so; then things start going to pieces.

R69

It wasn't his brother who died but another soldier. His brother was the young boy who kept getting bitten by the goose.

Rock Hudson and Tony Perkins... Did they or didn't they?

Perkins didn’t really do anything to “steal” the role from Tab. They were contracted at different studios and Perkins’s studio won the bid for the script. It was really that simple.

The fallout doomed their relationship though because Tab went to visit Tony onset to show him their were no hard feelings, not knowing that this would get him in trouble because Tony’s studio had ordered him to stop dating Tab. So that was pretty much it for them.

R68

Perkins got up to plenty in the U.S. while married. In the Biography piece, people who worked on Broadway shows with him talked about how he always had a little blond man in his dressing room and the door would remain closed for a long time. And then an hour later, Berry would come to the theater to pick him up so they could go out for dinner and he would change completely. He used to rate men in the audience for the benefit of his fellow leading actor in Equus. He was seen in gay bars and bookstores. A member of DL has discussed how Perkins approached him twice in separate years, once in a bookstore and the second time at a urinal in a movie theater. Perkins had a male secretary who lived in the guest house on his property, according to someone else here.

R77

According to Split Image, Hudson didn't like Perkins, whom he found to be too East Coast and intellectual. Perkins also was not invited to Hudson's regular parties for gay men, just as he wasn't invited to George Cukor's Sunday brunches.

"not knowing that this would get him in trouble because Tony’s studio had ordered him to stop dating Tab."

Suits in Hollywood had sniffed out gay rumors or gossip about Tony Perkins before his train even arrived in California. There were plans and big money a foot to build this young actor into not just a Hollywood film star, but recording artist and rest of it. Thus as per norm for studio system (or what remained of it by that time), any hint of scandal had to be quashed.

R78

I'm not sure that Warner Bros., Hunter's studio even made a bid. Whether or not Perkins did something to get the role, Hunter said that when Perkins casually mentioned it to him while they were playing table tennis, things were never the same between them. Rightly or wrongly, he felt betrayed.

R80

Can't see TP enjoying or even wanting to be invited to either events.

TP went to Roddy's beach house parties which were more of a mixed bunch sort of gathering.

R39 the good thing about that is most of the sex chatter was probably MADE UP BULLSHIT. How would the author know what he did in his bedroom? It’s like James Dean loving to get burned with cigarettes and beaten. Everyone who knew him said he never had a single scar on him. He was always shirtless while filming Giant. He had clear smooth skin. Cigarette burns would leave scars all over his body.

He and Stephen Sondheim were longtime friends, and also lovers for some period of time in the 60s.

R81

Paramount, Perkins's studio, thought he was being too open about his relationship with Hunter and told him to break it off. Perkins refused, saying, "But I love him." Hunter said he was never told anything by Warner Bros. Ironically, Hunter had been arrested at a gay party shortly after arriving in Hollywood. He thought the record was buried until his agent Henry Willson, offered up that info to Confidential Magazine in exchange for them dropping an expose on his biggest client, Rock Hudson. Hunter said that he never discussed his sexuality with anyone in Hollywood back then, including his closest friends. Perkins did talk to a few intimates.

R43 most of the films he starred in were B films. Look into it. Psycho was his biggest role. He was not offered big A movies for years and he didn’t even wanna do Psycho II because he feared it harming his career a second time.

Maybe because of his own inner demons or whatever TP was perfect in "Fear Strikes Out" Just cannot see Tab Hunter giving same sort of performance.

R83

My point was that Hudson and Perkins were acquainted but didn't socialize together and Hudson apparently didn't like him so they probably didn't hook up.

Grover Dale has written sweetly about meeting TP when they were both in GREENWILLOW and falling in love during the run. I think he posted it on FB from a memoir he's been writing. Hope he finds a publisher.

Wonder if there was some casting couch action with Josh Logan on Tall Story.

Never heard confirmation on an affair with Sondheim. Is there, r85?

R50 great made up story.

