INTERVIEW MAGAZINE, Nov. 1972, Tony interviewed by Berry, WHAT'S TONY PERKINS REALLY REALLY LIKE? Text and Photos By Berry Berenson
When I was 12 I fell in love with Tony Perkins. At the time, he happened to be in the ample clutches of Melina Mercouri in a film called PHAEDRA. Thus I was suddenly initiated into a world of foreign emotions and wild fantasies, and I began to feel he was my closest companion within this sphere. Diligently I made a closely guarded scrapbook of all his clippings and photographs so that I could possess at least some part of him. In my wildest dreams never did it occur to me that one day I might actually meet him.
One of my greatest friends, Joel Schumacher, had been working closely with him on his latest film PLAY IT AS IT LAYS. I bribed Joel to introduce me. What a gleeful moment it was to see Tony Perkins in the flesh, looking as young and handsome as I had imagined. He is intelligent, sensitive, and what a charmer!
I suggested interviewing him and he consented, although he claimed he had very little to say that he hadn't already said in the many interviews he had done all his life. So he suggested "Why don't you just come over, don't think up any questions... we'll just talk and that way you may get a different kind of great story."
So, on a bright sunny Saturday morning I made my way down his treelined street arriving at his beautiful Chelsea townhouse. As I rang the doorbell butterflies were attacking my stomach. Once inside I felt more at ease; he was sensitive to my bloodshot eyes (was very hung over) and promptly squeezed me a glass of fresh orange juice, made me a strong cup of coffee and escorted me up to the terrace. It was a sunshiny day and we settled down, covered ourselves wth Skol and began enjoying the preliminaries of getting to know each other. He insisted on the fact that it should be my interview as well as his.
"How was Europe?" I said knowing he had just returned.
"How old are you?" he said
"24, why? Do I look 40 today?"
"Europe was really good," he said, adjusting the microphone. The purpose of his trip was that he and Stephen Sondheim had written a screenplay (rumor has it that it is the best around). It is now being filmed in the South of France.
"What is the film about? Or maybe you don't want to talk about it." He mentioned a journalist in Paris who would say things like "Listen, tell me what you are doing in Paris? Of course if you don't want to talk about it... Um, where did you buy your luggage? You don't have to answer that if you don't want to ..." That seems incomprehensible to him; he feels that if you make a movie or write a movie you should be proud enough to want to talk about it.
"Okay, let's talk about it," I said.
"It's called THE LAST OF SHEILA and it's a murder mystery which takes place on a yacht. It's being directed by Herbert Ross and the actors are Raquel Welch, James Mason, James Coburn, Richard Benjamin, Joan Hackett and Dyan Cannon."
"How long did it take you to write it? ..."
"Have you done a lot of interviews?" he asked in response.
"No, I just started and it's very hard to put it all together, but I really love it."
"Well, look," he said, "I don't think you should use one word of what I say, you should write it in the first person and it should be everything you thought. You should write it like fly on the wall journalism, they did that in the Fifties." He threw me some suggestions: "There was a broken bottle of gin on the stairs, Oops I thought, I was very hung over. I rang the bell: no answer. Had he forgotten? I went across the street and called him. Three winos watched me wearily. Some nieghborhood this is, I thought and dialed his number. 'Hello!' he answered brightly.I tried to keep the aggravation out of my voice 'didn't you hear the bell?' 'Sure I heard the bell' he said,' but you pressed the wrong one. I said the terrace not the first floor.' I retraced my steps; the winos had now passed out-no more trouble from them. But there was Perkins all right, leering out the window and wearing a black T-shirt, young as ever I thought. I wondered what kind of shots he must take and made a mental note not to ask him if he ever went to Switzerland for rejuvenation. He smiled and disappeared, closing the window: Right out of "Psycho", I thought. Pretty soon the door buzzed and I walked in. Strange pattern on the stairway, very freaky. I thought it might be psychedelic. Once inside it was very light and airy. No curtains on the windows, this guy must not be paranoid anybody can look in and see what's going on, I like that. Perkins was dressed in a black T-shirt and threadbare jeans. 'You look a little hung over,' he said and he was right!"
Meanwhile back on the terrace the parlez continued.
"Did you see the Liza Minnelli special on television?" he asked.
