Anthony Perkins

Through an entirely paternal line, he was descended from John Perkins, who arrived in Boston from England in 1630 as part of the Puritan migration to New England.

Throughout his early years, Perkins did not see much of his father, who was busy in a variety of roles, the most prominent of which was his supporting role in the original motion picture adaptation of Scarface, released the year Perkins was born.

Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor, director, and singer.

He is most notable for the role of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller Psycho, which made him an influential figure in pop culture and the realm of horror films.

Born in New York City, Perkins got his start as an adolescent in summer stock programs, although he acted in films before his time on Broadway.

His first film, The Actress, co-starring Spencer Tracy and Jean Simmons and directed by George Cukor, was a disappointment aside from winning an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, prompting Perkins to return to theatre.

Anthony Perkins was born April 4, 1932, in Manhattan, New York, the son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins (1892–1937) and his wife, Janet Esselstyn (née Rane; 1894–1979).

His paternal great-grandfather was the wood engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony.

Perkins was also a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland, Myles Standish and William Brewster, as well as colonist Roger Conant.

Perkins' only fond memories of his father came from a 1937 vacation to Fire Island, though they spent little time together on the trip.

The Perkins family hired a French nanny, Jeanne, to look after their son, leading to Perkins fluency in French, which proved useful years later.

Between his father's absences, Perkins was surrounded by females, the most influential of which was his mother.

On September 21, 1937, Osgood Perkins died of a heart attack, just after the successful opening night of his newest play, Susan and God.

His father's death caused Perkins to feel intense guilt.

"I was horrified," he said years later.

"I assumed that my wanting him to be dead had actually killed him. I prayed and prayed for my father to come back. I remember long nights of crying in bed. For years I nursed the hope that he wasn't really dead. Because I'd see him on film, it was as if he were still alive. He became a mythic being to me, to be dreaded and appeased."

After his father's death, Perkins was once again surrounded entirely by women.

A consistent female companion in Perkins' life was burgeoning playwright Michaela O'Harra, whom his mother had taken a liking to.

Perkins's childhood friend, John Kerr, recalled the relationship between O'Harra and Perkins' mother: "My mother said–I don't know if she used the word lesbian... but that was just [what it felt like] to me: 'Oh, they're having a lesbian relationship.' You know, something like that."

Although her sexuality has been disputed, it is widely agreed that Perkins's mother was not heterosexual.

It was also during that 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."

He made his Broadway debut in the Elia Kazan-directed Tea and Sympathy (1953), in which he played Tom Lee, a "sissy" cured by the right woman.

He was praised for the role and after it closed, he turned to Hollywood once more, starring in Friendly Persuasion (1956) with Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire, which earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best New Actor of the Year and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The film led to Perkins' seven-year, semi-exclusive contract with Paramount Pictures, where he was their last matinee idol.

In 1957, Perkins went on to appear in Fear Strikes Out.

Paramount was keen to heterosexualize Perkins' image, leading to a string of romantic roles alongside Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, and Shirley MacLaine.

He was able to land an occasional serious role, such as in the Broadway production Look Homeward, Angel, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award, and the 1959 film On the Beach with Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, and Ava Gardner.

Although he was cast once again as a romantic lead in Jane Fonda's film debut, Tall Story, he was shortly thereafter cast as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), which established him as a horror icon and earned him a Bambi Award nomination for Best Actor, as well as a nomination and win for the International Board of Motion Picture Reviewers Award for Best Actor.

Because his work with Hitchcock led to his being typecast, Perkins bought himself out of his contact with Paramount and moved to France, where he made his European film debut with Goodbye Again (1961).

The film earned him a Best Actor Bravo Otto nomination and his second career Bambi Award nomination.

He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and a David di Donatello Award for Best Actor for the role.

After appearing in European films featuring Sophia Loren, Orson Welles, Melina Mercouri, and Brigitte Bardot, Perkins returned to the U.S. in 1968, with a role in Pretty Poison, co-starring Tuesday Weld, his first American film in eight years.

In the film's wake, he starred in commercially and critically successful films including Catch-22 (1970), Play It as It Lays (1972), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and Mahogany (1975).

Around the same time, Perkins decided to undergo conversion therapy, a pseudoscientific method of "changing" sexual orientation.

He married Berry Berenson in 1973.

He reprised his role as Norman Bates in Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986) and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990).

The third installment in the anthology earned him a Best Actor Saturn Award nomination.

"I became abnormally close to my mother," Perkins recalled to People in 1983, "and whenever my father came home I was jealous. It was the Oedipal thing in a pronounced form, I loved him but I also wanted him to be dead so I could have her all to myself."

His last film was In the Deep Woods, a television film broadcast a month after his death in September 1992 from AIDS-related causes.