Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 - September 12, 1992) was an American actor best known for his role as the serial killer Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).
He was the son of American stage and film actor Osgood Perkins (James Ripley Osgood Perkins, 1891-1937) and his wife, Janet Esseltyn Rane.
Perkins' first movie was The Actress (1953); he received an Academy Award nomination for his role in his second film, Friendly Persuasion (1956). After other acclaimed performances both in film and on Broadway, he starred as Norman Bates in the 1960 film Psycho. Many people feel he deserved to win an Oscar for this role, but he was not nominated. At one point, he was considered for the lead in West Side Story, but the producers felt he was too old at 29 to play a teenager.
He went on to create a critically-lauded portrayal of Joseph K. in Orson Welles' cinematic adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Trial, and he starred in the sequels and prequel to Psycho, including Psycho II, Psycho III (which he directed) and Psycho IV: The Beginning. He also played a few memorable characters, such as the chaplain in Catch-22 (1970). Despite these successes, most of his later work was made-for-TV movies.
Perkins also co-wrote the screenplay for the 1973 film The Last of Sheila together with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim.
The Black Hole (1979)
