San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, September 17, 1992

"He simply never wanted anyone to know," Berenson said at their Hollywood home Tuesday. "He figured if anyone knew they'd never give him work again."

Three days after the death of her husband, who was the star of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and many other films, Berenson quietly discussed his life, her devastated marriage and the problem of facing AIDS in Hollywood.

"He went twice to stay at the hospital, and once as an out-patient, and we went under another name," she recalled. "I literally asked myself, 'Who am I today?' It was weird. You lose all sense of reality. You can't even be yourself in a situation like this. You're signing 'Mrs. Smith' or whatever. You think that this man has spent his entire life giving people so much pleasure in show business, and this is his reward. He can't even be himself at the end. I mean, people at the Screen Actors Guild are completely into this thing. They're used to dealing with aliases."

DIED AT HOME

Perkins, who was 60, died at his rustic home nestled in the Hollywood hills on Saturday, surrounded by his family: Berenson and their sons, Osgood, 18, a student at the University of Southern California, and Elvis, 16, a high school student at a private school. Only the family and a few friends knew he had AIDS. Berenson said she does not know how her husband contracted AIDS.

Perkins, in his final days, asked his sons to issue a note upon his death, and they wrote down his words: "I chose not to go public about this, because to misquote 'Casablanca,' I'm not much at being noble, but it doesn't take too much to see that the problems of an old actor don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy old world."

Perkins said he 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."

Berenson, who married Perkins in 1973, said she was surprised at the ferocity of his comments about show business. Berenson said her husband was angry because he had spent long stretches of time without working, even before he became ill, and his career was almost totally overwhelmed by his portrayal of the lunatic Norman Bates in "Psycho."

LEARNED TO PLAY PIANO

"At one point he went two years without working, but he was such a stoic he never talked about it," she recalled. "He never complained. He learned to play the piano. He made phone calls. He would sit by the phone and wait for the agents to call."

One of his last roles was in an NBC television drama, "In the Deep Woods," in which he plays a police detective. The movie is scheduled to be broadcast next month.

Berenson said: "Most of our friends didn't know because Tony didn't want them to know."

Asked how she thought her husband had contracted AIDS, Berenson shook her head and said haltingly: "No. We don't really know. No. It's not worth it."

Berenson, a photographer, is a granddaughter of the Paris fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and a grandniece of the art dealer and historian Bernard Berenson. Her sister, actress Marisa Berenson, and her mother, Marquesa Gogo Cacciapuoti, flew from Paris to be with her.

Perkins was tested for AIDS after an article in the Enquirer said he was HIV positive. Berenson said her husband had not been tested for AIDS but had been given a series of blood tests in Los Angeles for a palsy on the side of his face. Berenson said she assumed that someone had tested her husband's blood for the virus and leaked the results to the tabloid. After the story appeared, he was tested and found to be HIV positive.

"I was devastated; I couldn't believe it," she said. "And then I immediately thought, what about me? What about my children? I got tested. I got tested four times in the last two years. And I'm fine. And I don't understand, I don't understand any of this. I don't understand this disease at all."

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 1992. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .