Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 - September 12, 1992) was an American actor best known for his role as the maniacal murderer, Norman Bates, in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. He was the son of American stage and film actor Osgood Perkins (James Ripley Osgood Perkins, 1891-1937) and his wife, Janet.

Perkins's first movie was The Actress (1953), then came Friendly Persuasion (1956), for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

After a few other much-acclaimed performances both in film and on Broadway, he starred in Psycho in 1960, which led to his being typecast as the crazy killer, severely limiting the range of roles he was offered later in life.

He went on to star in (and even direct) the sequels and prequel to Psycho and also played a few memorable characters, such as the chaplain in Catch-22 (1970), but most of his later work was made-for-TV movies.

He was bisexual, having had affairs with men, including 1960s film star Tab Hunter, writer-model-actor-and-now professor of literature Alan Helms ("the best piece of ass of my generation," according to Edmund White), and dancer-choreographer Grover Dale, with whom Perkins had a six-year relationship prior to his marriage to Berry Berenson. Dale, in fact, married actress Anita Morris only 10 days before the Perkins-Berenson nuptials (Dale and Morris's son is television actor James Badge Dale).

Perkins died in 1992 of AIDS complications.

His son, Osgood Perkins, credited as Oz Perkins, is also an actor.

His widow, Berry Berenson, died on an airplane that crashed into the World Trade Center during the September 2001 Terrorist Attackss, the day before the nine-year anniversary of Perkins' death.

Quotes:

"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."