A crazy maniac with a piercing gaze, making his goosebumps … This role is so stuck to the young actor Anthony Perkins that it became a curse for him, which he carried through the years.
Childhood and youth
Anthony Perkins was born on April 4, 1932 in New York.
His father, Osgood Perkins, was rightly considered the "king of Broadway." He was widely known in acting circles and earned himself universal recognition and fame, passing the threshold of thirty years.
Osgood was talented by nature, so the roles in the theater were given to him easily and playfully, without any special efforts on his part. Moreover, he did not have any theater education.
The son most likely inherited his father's genes. From childhood he was drawn to creativity.
But he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do the most: sing, play or act in films.
Meanwhile, almost from the cradle Anthony was sent to a theater school, to which he regularly and with pleasure went.
Recalling his first role, he said that it was a piercing screeching bat in the stage production of "Count Dracula."
At the age of five, the boy lost his father, and this event seriously affected his fragile psyche by that time.
Anthony was deeply worried about this. Father was for him a role model, a life guide. For a long time he could not recover and recover.
His mother was a strong and domineering woman. She completely took her son's upbringing under her strictest control. She practically suppressed him, constantly dominating and giving orders. Therefore, Anthony's relationship with her mother was, to put it mildly, unfriendly.
Meanwhile, she gave her son an excellent education and made sure that in his adult life he could dress and feed himself.
Carier start
Having tried himself as a performer, Perkins was disappointed. He released two albums, which did not have tremendous success, about which the young man constantly dreamed. They did not even sell in the right amount.
Realizing that the singer’s career was not his calling, he pushed this idea into the “long box”, concentrating all his forces on the stage. Here fortune smiled wider for the young man. At first, he simply played in extras, thereby attracting attention from the directors.
Perkins tried not in vain. Bernard Shaw, known at that time for his brilliant projects, invited him to participate in the production of "How important it is to be serious."
Perkins was noticed and called to the shooting of the film "Actress" … in Hollywood. It was a crushing success.
He even had to choose between higher education and career. Due to the constant employment on the set, Anthony absolutely did not have enough time and energy to study.
Torn between two fires, he always tried to be in two places at the same time. It didn’t matter to him. Therefore, in the end, the young man faced the question with an edge - either education or career.
Perkins, despite the persuasion of his mother, chose the second, which he later never regretted.
The young talent star only made her way to the horizon, but she did it very confidently and firmly. Perkins has starred in more than a hundred films for his film career.
The role in the film "Friendly exhortation" gave him the "Palm Branch".
This has become a good help to ensure that directors vying with each other begin to invite in their projects.
Girls fell in love with a talented and handsome actor.
Anthony overgrown with fans, a career soared up.
Critics prophesied a dizzying success for the young man, calling him the most promising young actor of our time.
But everything changed overnight.
1960 was a triumphal and fatal year for Perkins. Alfred Hitchcock invited Anthony to his picture "Psycho."
"Psycho"
This was the triumph of the actor … and the beginning of the end.
The film thundered to the whole world. Anthony became the first Hollywood maniac, "great-grandfather" of Ganibal Lector and Freddy Krueger.
He was so convincing in this role that the image tightly stuck to it.
Since then, the image of an incomprehensible lonely maniac has haunted the actor everywhere.
He was no longer offered interesting roles, called exclusively in thrillers and horrors. Perkins was depressed. Career made an unexpected turn and quickly collapsed into the abyss.
He was forced to emigrate to Europe to try to start there from scratch. But the move did not have the desired effect. Over the next 20 years, the actor actively starred, but for the audience he remained the "actor of one movie."
In 1980, after much thought, Anthony decided to return to his creative curse and accepted Hitchcock's offer to play in the sequel to Psycho. And then in the third part of the thriller, which turned his life upside down.
Personal life
Anthony, like all young actors, of course, had girls. But once he began to catch himself thinking that he really liked men. He tried for a long time to struggle with his nature, visited a psychotherapist, trying to get rid of his strange hobby as soon as possible. But the efforts were in vain.
Perkins had novels with both sexes. For some time he lived in the eternal struggle between true desires and moral standards.
At the age of 40, Perkins fell in love with photographer and actress Berry Berenson. After some time, they got married.
The couple had two boys. Anthony remembered family years in his life with special warmth and love. He said that he had finally found harmony with himself. In the circle of a loving wife and children, he was calm and comfortable.
