Denver Post (15/Sep/1992) - Our favorite psycho
Details
- article: Our favorite psycho
- newspaper: Denver Post (15/Sep/1992)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Perkins, Norman Bates, Psycho (1960)
Article
Our favorite psycho
Of all of the thousands of villains Hollywood has produced, Anthony Perkins may have been the most frightening.
Surely he was the most believable.
The lanky, clean-cut actor, who died over the weekend at the age of 60, appeared in numerous films during his career. But it was "Psycho," the classic thriller that Alfred Hitchcock brought to the screen in 1960, that made Perkins a true star.
As the murderous innkeeper Norman Bates, he looked like a fairly harmless and ordinary fellow. But his brooding eyes and his creepy restlessness betrayed a sinister side that seemed so authentic he could have given Satan himself the heebie-jeebies. Under Hitchcock's deft direction, Perkins ushered in the modern psychological thriller. He also ensured that an entire generation of American movie-goers would never trust a shower curtain again.
In contrast to his sinister screen image, Perkins gave the world a look at his own warm humanity last week in a statement announcing he had contracted AIDS:
"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."
That's a remarkably graceful statement from a person in the last days of his life from a debilitating disease. But on the screen or off, Anthony Perkins was a remarkably graceful human being.
