HELLO! APRIL 14, 1990, ANTHONY PERKINS INTERVIEW
Anthony Perkins at home with his wife Berry Berenson and their two sons on his 58th birthday. Hello! joins in the family celebrations.
We met actor Tony Perkins at his home in a hilly, rustic suburb of Los Angeles. It was the third time that we went to the Perkin's home to photograph and interview Tony and his wife of 17 years, journalist and photographer Berry Berenson. Tony and Berry have two sons, Osgood 16, and Elvis 14. The two boys are on Spring holiday from school, but they were staying at home because April 4 was a special event in the Perkins family--their father's birthday.
Tony is now 58 years old and from his youthful, slim appearance and energetic manner it's clear that he's carrying the years very well and enjoying them in good health and happy spirits.
As we spoke, Tony's family were busy setting the table for a festive afternoon tea with some friends to celebrate this birthday.
Tony, are birthdays important events in your family?
"Berry has always made a point of celebrating birthdays. When I was a bachelor I didn't pay that much attention but now that we have each other and the children, it's fun to make a fuss over birthdays. Actually Berry's birthday is in a few days, we are both Aries, and, according to astrological definitions, we are a pretty ill-mated couple, especially troublesome, but we've learned to overcome those things, if in fact they really exist. This is our first and only marriage. We have already been married for 17 years and couldn't be happier.
"For my birthday Berry and the boys bake me a special cake. We have some friends come over for tea in the afternoon and then we get together, just the four of us, in the evening to open gifts and celebrate.
"When you get to be my age you want to make sure you don't eat too many sugars and processed foods, so when Berry bakes, which she does for all our birthdays, she tries to make the cakes as sensibly as possible."
When did your interest in nutrition actually begin?
"I became interested in health foods and supplements when my kids were born. I wanted to have all the energy I needed to keep up with them. I also married a younger woman and I want to keep up with her! "
Tell us about your children.
"Osgood is 16 years old and Elvis is 14. Osgood is named after my father, who was a well-known actor in his day on the American stage. Osgood now drives and it's interesting to recall that, not so long ago, we wouldn't let these kids out of our sight at the beach even just to go over the dunes on foot. That was unthinkable. Now we see them go out of sight in their own car! It was frightening at first but we've grown to accept it. I've been driven many miles by Osgood now, and I'm not tense about it at all."
Are either of your two children interested in going into show business?
"When Osgood graduates from high school in a year he says that he wants to attend New York University to study film making. He actually appeared in Psycho 2 in one very small shot, so small that it was actually just his face reflected in a polished door knob!
"I'm not into encouraging them to become actors or even go into show business. It's a difficult and exacting field which requires an enormous amount of courage and energy, like anything. But it's harder than most things and so long as they realize that, if they still intend and insist in following a show business career, I will wish them all I can.
"Even though my father was a very well-respected actor in his day, he died when I was still very young and I couldn't really use him for anything other than almost a mythical model.
"Actors may go to acting school to learn how to act, but you can never learn how to conduct your career, how to conduct yourself with the outside world. When young actors sometimes get themselves into trouble, I'm always sympathetic because it's a public life which is very difficult to learn.
"My children grew up in the public view and I made sure they were exposed to that. They've understood that that's the way it is when we're out and people stop us, yet it's not like that when they go out with their friends' families."
What do you believe is the secret to good health?
"Attitude, diet and exercise. The attitude is believing that you are in good health, and having a young outlook. When you get close to your sixth decade you really have to keep reminding yourself that you are as old as you feel. I really think that diet is tremendously important.
"I also exercise evry day for at least an hour--some weights, some sit-ups, and push-ups, then I force myself to run in the hills where we live. I choose the steepest hills that I can find--that way I don't have to run for more than an hour. I try to exercise more vigorously for a shorter length of time.
"I can't get my kids to run with me at all. We play ping-pong together and also tennis in the summer and we spend a lot of time together in the surf on the East Coast when we go in the summer. But I cannot get them to go running with me. They think of it as punishment!
"I've been slender since I was a child. I could fatten up if I was willing to eat processed foods and sweets but I'm not willing to do that. I'm accustomed to a healthy life. I eat every two hours rather than eating big meals, which is thought by many nowadays to be a good way of staying healthy. As a result I just don't find myself full, so it's not easy for me to be a regular weight for my height.
"You can lose and gain weight for acting roles but I think the image that most people have of me is of being rather slender anyway, so although I may seem excessively thin right now, I just don't eat fattening foods. People tell me I should eat more hot fudge sundaes but that just doesn't appeal to me. The mainstays of my diet are salads, chicken, fish--all the things that are boring. It's so sensible that sometimes even good nutritionists say you have to break out. You just can't limit yourself to things that are just good for you, you have to splurge sometimes on things like hamburgers. And I definitely do.
"My favorite splurge foods are cheeseburgers, milkshakes, french fries all the things I grew up with."
Who's the cook in the family?
"We've never had live-in help. Our housekeeper leaves at five in the afternoon, so if you have to prepare dinner for two boys and yourselves you just have to learn to get it together.
" I didn't know anything about cooking before I had kids. Now I can put pancakes on the table within five minutes of walking into the kitchen.
"Berry and I have always shared all the responsibilities of the kids and the house."
What's happening at the moment on the work front?
"We are starting to film the third Psycho sequel--that makes it Psycho 4--and the script is very interesting. It spends a lot of time examining Norman Bates' boyhood from the time he was six or seven years old, and then as a young teenager. Those are obviously flash-back sequences. It's a very well written script by the author of the original Psycho.
"Norman discusses his life in the movie, he thinks back to how he assembled the problems with which he's lived for so many years.
"I think it's really a very compassionate story. Many questions will be answered about how Norman Bates developed. The mother will be a very pivotal character in the film seen as a young, kind of seductive woman and she won't be altogether a villianous character which I think is important.
"It's the misunderstandings that arose between Norman and his mother that really made things go so very wrong. Many people have asked questions about their relationship, and I think that the two sequels made so far haven't paid enough attention to that. The second sequel, Psycho 3, which I directed myself, really was too much like the first movie. It didn't have enough original material.
"This next film will be a very fast and efficient shoot, and I'm not technical enough to know how to do things that way. Plus, I'm going to have my hands full, there's a lot of Norman to do in the film so I will only act not direct."
And after this, will there be more Psycho films?
"You should never make a sequel with another in mind. If you do, the sequel you're making will be thin. You have to spend it all, believe you're making the last movie each time.
"Audiences have become so cynical that if the ground isn't littered with dead bodies of everyone who has ever appeared, they say: 'Oh, look. That one's still moving, that must mean there's going to be another sequel!"
Besides work, what are your other interests?
"Having a family and being in the centre of a family requires not only energy but time. I'm not so sure I have an understanding of the phrase 'quality time'. I think 'quantity time' is more important. We feel the more time we can spend with our kids, even if we're just in the house together, is more important than concentrating on trying to do things every minute."
Are you involved in any causes?
"I work with a progam that delivers food to various patients who are afflicted with life threatening diseases and who can't get out of the house. I'm on the board of a couple of things like that. In fact, just to find out a little bit more about it, I also go out and deliver food myself one day a week to the home-bound."
Recent headlines have raised speculation about your own health. Can you comment on that?
"I've always taken my excellent health for granted which is probably wrong. Good health is a gift, and I guess that such gifts should always be treated with respect. I'm in excellent health right now and I'm going to continue to try to keep that way. Of course, if I could gain weight, as we said before, that would probably be a way to keep such speculations at bay, but I just don't believe in being heavy for the sake of being heavy, just to please people's visions of how they think I should look." |
