Day-Woodford Families » Anthony "Tony" Perkins (1932-1992)

Personal data Anthony "Tony" Perkins 

• Nickname is Tony.
• He was born on April 4, 1932 in New York (New York County), New York, United States.Source 1
• He died on September 12, 1992 in Hollywood Hills (Los Angeles County), California, United States, he was 60 years old.Sources 1, 2

  During the filming of Psycho IV: The Beginning, Perkins was undergoing treatment for facial palsy. He was tested for AIDS after an article in National Enquirer, a tabloid newspaper, said he was HIV positive. Ms. Berenson said her husband had not been tested for AIDS but had been given a series of blood tests in Los Angeles for the palsy on the side of his face. Ms. Berenson said she assumed that someone had tested her husband's blood for the virus and leaked the results to the tabloid.
  Perkins hid the fact that he had AIDS from the public for two years, going in and out of hospitals under assumed names. During this time, his wife and children regularly tested; they all always came back negative. It was not until a few weeks before his death that he went public with the disease, although he had been working on movies during the time of his illness. He died at his Los Angeles home from AIDS-related pneumonia aged 60. In a statement prepared before his death, Perkins said, "I chose not to go public about [having AIDS] because, to misquote Casablanca, 'I'm not much good at being noble,' but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of one old actor don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life." Perkins never disclosed how he got the disease.
  
  Anthony's remains were cremated, ashes given to family or friend. Specifically, at his former residence in Hollywood Hills, in the terrace, a little altar has been placed in the open air, flanked by an old wooden bench. On the altar is a bronze urn which houses the cremated remains stating "Don't Fence Me In".

• A child of James Ripley Osgood Perkins and Janet Esselstyn Rane
• This information was last updated on January 18, 2023.

Household of Anthony "Tony" Perkins

He is married to Berinthia Berenson.

They got married on August 9, 1973 at Falmouth (Barnstable County), Massachusetts, United States, he was 41 years old.Source 1

Anthony and Berinthia were married on Cape Cod. There are many conflicting answers as to how Perkins met his future wife, photographer Berinthia "Berry" Berenson, the younger sister of actress and model Marisa Berenson. There were stories that it was at a party in Manhattan in 1972, while some insist it was on the set of Play It as It Lays. The one sure answer was that it was in 1972.

Although not romantically, Perkins and Berenson saw each other often even though she was engaged to Richard Bernstein at the time. Slowly, the attachment became romantic and then sexual, leading Berenson to become pregnant out of wedlock. After telling her fiancé this, Bernstein reportedly reacted by telling Berenson that Perkins was gay and didn't reciprocate her feelings. Berenson was said to have replied, "No, he's going to Mildred Newman and he wants to be straight! He wants to be straight!" Berenson left Bernstein the same day.
Perkins and Berenson married when he was 41 and she was 25, with Berenson three months pregnant. Their first son, actor and director Oz Perkins, was born in 1974, and musician Elvis Perkins followed two years later in 1976. Many friends were surprised by this marriage and believed it would not last long. Venetia Stevenson admitted to Charles Winecoff, "[I]t was a big shock when I heard [Tony] got married. [I went,] not Tony. He was very gay, totally gay." Despite this, Perkins and Berenson remained married until his death.

Notes about Anthony "Tony" Perkins

the son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins and his wife, Janet Esselstyn (née Rane). He was five when his father died. He attended Brooks School, Browne & Nichols School, Columbia University, and Rollins College. The family moved to Boston in 1942. Anthony made his film debut in The Actress (1953). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and received a Golden Globe award for his second film, Friendly Persuasion (1956), but is best remembered for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and its three sequels. His paternal great-grandfather was wood engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony. Perkins was a descendant of a Mayflower passenger, John Howland.

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Timeline Anthony "Tony" Perkins

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