A boy’s best friend: Anthony Perkins’ warped relationship with his mother
Cinema is full of unhinged characters. From The Shining’s Jack Torrance to Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, the film world has no shortage of dead-eyed weirdos just waiting to make their first kill. Perhaps most sinister of all is Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 psychological thriller Psycho, a milk-drinking amateur taxidermist who has been infantilised by a domineering and possessive mother. Anthony Perkins’ performance as Bates is utterly chilling. More unnerving, however, is that he probably based it on his own disturbing relationship with his mother.
Perkins was something of a heartthrob in his heyday. After releasing several pop singles in 1957 and 1958, he secured teen idol status and used this fame as a springboard into other avenues of entertainment. By the 1960s, he’d established himself as one of the most sought-after young actors in Hollywood, often appearing as the love interest in films starring Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren and the like. But beneath the dazzling smile lay a cavity. Following the death of his father – a man Perkins would later describe as “a mythic being…to be dreaded and appeased” – Anthony found himself surrounded by an entirely female presence. It was around this time that his mother started to sexually abuse him.
Even before the death of Osgood Perkins, Tony’s mother had eroticised her relationship with their son – using him as a sort of surrogate while her husband was away. “She was constantly touching me and caressing me,” he told People Magazine, adding that her behaviour continued well into his adulthood.
“Not realising what effect she was having, she would touch me all over, even stroking the inside of my thighs right up to my crotch.” Though he yearned for his mother’s affection, he also dreaded it, admitting that he “completely repressed what my mother was doing—blanked it out. For years—until just a few years before she died in 1979—I really believed that all through my childhood my mother never touched me in an affectionate way.”
Like Mrs Bates, Tony’s mother was a totalitarian presence – controlling every single thing in his life. “She wasn’t ill-tempered or mean,” he continued.
“Just a strong-willed, dominant, New England kind of woman. She controlled everything about my life, including my thoughts and feelings. ‘Finish your homework. Put your toys away. Take a bath now. Where are you going? What are you reading? Why are you doing that?’ She felt she was taking responsibility, but she was really taking control.”
