A Year: Day to Day Men: 4th of April
Vik in Soapsuds
April 4, 1932 was the birthdate of the American actor and singer, Anthony Perkins.
Anthony Perkins was born in New York City, the son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins and his wife Janet Esslstyn. He was a descendant of a Mayflower passenger John Howland, who was first an indentured servant and later personal secretary to Governor John Carver of the Plymouth Colony.
Anthony Perkins received a lot of attention for his role in the film “Friendly Persuasion”, playing the son of Gary Cooper under the direction of William Wyler. The film was very successful and he received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year-Actor and an Academy Award nomination. A life member of the Actors Studio, Perkins also acted in theater. In 1958 he was nominated for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in “Look Homeward, Angel” on Broadway. He played the role of Eugene Gant.
Perkins in youth had a boyish, earnest quality, reminiscent of the young James Stewart, which Alfred Hitchcock exploited and subverted when the actor starred as Norman Bates in the 1960 film “Psycho”. The film was a critical and commercial success, and gained Perkins international fame for his performance as the homicidal owner of the Bates Motel. His performance gained him the Best Actor Award from the International Board of Motion Picture Reviewers. The role and its multiple sequels affected the remainder of his career.
“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.” – Anthony Perkins on playing Norman Bates in “Psycho”