"Did you believe her! I'm such a great fan of hers."
"Yes, she's really great, it was a good show."
He has never been to acting school. As a kid he was in summer stock and they always needed people to play the brat parts. So he worked constantly. Having had that preliminary experience he was cast in a broadway play called "Tea and Sympathy". It was a great part for him and one that he believes enabled him to acquire far more practical understanding than going to acting school. Soon after he was cast into films.
"Tell me about your latest film, PLAY IT AS IT LAYS." He had not seen it yet, although he was very curious. He felt it was better to wait for the promotion of the film and the talk shows.and not feel obligated to say "Well Johnny! I hate to tell you this but it's really a fine motion picture", or lie, "Well, yes, um ... we had a very interesting time making it." He'd rather remain curious about it as the people who may go to see it.
"Do you enjoy seeing yourself on film?" I asked.
"If the scene is really bad I feel really low; if the scene is really good it's wonderful. It's there forever."
"What was the movie you liked the most scenes of yourself in?"
"A baseball movie called FEAR STRIKES OUT."
I swooned and told him I had loved him in a movie called TALL STORY. He winced and suggested I never see it again. PSYCHO and FRIENDLY PERSUASION were also favorites of his. "Psycho for me is one of the most intriguing horrific films I have ever seen.
"What is it like working with Alfred Hitchcock?"
"It was a lot of fun; he's a lot of laughs! It wasn't ever spooky making that film, we were just breaking up the whole time, it's so far out that picture, but we couldn't take it seriously or else we would have become really weird."
He followed up an earlier thought: "Some people can't stand to see their own movies, they feel they hate the way they look, but that's ridiculous, anyone with that point of view really shouldn't be doing it all. Then there are those who are heavy-handedly modest about how thrilled they are about everything they do. I guess that's a good attitude but I'm very realistic, I'm terribly disappointed if a scene is bad and really happy if it's good."
"But you're such a great actor!"
He smiled in that familiar bashful way...
"How did you decide to become an actor?"
"I just knew it, I went to college and everybody said they were going to be actors and I said I was going to be an actor, and they said they were going to be stars and I said I was going to be a star, they said it and I said it, they knew it and I knew it, but I really knew it."
"Do you want to put more Skol on?" he said. Take your time and try not to be so nervous."
As he had worked with some of the greatest women in films ( Janet Leigh, Sophia Loren, Melina Mercouri, Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld) I was curious to know if one of them had especially swept him off his feet.
"Everytime I'm asked that question, I find it hard to answer because it would sound like all the others weren't terrific. But fate had it that I was always working with each of them when they were really up! Some superstar women are supposed to be so difficult and people always say 'Watch out for her, she's trouble, she'll kill you on the set!" But it turned out they were all terrific!"
"I'm going to a screening of 'Play it as it lays' next week."
His eyes lit up. "Would you please call me and tell me how it was?"
He noticed I was still a little nervous and I kept insisting it was totally due to my long-term infatuation. He stated that I made him nervous. I was puzzled that he should feel that way but he firmly insisted I take his word for it without further question. At least we were both in the same boat! "Well, tell me, do you sleep in the nude?" I asked for relaxation.
Being so much in the public eye had made him a little gun-shy in the past, but not any more, he declared. Although I realized that being a very private person such things as interviews must be such an invasion.
"Being a private person sounds wonderful on paper," he said, "but it hides a lot of ego things, anxieties and fears." I asked him if he liked spending time alone.
"I've never been alone for more than 25 minutes in my life, the idea of spending an hour by myself is terrifying, but I woudn't mind trying to see what it was like. I figure that people who are afraid of spending time alone don't have real relationships with themselves, so how can those people have good relationships with others."
I told him I tried to find a little time alone although it was hard not to indulge in such things as radio, television and of couse the telephone! But with my busy life it was hard to maintain much silence and in all honesty I confessed needing people to stimulate me. I found relationships with others very rewarding. A lot of people spend too much time alone and then find it hard to be sociable with others and that gave them a lot of anxiety.
We discussed my social life. He saw it as being the mad-cap world of a deb turned photographer. I explained it was hard to live up to the image that people give one; one usually doesn't see oneself in the way that others do. Because of my work I was constantly with people, so that after working hours it was a relief to spend time alone or wih a few close friends. Partying once in a while was fun but discotheques were a depressant.
