Weird Scenes Week 102 (7/27/23): A Man of Unusual Talent: The Life and Career of Tony Perkins

Born to the trade right here in Manhattan, April of 1932, Tony Perkins was the son of theatrical actor Osgood (most notably appearing alongside Boris Karloff, George Raft and Paul Muni in Scarface the very same year.)

Raised almost entirely by his mother and a French nanny, he self-avowedly "became abnormally attached to" his mother, developing "an Oedipal Complex in a pronounced form", which became further complicated by misplaced guilt when his father died backstage only 5 years later. Continually conflicted in his orientation, he married photographer "Berry" Berenson (sister of Marisa), with whom he bore two children...despite being involved with any number of men since his teens.  

With his quirky, “sensitive” demeanor and strong hints of a darker undertone to his persona, he was, perhaps unusually, often cast as an off kilter romantic lead, the sort of oddball outsider character later essayed by the likes of Christian Slater or Crispin Glover.  But it was his shockingly convincing portrait of Norman Bates for the great subversive film technician Alfred Hitchcock that both defined and, for a large part of his career thereafter, typecast him domestically for a series of darker, more villainous if not psychotic roles thereafter.

Having starred with the likes of Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Paul Newman, he moved from domestic churn ‘em out studio fare to a far more interesting sideline in the French cinema of the 60’s and early 70’s.  

Briefly settling into the more auteurist work of 70’s British and American film, he took a deep dive into cult cinema throughout the 80s, working for folks like Ken Russell and bringing his Bates character back for a better than average slasher series based on the 1960 original.

Cowriting the highly subtextual The Last of Sheila with then-partner and musical theater impresario, he further tried his hand at directing, first in two stage productions, and later a pair of films (one of which he starred in.)

He even had a short lived sideline in schmaltz, releasing four albums in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, which showed him (perhaps surprisingly) possessed of a pleasant, syrupy tone very much along the lines of Jack Jones.

Join us as we discuss one of the great character actors of our time, the multilayered Tony Perkins, only here on Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine!

Week 102 (7/27/23): A Man of Unusual Talent: The Life and Career of Tony Perkins

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