Free Hollywood Gays by Boze Hadleigh

What else can I be, a drug dealer?’ I was sorry I’d spoken up, but then he hugged me, smacked my bum [bottom], and all was well.”
    In 1972 I was asked by Australia’s Screen magazine to try and get an interview with Tony Perkins, to be titled “What Ever Happened to Anthony Perkins?” It was to focus on his recent roles, on Psycho , of course on the upcoming The Last of Sheila (which he cowrote with his friend the gay composer Stephen Sondheim but didn’t appear in), and—get this—his private life.
    The interview wound up a cover story. Perkins had readily agreed to do it, and only after its completion wondered if he might get the cover—compared to today’s publicity maze, where a cover is often expected as a condition of the interview. During our session, Perkins avoided Norman Bates and most specifics about Psycho , speaking instead about its prestigious director. He said little about his screenplay and less about buddy Sondheim, actually labeling him a “confirmed bachelor.” And Anthony’s own private life? A single paragraph:
    “Everyone keeps droning on about long affairs and relationships. Why does everyone always measure everything by quantity? I know of marriages inside and out of the entertainment sphere that’re long but miserable, and I know there’ve been relationships, affairs, what have you, that weren’t long but were intensely pleasing to me at the time.”
     
    Q: Are there any roles in The Last of Sheila you could have played?
     
    A: I can think of a few.
     
    Q: Why didn’t you?
     
    A: I wanted to go around and see the other side. I helped create these fictional beings, but I don’t have to inhabit them. It’s a satisfying change. It’s a new kind of high. Some writers say that writing’s like a drug, and others do it while they’re actually high.
     
    Q: Have you experimented with drugs?
     
    A: No comment. Why?
     
    Q: There’s a perception that Hollywood is quite drug-happy. If that’s the way to put it.
     
    A: I’ve experimented. Here and there.
     
    Q: What about feuding actors in Hollywood?
     
    A: It takes two to feud.
     
    Q: Joan Hackett was quoted as saying (after How Awful About Allan ) that she thinks you’re “nuts.”
     
    A: That might be. I’m in psychoanalysis. She has a few kinks up her sleeve too. You know she smokes pipes?
     
    Q: Don’t they do that in Scandinavia?
     
    A: I don’t think so.
     
    Q: I do. At our Cairo hotel, every night there was a group of Danish women who’d sit on the verandah and smoke pipes.
     
    A: She used to be jealous of me. End of discussion. I want to say something, and I’d like this to be quoted. Most of the time, people worry about others trying to harm them—in Hollywood, and everywhere, as a matter of fact. But to me, it’s funny, and I’ve given this some thought, how people spend almost no time worrying about the harm they can do to themselves. Think about it.
     
    Q: It’s a good point. But how, specifically, do people harm themselves?
     
    A: In a myriad of ways.
     
    Q: Such as? (No reply.) Drugs?
     
    A: Yes, and others.
     
    Q: Like what?
     
    A: One thing some of us do is let other people make our decisions for us. Or our value judgments.
     
    Q: You said you’re in psychoanalysis?
     
    A: Yeah.
     
    Q: Do you think it’s more necessary for actors?
     
    A: Actors, yeah, and it depends on your childhood. Losing a parent young is a compelling reason to visit a professional.
     
    Q: But are they really experts? Aren’t they apt to follow their prejudices?
     
    A: Yes.
     
    Q: So shouldn’t one beware taking their opinions as truth?
     
    A: You have to find a good shrink.
     
    Q: One who agrees with you?
     
    A: You both have to have the same goal. But the magazine doesn’t want to hear about this. Your readers are probably more concerned with...kangaroos! (Laughs nervously.)
     
    Q: Who are your heroes?
     
    A: That’s not a good question.
     
    Q: Or, as an actor, which actors do you