"He and Stephen Sondheim were longtime friends, and also lovers for some period of time in the 60s."

Sondheim got his mitts on beautiful young TP? How did that work?

R74 they read a book and watched a doc? That’s some high-level independent research!

R88

Perkins was wonderful in Fear Strikes Out.

Fear Strikes Out - Tab Hunter

You're welcome.

R90

I've read that Facebook post by Dale. It's very funny and romantic. I can't imagine that Perkins would have had to do anything unusual to get the role in Tall Story. He was still a hot commodity. I, too, have read that Sondheim and Perkins were for a time lovers. Perkins was also Sondheim's muse and Sondheim picked him up at least once after an electroshock therapy session. He had to physically support Perkins. They wrote The Last of Sheila together.

R82 you might be right about that. I know Hunter lobbied his studio to buy the script but they may not have been very interested. They didn’t seem to think much of his acting skills (which, granted, weren’t great at the time).

The wildest thing about the whole story is that Hunter had an affair with his female costar right after breaking up with Tony, but I think that was mostly his means of getting back at Tony. He did say he was genuinely attracted to her though.

R93

What's your problem, man? Did I say they independently researched their lives? I said they discussed them after learning about their lives. I have a feeling they knew a helluva lot more than you do.

Know Evening Primrose wasn't a huge hit, but love it anyway.

Yeah baby!

R77 two gay men can be in each others presence and not fuck.

R97

I don't know about the timing, but she was a French actress, Etchika Choureau. Hunter said he loved her but knew it would be wrong to marry her because he was gay.

R77

True. But every time I've seen that photo posted people have wondered. I don't think they did.

Not from Sondheim or Perkins, r90, but it seems to have been common knowledge at the time.

R103

Don't believe so either.

Gorgeous as Rock Hudson was in his day he still was not much more than a big old slab of midwestern beef. HAF but still... Tony Perkins was just on a whole other level in terms of background, intelligence, culture etc....

I don't seem to be able to post a link to the specific Grover Dale entry about meeting Perkins, but the date is March 8, 2022.

In some ways TP was doomed from the start. His mother did a number on her young son (that touching bit). Then piled on was his growing awareness as a young man of sexual preferences which at that time would have been taught was evil, disgusting, sinful, blah, blah and blah,

Of course going into theatre acting would have even then put young TP into contact with gays which might have helped that awakening along.

Production short on how Sondheim and Perkins came to write The Last of Sheila.

R107

Perkins was heavily involved in theater at his first college, Rollins, in Florida. He narrowly escaped getting expelled as part of a gay witchhunt. One of his friends, who was gay, had a visit from his father, who saw something in his son's room that made him suspicious. The boy apparently told his father that he'd been coerced into homosexual activity. They went to the room of another friend of Perkins and beat him up, putting him in the hospital. Guess who got in trouble? That's right, the boy who was attacked. Then Rollins launched an investigation to find the gays on campus. Perkins's name came up because indeed he was part of that group, but he cried and told an administrator that they were lying and just wanted to drag him down with them. He was allowed to stay.

R92

They were close in age, Sondheim born in 1930, Perkins in 1932. They were both intellectual, cultured, New York City-born men. Sondheim said that Perkins knew a great deal about music, particularly music for film. They shared an enthusiasm for murder mysteries and puzzle-making. Sondheim was better looking when he was young.

R87

Perkins was badly typecast after Psycho. Everyone knows that. That doesn't mean he wasn't respected as an actor. Even in his so-so movies he usually brings something special.

"I don't seem to be able to post a link to the specific Grover Dale entry about meeting Perkins, but the date is March 8, 2022."

If people put their FB stuff on lockdown then you have to be a member in order to view. This otherwise Google and other search engine bots would catalog every damn thing on FB and archive it forever.

R59

the situation is hopeless

R8

According to Split Image, Perkins considered writing an autobiography later in life and talked to an agent or publisher. But he gave up that idea after being concerned that he'd be asked to do a tell-all. He said something like "They'll pay me $10,000 for every dick I've sucked." The person involved in the transaction claimed that was not the kind of book sought. Perkins was an intensely private person and the idea of writing about his life may simply have been too much.

