HELLO! INTERVIEW with Osgood Perkins from Dec. 93 ONE YEAR AFTER THE ACTOR'S DEATH, ANTHONY PERKINS' SON OSGOOD TALKS FRANKLY ABOUT HIS CHILDHOOD AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS FATHER In September, 1992, Anthony Perkins died of AIDS, at the age of 60. In a moving, posthumous message, the actor declared; " There are many that believe that this disease is God's vengeance, but I believe it was sent to teach people how to love and understand and have compassion for each other." A year after his death his son, Osgood Perkins, recalls his childhood, and talks about his father and his own personal reaction to his fathers's illness. The Perkins' house clings to one of Hollywood's Hills and opens on to an immense pinewood deck. Because of the slope of the terrain, it looks as if it is suspended in the trees. Outside there are chaise lounges, covered in a bronze patina from the eternal California sunshine, which look like they have been well used by the Perkins family. Stairs lead to a garden down below, which resembles a rainforest, and on the right, one glimpses the edge of a pool. On the terrace, a little altar has been installed in the open air, flanked by an old wooden bench. On the altar is a bronze urn which contains the ashes of Anthony Perkins. Osgood's lost look, the gestures of his hands, the movements of his body, his manner of walking, of folding his arms or holding his face between the palms of his hands... the same smile, the same regard-everything about Osgood Perkins reminds us of his father, Anthony. Osgood Perkins is 19 years old, and has just made his entrance into the working world. "I had my first role in a movie, "Six Degrees of Seperation" , by Australian director Fred Schepisi. It is not a great role, but it is an important moment in the film. In any case, that made it possible for me to make a start in the cinema. And I am rather proud of the way I was signed up. "The production team considered many other teenagers for the role and then Fred Schepisi remembered having met me at a party for my father's 60th birthday in New York, in April last year. We didn't exchange three words, but he remembered that meeting . In short, he called me, asked me to make a video cassette of myself at home, summoned me to New York and gave me the role. After that movie, I went on to another, but not as an actor. I was Mike Nichols' assistant on his new movie, "Wolf" Do you want to become an actor? "No. Unless, of course, my ten lines in the film completely overwhelm the critics and the public! I don't want to be one of those actors you see in a few movies and TV series who then disappear as suddenly as they appeared. Especially since my brother Elvis and I have already experienced something like that. A few years ago, we did a whole campaign for Calvin Klein. I am greatly attracted by the cinema but I don't know yet whether I'd want to devote my life to it. If I do opt for it, it will be as a director." What are you doing at present? "I am at university at the moment, the University of Southern California, in the heart of South Central. I am doing courses in film-making techniques." Does being the son of Anthony and of Berry Perkins, the nephew of Marisa Berenson and the great-grandson of Schiaparelli, help you in getting your career off the ground? "It had to come, the family tree! Are you sure you didn't forget anyone? Of course it was easier for me to meet Mike Nichols and Fred Schepisi than if I had been the son of a plumber. But if they hired me, it is not only because I am the son of their best friend. This profession is not so altruistic and it is not enough to know people to succeed in it. You also have to work hard. Perhaps even more in my case because it i much more difficult to make a name of one's own when you have a famous father." Does your father serve as an example to you? "Absolutely. In my private life and in the profession I want to follow he is my reference. My father was a fantastic actor because he never thought of giving an acting performance. Take Psycho, for example. It's brilliant. He didn't observe himself acting, he was the role. He was the real thing. Was he the real thing in his private life as well? "Oh, yes! Perfectly authentic. Elvis and I had a magnificent relationship with him. He left an indelible imprint upon us. My father never judged anything or anyone. Everything interested him, especially people. He made no distinction between the postman and the film star who came to have dinner in our house." "He didn't give a hang about anything that was an exterior sign of celebrity or wealth. The car model, the price of a pair of shoes, none of that had any importance in his eyes." "What interested him was what people had to say, their dreams, who they really were." "My father taught us thoughtfulness in relationships with others. He was curious about everything, generous, tolerant, cultivated, sensitive and amusing. he gave us a real taste for living." What particular memories do you have of your childhood? " My brother and I had a magical childhood with exceptional, caring parents who knew how to guide us so we wouldn't become bigheaded because they were famous." When did you realise you were the son of a movie star? "Never, because nothing special was connected with that. For us, Anthony Perkins was, in the first place, our father. When other children met us for the first time they were impressed, but it didn't last because we immediately set things straight." "My father was an actor, that was his profession. he could have had a different one and that would have changed nothing in our relationship with each other. He didn't see himself as a star and, what is more, I am not sure he knew that he was a star. That term of reference didn't exist in our home. We really lived in a very simple fashion. Dinners at home, even with the most famous people, were always dinners with friends, never Hollywood events. " We attended perfectly normal schools, not those private course for spoilt rich brats. Our friends were not necessarily the children of celebrities "My father came to cheer us on during football games like the fathers of all of our pals. I believe that, indeed we didn't really know what it meant to be the sons of Anthony Perkins. "I remember my surprise one day in school when a friend asked me if I wasn't afraid to take a shower when my father was in the house... I had to see the movie Psycho in order to understand the allusion to the murder in the shower. That sort of reaction made us laugh a lot, but we didn't attach too much importance to it." Which of your father's movies did you see first? "The Black Hole, a science fiction movie. But I confess that I was, at that particular time, much more impressed by the movie than by the fact that it was my father who played the leading role. Then, of course, I saw heaps of his films. And I adored Psycho." What was your reaction when you first learned of your father's illness? "I have often thought of that. At the time I think I didn't believe it but it was not exactly that. It is more correct to say that I did not have a specific emotional reaction to his illness. I was not devastated. I was still very young. I believe I had what psychologists call a reaction of positive refusal." "I was really only concerned with my father's illness during the last few months. To be exact, when he knew beyond all doubt that his days were numbered and that there were very few of them left for him." "I am thinking today of that initial reaction of refusal. It was as if my body and my mind reacted in this way to prevent me from going mad. "His illness really weighed on my mind in the last months but, before that, I managed to ignore it. I knew that he was ill but I wanted to ignore the fact that his life was in danger." All the same, you returned home to Los Angeles. "Two years before his death, I returned to live at home. He didn't ask me why and I didn't explain anything. I simply returned home because I felt it was my place to be there. I knew why. He did, too, no doubt, but we never spoke of it." At that moment did your relationship with him change? "Why should it have changed? Our relationship was what it always was, composed of infinite quantities of tenderness and love. We had no feeling of shame or embarassment with respect to the illness he was suffering. "We were appalled to know he was suffering from an incurable illness about which we could do nothing. Our daily life was upset, yes, but not our relationship with him. We never loved him less. We simply loved him to the end." What was your reaction when the press first spoke of your father's illness? "Frankly, none, Anthony Perkins was a star and evidently his 'case' interested the press, especially the tabloid press. "But the press had very little to sink its teeth into, only rumours, which were neither confirmed nor denied. My father had taught us enough for us to take the judgement of others at its true worth. "As for what was said or written at that moment, I didn't care. when people asked me questions which were too specific. I lied saying it was all rubbish. But I lied for my own convenience because I was unable to explain things I myself didn't understand. It was not a case of hiding the truth. "In any case, telling the truth would have done nothing but attract pity for myself from people who couldn't understand." What was it exactly they couldn't understand? "Both our helplessness and that infinite complicity which united all four of us. That belonged to us alone. And still belongs to us. Those intense and dramatic moments bonded us even more." But from that moment when your father's illness could no longer be hidden...? "My friends understood. They knew how, at that moment, to be truly my friends, both supportive and discreet and without morbid curiousity. Even our close friends learned nothing from us until several months after the death of my father." At no point did you feel obliged to say what was happening? "No, not obliged. We did it as naturally as we could, It was not easy but it was little compared with how we were living day by day-with the progressive and inescapable loss of my father." Were you worried by the indiscreet questions asked of you or which could have been asked of you? "My closest friends never asked me the slightest question. My father's life concerned him alone and he was responsible for that life. We gave neither explanations nor excuses. We acted as if his death was natural, normal. Not as if it was a death resulting from a curse. "Because it wasn't. My father died here. And we were here. And we loved him as much at the end as we had loved him earlier. "And, you know, 20 or 30 years from now it will always be known who Anthony Perkins was because his movies will still exist- those masterpieces by John Huston, George Cukor, William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and so many others from whom he was inseparable. And who will remember how or why he died?" Is your father's presense still felt in this house? "Yes. And he will remain present as long as we keep him in our hearts and in our memories."