Anthony Perkins - biography

“At the end of Psycho, I realized I’d worked with the director who’d been more open to the actor’s suggestions and ideas than any I’d worked with - with the possible exception of William Wyler.  Since this was the reverse of what I’d expected of Hitchcock, it came as a great surprise.”

“I have a lot of affection for Norman Bates and a lot of sympathy.  So does the audience, I think.  He’s not just a monster.  He’s tortured.  The real secret of the Psycho movies is that they’re tragedies first and horror movies second.”

“Norman Bates is the Hamlet of horror roles.  Not your standard guy.”

“Not many people know this, but I was in New York rehearsing for a play when the shower scene was filmed in Hollywood.  It is rather strange to go through life being identified with this sequence knowing that it was my double.  Actually, the first time I saw Psycho and that shower scene was at the studio.  I found it really scary.  I was just as frightened as anybody else.  Working on the picture, though, was one of the happiest filming experiences of my life.  We had fun making it - never realizing the impact it would have.”

“The violence in the Psycho movies is born out of plot, passion and character.  Don’t just dispatch people by six to the reel and say its entertainment.”

“I chose not to go public about [his battle with AIDS] because, to misquote Casablanca, I’m not much 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 was scared to death of women for years.  I’d have jumped out of the window rather than into bed with Bardot.”

“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.”

“Rock Hudson let his gay agent marry him off to his secretary because he didn’t want people to get the right idea.”

Anthony Perkins has appeared in the following films:
The Actress (1953)
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
Fear Strikes Out (1957)
The Lonely Man (1957)
The Tin Star (1957)
This Angry Age (1958)
Desire Under the Elms (1958)
The Matchmaker (1958)
Green Mansions (1959)
On the Beach (1959)
Tall Story (1960)
Psycho (1960)
Goodbye Again (1961)
Phaedra (1962)
Le Couteau dans la plaie (1962)
Le Procès (1962)
Le Glaive et la balance (1963)
Une ravissante idiote (1964)
The Fool Killer (1965)
Paris brûle-t-il? (1966)
Le Scandale (1967)
Pretty Poison (1968)
Catch-22 (1970)
WUSA (1970)
Quelqu’un derrière la porte (1971)
La Décade prodigieuse (1971)
Play It As It Lays (1972)
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
Lovin’ Molly (1974)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Mahogany (1975)
Remember My Name (1978)
North Sea Hijack (1979)
Winter Kills (1979)
Twee vrouwen (1979)
The Black Hole (1979)
Double Negative (1980)
Psycho II (1983)
Crimes of Passion (1984)
Psycho III (1986)
Destroyer (1988)
Edge of Sanity (1989)
Der Mann nebenan (1991)
Los Gusanos no llevan bufanda (1992)