"I just came back from Paris and there were a couple of people who had just arrived from New York. 'God, I'm glad to be back in Paris!' they said, 'New York, who can take it, those two or three parties every single night and you can't turn them down because they're so fabulous and you're up until five o' clock every morning!' What city is that? What parties are those?" He didn't know what the hell those people were talking about. Tony goes to few parties a year.
"So you live alone with your dog, that's really nice!" he said. "This is half my interview!" I said
"That's okay. This is my terrace, my chairs and my suntan oil."
"So how do you spend your days?" I inquired.
"I go to the analyst most days."
"What for?" I asked naively.
"To be analyzed," he answered. "I've been going for almost four years and I feel that it has helped me tremendously; I have no deadline but I hope to be finished soon."
We drifted into pensive silence.
"Isn't this terrace nice?" he said. "It's so nice to be on the fourth floor, it's so private you can lie out here with no clothes on and no one can see you. I love this house, I've had it for about five years."
"I presume you like New York."
"Sure, but one of the main reasons I stay is for my analysis. When it's over I'd like to live in the country. I have a small house in Cape Cod but I keep myself so busy I hardly find the time to go. How about you? Do you like New York?"
"Yes, I love it! It gives me so much energy and motivates me to work constantly. The busier I am the happier I am. I lived in Europe all my life so New York is still fairly new to me and that helps to inspire me.
"You must have a favorite city," I insisted. "I guess Los Angeles, although I've never lived there for long periods of time. I love it out there. Did you read the story in Esquire this month on Los Angeles? It was a whole glowing report that's going to turn the world on. Remind me to show it to you when we go inside."
"You still haven't really told me what you've been up to!"
"Well ... I did PLAY IT AS IT LAYS and also a film called 'The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean' and for the last year I've been writing 'The Last of Sheila' with Steve Sondheim."
"That's fantastic! Is that the first thing you've ever written?"
"Yes."
"Have you been brooding over it for years?"
"Not really. Don't you hate it when people say 'You really ought to do such and such, you really ought to make veal parikash, knowing you so well I just know how fabulous you could put that veal together!' and as soon as they say that, you know it's the last thing you want to do. Well some people have said 'Why don't you write something, with your talent and ability etc. etc. etc.' "
"And you did ... Are you pleased with it?"
"Yes, but it will be more important how pleased we are with the results."
"What do you find more satisfying, stage acting or screen acting?"
"Well, everyone says it's all the same, but it's really so totally different. I've been through phases in my life where I thought, if I didn't act in another play right away I'd be very unhappy and then I thought, Oh! Well now I wanna make movies. I had such a good time working on 'Play it as it Lays'. I really got into certain aspects of film acting I had never before experienced. I hate to keep coming back to the same subject, but they say that the purpose of analysis is to make the unconscious conscious so the more of my unconscious mind I've been able to understand the more I've been able to apply it to my work."
"What was Frank Perry like to work with?"
"Really good. The top thing that a director in a movie can do for the actors is to create an attitude and an atmosphere of creativity. Frank really understood that."
"Would you like some more coffee? I bet you would."
"Sure, why not, but first I must go to the bathroom and then we'll take a coffee break."
"It's the first door to your right, it's in a terrible mess! I bet you're a tidy person or does your place look like a hurricane hit?"
"I try to be a tidy person but it only lasts minutes."
After the pause that refreshes he was ready with another question: "How long have you been living in New York?"
"Four years," I replied.
"Well then, you must have seen me in my play. It was called 'Steambath'. "
"That's the one you directed and acted in too? I didn't see it."
"What kind of a fan are you? You had the opportunity to see it and you didn't, what's your excuse? It was on two summers ago."
"I was away," I said in all honesty.
"That's good 'cause that's why you didn't see it, it opened at the unchic time of June 1st!"
"It must have been great directing and acting at the same time."
"It was not at all great. The amount of objectivity I could have had, although it wasn't none, was much less great being on the stage than it would have been just watching it, If I was directing and acting in it I couldn't really see what anyone was up to. So when I gave the actors directions and said something like 'Go a little faster,' they would have had every right to say to me 'Well how do you know, you can't see it,' It was very hard."
That was the only play Tony directed on Broadway, but he directed a lot around the country with the repertory companies. "That's where the good theatre is," he said "It has been said but it can't be said often enough that the repertory theatre is incredible. If I were to find myself, say in Seattle, I would want to go to the theatre there; it would be as good if not better than Broadway."
"Do you feel Broadway is dying?"
"I think there is nothing more fabulous than to have two tickets, say for 'Follies', to get out of your cab, smell the air and be on Broadway going to a successful Broadway musical, it has to be a unique and wonderful experience. The point being that the theatre is existing very beautifully arond the country, maybe more so than on Broadway, for technical or financial reasons."
I asked him what he thought of the future of films. He quoted Orson Welles, saying that the art of committing feelings, statements and ideas to film, the surface had just been scratched, there are so many things to do that we hadn't even thought of and that's an exciting prospect. Tony feels that the ten best movies of this year are better han the ten best movies from the year before that. "I prefer today's movies to old movies," he added.
"I'm a great movie audience," he declared. "I can just settle back and really laugh and cry."
"You really cry in movies? How wonderful, I cry like a fountain," I said enthusiastically. We compared the movies in which we had cried the most. I could hardly remember, he knew exactly.
"The movie I cried the most in was 'Marriage Italian Style', I cried starting at the first reel. I was wearing a blue workshirt and when I left the theatre it was wet right down to my belt."
I still couldn't remember a real tearjerker, excluding "Bambi" and "Dumbo" .
He confessed to being a tremendous romantic. "When I saw BALLAD OF A SOLDIER the tears came out so violently, they didn't run down my cheeks but sprang out like I had a water pistol."
We decided at that moment to find a really sad movie and go together and cry.
"So what movie shall we see?" he said. "We can't guarantee in advance that we're going to feel sad about it, I mean to go and say are you ready? Kleenex in one hand and poppers in the other."
"Poppers!! Are you a popper popper?" I shrieked.
"No, but I was just reminded of the first time I saw one. I was making a film called WUSA and there was supposed to be this big crying scene. The director ran over and broke this popper in my face, which made me freak!! I think that shows a terrific spirit on the director's part."
We paused for a while and then he said "Let's wait for the next clouds and we'll go down and make raisin toast with peanut butter." My mouth began to water.
Having read the first three paragraphs of the Ryan O' Neal interview in Esquire, Tony could go no further, knowing that Ryan was really going to get the ax. However he feels that actors who are cool enough to let reporters see them in situations in which they can really be made fun of, shows a fantastic spirit. To be misquoted is one thing, but to be misunderstood is another-
"I'll tell you though, I don't really care. When I was under contract to Paramount they used to say to me "So and so is coming to interview you, be sure not to talk about A, B, and C, and at all costs avoid questions D, E and F and say whatever you can about H, I and J because that's what we're selling." So it used to be very nervewracking to do interviews and go on the talk shows, but not any more."
It flashed through my mind the story Peter O'Toole had told me about how once he had been so nervous on a talk show, he remembered being asked the first question, did not remember answering it and fainted, "He O.D.'ed!" said Tony. "It's just as bad as what happened to me once-I fell asleep on the David Susskind Show! I had just flown in from Europe and I was feeling really spaced, but everyone told me I had to be there, Jules Dassin, Melina Mercouri and Mike Frankovitch were going to be on the show too. At one point Jules Dassin and Mike Frankovitch began a long, heavy discussion about the fate of the industry, so I figured seeing as all the cameras were off me I would close my eyes for a second! I put my hands up to my face as though deep in thought and twenty minutes later I was awakened by a secretary offering me a cup of coffee!"
But it's very obvious that being the big star that he is and therefore always in the public eye Tony is not in the least bit bothered by the stares and the looks of recognition or the people who say snapping their fingers right under his nose "Hey Susan! Isn't that what's his name, you know, your favorite?"
In any case he rides around on his black bicycle slightly incognito, wearing forbidding black sunglasses and a little cap. I myself saw him the other day whizzing down Fifth Avenue and did a double take, by which time he was already blocks away.
"Do you ever take holidays? What is a holiday anyway?" I added.
"I'd like to take a holiday," he answered. "I guess a holiday is when you go someplace and you make no plans. You check into the Equador Plaza and you have no plans. The trouble with taking a holiday out of this country, for an actor, is that to hype the country, the immigration officials immediately notify the newspapers and then you have no privacy. So I think the best place for an actor to take a holiday is in this country where nobody could care less."
Tony had not traveled in this country much and when describing my week of bliss in New Mexico he said "I bet I could really get into living there."
"So tell me more, I want to know everything about you," I said eagerly. "What are your future plans?"
He felt that one of the interesting things that had been revealed to him by analysis was that he doesn't know what he wants to be.
"But you are already," I protested.
"I meant I don't know what I want to pursue being a film actor or a director. I honestly can't say at this point in my life what it is I want."
He spoke very highly of his agent, Sue Mengers. "She's a real agent in the old fashioned and very active sense of the word. People say she's a new breed of agent; actually she's not. She's from the old breed of agent who cared whether or not their clients worked a lot. The breed of agents that grew up during the 50's and 60's were lazy and waited around for the phone to ring. Their agencies were so big they could afford to do that."
"Do you have any new projects?"
"Steve and I are thinking of writing something else, possibly a play. Writing in collabaration is really the way to do it. I have no real professional trained writing habits."
He interrupted himself. "You know what it sounds like? It sounds like one long drone. It sounds like I started talking hours ago and I have never stopped. I guess it's because I want you to have a good interview."
"It's great! Keep talking."
"The walls of this terrace are very bouncy, over there where the bricks are, and I suddenly heard that a-a-a-a-a-a-a- like a tape just rolling out. I did an interview for Rolling Stone when I was working on PLAY IT AS IT LAYS. I had an excellent interviewer by the name of Grover Lewis. He asked me a lot of questions but when they printed my interview they took out all his questions and left just the answers. So it sounded like 'Yes, we made "Play it as it Lays", that was fine, currently I'm working on my new screenplay which I hope to have finished, but of course analysis has helped me a great deal...' It just went on and on and on. I couldn't believe it. After all, he had asked me questions. People must have wondered when I ever came up for breath!"
The moment I had been waiting for finally came. "How about that raisin toast?" he said. We ducked through the window onto the landing and down one flight of stairs to the kitchen. We became very domestic, me rinsing out the coffee cups, he putting the bread in the toaster.
"So this is going to be your lunch," he said, "toast and butter with peanut butter and honey. Try this goat's cheese, it's great."
It all tasted very organic.
"I guess people still use Skippy." he said.
"Good old Skippy! How could anyone forget him!" I answered
"Remember the hours spent at the supermarket with one's mother trying to decide between Skippy plain and Skippy crunchy, she'd say 'Come on, will you make up your mind already! Even though you couldn't make up your mind."
"You're very into health foods," I remarked
"I really don't know that much about it," he said, "but the raw milk in the black container-that to me, is really the final word! Who could say no to milk in a black container!"
"Tell me when you want me to get out of here."
"I swear to God I will! he replied "What time is it, I can't see the clock from here, I'm not wearing my contact lenses."
"It's twelve-thirty, you mean you haven't been seeing anything all day?"
"Sure, I put on my dark glasses every once in a while!"
"Basically, the only thing we have to do is decide on the movie we're going to see and hopefully have a good cry."
"Cry. . . cry. . .cry. . .cry" he muttered while thumbing through Cue magazine.
"Is there a movie called Cry?" I said " I know there's one called "Throat".
"Deep Throat", it was said to be a great porno movie which neither of us had seen, but as it turned out we weren't turned on to go. Pornographic movies had never really been a turn-on for either of us, my reason being that I found the people so unattractive and I didn't get off on watching others have sex. Tony explained: "It's the idea of people getting turned on and then having to hurry home. I don't like the idea of hastening out of the movie theatre., back home, trying to remember what she did, what he did, what they did. The urgency of that does not turn me on."
"However, all these thoughts embarked him on a funny story. "I knew this guy, I was at his house, the phone rang, he answered. When he hung up he said 'So and so's coming over, you've just got to meet them!' I told him I wasn't up to it; he said 'Listen, hide in the closet, it's alright, I knocked out a corner of the panel so you can see out.' Well obviously this guy had not done this just for my benefit, it was his lifestyle. But I went into the closet and started peeking through the panel. it turned me on, but then it wasn't the watching that turned me on; I wanted to be out there and not in the closet, out there in the room with them or just with one of them. so I cleaned up the closet instead-I put the pants on the hangers with the right coats, I couldn't just sit there and do nothing so I spruced up the closet."
"My God!" I guffawed, "how long were they at it?"
"About an hour and a half," he answered. "Gee, I'm already up to the K's in Cue magazine and there are no tearjerkers!"
"Well, I guess we'll just have to wait," I said regretfully.
"Let's go back to the terrace," he said. "We're missing those precious hours of sun."
It certainly was a silvery day.
"What does it feel like to be as successful as you, Tony?"
"Success is nice." he replied. "The only thing wrong with success is that if people are not as successful as you, it can make them just a little bit different with you. Because some people feel you don't deserve it and they do."
"Why would anyone feel that of you?" I said with great admiration.
"Everyone wants to make it and be very successful," he explained. "On an unconscious level they don't realize just how much they resent you. People say 'Ah! Those movie stars, they all stick together, the Hollywood ratpack.' There is no Hollywood ratpack, but there certainly are a lot of well-known actors who can relax with each other and be friends. Anyway, doesn't everyone secretly want to be a movie star?"
"Yes, I'm sure most people have that fantasy," I said.
"So when you know a movie star and you're not a movie star, there can be a little resentment factor."
"Well, you either have it or you don't," I said.
"Do you think of photography as a second-rate art?" he questioned. "Some people think of acting that way too." I certainly didn't. Then he added, "I think a lot of people who are not first rate artists hide behind such things as acting, photography, or singing, because then they can get away with being slightly second-rate."
"You recorded some records, didn't you?" I asked.
"I made quite a few records. Talk about second-rate art!"
"You seem to be able to talk on almost anything," I said.
"There are a lot of things I can't do, certain things one simply avoids doing for the wrong psychological childlike reasons, things you feel you don't deserve. What if God suddenly came down and you were walking in Montauk and he said, 'Listen, I've been very busy, I haven't been around here, what is the problem? What is happening here that's all so screwed up? I've only got a minute.' Wouldn't you say that one of the problems is that people feel they don't deserve to have things?"
"I totally agree," I said. "I feel that a lot of the punishments that people inflict on themselves is because of guilts projected by their parents or by a heavy religious upbringing."
"Yes, but if you're a kid," he said, "the kind of kid that lots of us were, you're only too eager to accept that guilt. A lot of people never get over it and therefore deprive themselves of the things they deserve. A lot of people settle for second best."
Tony is an only child. His father was also a famous actor, Osgood Perkins, who died when Tony was a little child.
"That's hard to live with," he said. "So many things in my life are based on the rules I made up for myself at the young age of five. You make deals with yourself and your parents and you stick to them. that's basically what analysis helps you see."
We talked about group therapy. Tony goes once a week, to experience and participate in the emotions of the people in his group.
"I never liked the idea of that," I confessed. "I don't like the idea of having to touch and hold and demonstrate my deepest feelings to strangers, I'd rather do it myself."
"Sure you'd rather do it yourself," he said, "but maybe you wouldn't do it that way, it's like going to a singing coach, anyone can be a star alone in a room with a coach and a piano, but throw that same person in with a class of maybe fifteen people, they might not turn out to be the star they thought they were. Anway, in my group we only exchange our feelings. No touching."
We had now been conversing for hours and we decided to call it a day as far as cross-examination was concerned.
"Could I take some pictures of you?" I asked.
"Sure, take as many as you like." he answered.
My camera was rearing to go! I snapped him sitting on the kitchen stool with his beloved black milk container, I snapped him on the telephone, I snapped him lying on the couch and then I zoomed in for close-ups-each frame revealing his thoughts articulately; an animated face expressing no signs of self-consciousness.
Aretha Franklin was singing her heart out in the background. I checked out the time and knew it was my cue to exit.I began packing up my equipment and I suddenly felt like a little girl going back to school. It had been such an unforgettable day, I had lived out my fantasy and the reality was that of knowing a very special person. As we walked down the stairs towards the outside world, I said with nervous laughter, "This is the saddest moment of my life!" He laughed and insisted I include it in this story.
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