TP actually did quite a bit of work post Psycho.

Yes, to some extent TP was typecast, but larger issue IMHO is what happened to so many other film actors then, ending of studio system. That event coupled with changes in tastes mean films often took a different direction by 1970's onward.

If you look at many of the films TP did in 1970's onward (Mahogany, Orient Express, Someone Behind the Door...) his characters all seem to fit a certain twisted and or tormented individual not much different than Norman Bates. Even characters he did for television movies often fit that bill.

When younger TP could pull off those boyish young but confused man roles such as Philip Van der Besh (Goodbye Again) , Cornelius Hackl (The Matchmaker), but once that was over what was left? TP was typecast from sweet but nervous and perhaps slightly unbalanced young men to older dark sorts with a certain bit of cruelty.

If you examine even the most generous lists of top male actors of 1970's TP's name isn't often even in top 20 much less 10.

He just wasn't right for either sort of romantic lead in mold of say Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford. Neither was TP going to be a counter culture or whatever badass like Jack Nicholson.

Compare TP with say Jeremy Irons who though about ten years younger also did his share of "wicked" or "cruel" and or "unbalanced" roles.

TP never could have pulled off Dead Ringers, Reversal of Fortune, Swann in Love.. His sort of sinister wasn't quite right.

R117

Yes, he could have. Your view is too limited.

Perkins on Broadway with Connie Stevens and Richard Benjamin in Neil Simon’s “The Star Spangled Girl”:

One of my favorite compilations of Perkins photos set to a beautiful song.

Perkins in clips from the movie WUSA. He was 38.

R115 are you slow? No one said he didn’t work. The quality of the work he was offered is what is being discussed. Not whether he worked or not.

Berry was a closeted les !!

R16

Perkins and Weld were also good together in Play It As It Lays. They were friends in real life. I thought they looked a little old for their characters in Pretty Poison. Perkins's character was sent away to a mental institution when he was around 14, so I figured he would have been released in his 20s. Perkins, although a very youthful-looking actor, was 36 when the movie came out. Weld was 25 and playing a girl of 17. Still, it's a good movie. People who liked Election will like Pretty Poison, although PP is sweeter and more tragic.

Tony Perkins lived blocks away from Meatpacking district and of course the piers just a block beyond off West Street. Wonder if he ever strolled or rode his bike down that way looking for a bit of action or just to see what there was.

House still stands but that slice of West 23rd street along with rest of far west Chelsea, Meatpacking district towards West street has changed so much. I blame the freaking High Line park.

It had changed well before the High Line project was undertaken. The High Line just magnified the change.

Neither of TP's long term lovers (Tab Hunter and Grover Dale) came down with the Madness that took his life. In fact that French twink didn't catch the bug either.

Did Tony Perkins keep in touch with either Tab Hunter or Grover Dale? Especially as it was obvious TP was dying from the Madness.

Talented unconventionally handsome and sexy actor. Very closeted and troubled about his sexuality. Kind of sad. Andrew Garfield has a similar appeal and look although I don’t know if he’s gay.

R127

I don't know about Grover Dale, but Perkins was a bit in touch with Tab Hunter. They both worked on The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) but had no scenes together and I don't know if they talked. In the 1980s, Hunter contacted Perkins to see if he'd be interested in being a movie (It may have been Lust in the Dust or something like that.). Perkins politely declined. Hunter said he was thinking about calling Perkins after he heard he got sick but the day he finally decided to do it he learned that Perkins had died.

R125

I've read that when he still was in Chelsea, Perkins was a frequent visitor to the Meatpacking District. During the period when bandana codes were used, he apparently had a yellow one in one of his jeans pockets, I can't remember which side.

I wanted him to fuck me but he didn't.

R119

Perkins and Benjamin were best friends. They were also in Catch-22 together.

“came down with the Madness that took his life” Typhoid? Dyptheria? The pox? Black Plague? Hong Kong flu? 9/11?

