Not sure there is a good way to find out you have AIDS, but here’s a pretty terrible one.

If anyone reading this recognizes the name Anthony Perkins then you probably know him for his portrayal of Norman Bates in Psycho, the 1960 American psychological horror-thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Perkins was gay… He wasn’t overly open about his homosexuality, but most people in Hollywood in the late 60s/early 70s knew he was gay, and he had long-term romantic relationships with multiple people in his industry. 

(Here's Perkins with his "good friend" Grover Dale)

That is why it was a big surprise when he married photographer Berinthia "Berry" Berenson in 1973 when she was 3 months pregnant with his child AND married to another man at the time. 

Berenson explained Perkins’ surprising newfound love for vagina by saying he was under the care of a psychologist named Dr. Mildred Newman who, at the time, ‘treated’ homosexuals with something called “conversion therapy.”  Perkins would later go on to say how rigorous the therapy was, including regular electroshock treatments. 

("No more rollerblading!")

And apparently, the therapy worked because Tony and Berry went on to have 2 children.

The finer details of Perkins’ life are pretty interesting, but I will cut to the chase…

Tony resurrected his role of Norman Bates in 3 sequels, and during the filming of Psycho IV: The Beginning, Perkins was undergoing treatment for something called facial palsy. 

According to his wife, one of the nurses who was treating him at the time secretly took one of his blood samples and tested it for HIV without Tony’s permission. 

When the results came back positive, she presumably sold the results to The National Enquirer, which published an issue in March 1990 reporting the exclusive scoop that Anthony Perkins had AIDS. 

So now Tony has no fucking idea that he’s infected and doesn’t find out until he is innocently standing in the grocery checkout line and sees his fucking face plastered on the front page of one of history’s biggest rags. 

Perkins lived for another 2 years before dying at his home in Los Angeles on September 12, 1992, from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 60.

His wife, Berry, never remarried and wound up dying almost exactly 9 years later at the age of 53 after she boarded American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11/2001…. That was the one hijacked by that scumbag Mohamed Atta and deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center killing all 92 people aboard and ensuring the deaths of 1,402 people at and above the aircraft's impact zone.

I am not sure why this story resonated with me so much… Perhaps it’s the 9/11 connection, or maybe because I am starting to realize that everyone in this world is a real piece of shit, and always has been.  

Either way, the story was in my fucked up brain and now it’s in yours. 

Rest In Peace, Tony. 

Take a report.

-Large