Please, educate thr lowlife gays who are HIV+.

Diphtheria, too!^

R128 I’ve always said if they did a Perkins biopic, Garfield is the one to cast. They’d need to do it soon before he ages out of the role, though.

Too late!

"Very closeted and troubled about his sexuality."

Fairly common for gay men of Tony Perkin's generation at that time.

Leaving aside professional side of things constant message then that men like TP would have heard from cradle onwards was that gay men were "evil", "diseased", "sick", "disgusting", etc....

By and large TP really, really *really* wanted a normal life including wife and children. Torment came obviously from reconciling his desires for men (both romantic and sexual) with that bit of reality.

Tab Hunter was one that stuck to his guns as it were, but even Grover Dale eventually married a woman (the gorgeous Anita Morris) and had children. Besides being an incredibly talented actress, singer and dancer Anita Morris was one HAF sexpot. She could have had her choice of any man for a husband. That she went with Grover Dale, and they made it work until her untimely death says something.

Of the two worlds Broadway/the theatre was more welcoming and so forth of gays at that time. Hollywood and film industry was another matter, at least under studio system and some might say still today.

People knew TP was shacking up with Grover Dale (that odd ménage trois with Helen Merrill didn't fool everyone). That bit of fiction could have continued in some form or another indefinitely were it not for TP's nagging torments.

In end Tony Perkins did what scores if not hundreds of gay men then, before and since have done; he married some woman and continued to scratch those itches on the side.

Desire Under The Elms (1958) and the The Matchmaker (1958) were some of the last films TP did for his studio. Latter was pretty much just to complete his contract and get out.

Five Miles To Midnight.

Mr. and Mrs. Tony Perkins on the Mike Douglass Show

Interview on Arsenio Hall in 1989.

"He had a penchant for rough sex, the rougher the better. He loved role-playing and nothing more than hiring two hustlers to break into his apartment and rape him. Humiliation, lighted cigarettes and bodily fluids were part of his repertoire. No wonder the all-American boy nextdoor thing didn't work out."

Is this true?

R142 I doubt it. SPLIT IMAGE was the only source that ever claimed that, unsubstantiated, and something like that would have been hard to cover up. We’re to believe no one ever even sold a story to the tabloids at the height of his fame? Or after his death, in the midst of moral hysteria over AIDS? I don’t buy it.

R142

This blog post is badly written and has mistakes. Here are a few I noticed. I have to go, but will add more later.

"He appeared in a slew of Broadway plays in his lifetime. In the beginning he would be hired on at a theater to do anything from mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms to painting scenery and handling props."

This suggests he did this kind of work at Broadway theaters. He only did menial work in summer stock when he was 15 to 18 years old. But he also played a number of roles in summer stock.

"He was not as impressed with Hollywood as he had hoped he would be and he hightailed it back to Broadway where he replaced John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy."

Perkins took a leave from Rollins College to work on his first film, The Actress, which debuted in 1953. Perkins isn't really the lead character's "boyfriend," as stated. He's a college student who becomes infatuated with her and proposes, but it's not like they're going out on frequent dates. It didn't do well, but its failure had nothing to do with him. Jean Simmons or Teresa Wright thought the studio didn't know how to market it. Perkins wasn't crazy about his own performance, thinking he need to develop more self-confidence on screen, but he was good. He then returned to college. Later, he left Rollins to live in New York City, where he enrolled as a general studies student at Columbia. After a period of time, when he was something like a month shy of graduating, he left to be in Tea and Sympathy. Interesting fact: John Kerr, whom Perkins replaced, had known Perkins since they were young boys. Their mothers were friends and there's a photo of the two women holding their babies.

Patrick Loiseau had a lucky escape if he did but know it.

[quote] two gay men can be in each others presence and not fuck.

My sides!

Anthony Perkins 1974 Murder On The Orient Express...

Once his hair started to go it really cost him that boyish charm look

R147

He looks older than his character, I believe Hector is supposed to be 30, but he still looks good.