Editing Anthony Perkins (section)

===Sexuality===
Rumors about Perkins's sexuality had persisted since the beginning of his career, when he made his Broadway debut in ''Tea and Sympathy'' playing a gay character.{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=106}}{{sfn|Hunter|2006|p=133}} Posthumous biographer Charles Winecoff linked him with a mass expulsion of gay men at Rollins College in Florida, where he was an undergraduate, claiming a large group of his friends had been arrested on charges of homosexuality but that Perkins's links to the theatre professor saved him from dismissal.{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=49}} However, there is no evidence of this besides the interviews Winecoff conducted with Rollins alumni.

Perkins reportedly had his first experience with a woman at age 39 with actress [[Victoria Principal]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20119696,00.html |title=Great Factoids |magazine=People |volume=19|issue=23 |date=March 6, 1989 |access-date=March 24, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920012637/http://www.people.com/people/article/0%2C%2C20119696%2C00.html |archive-date=September 20, 2015 }}</ref><ref name="Kennedy">{{cite web|last=Kennedy|first=Dana|title=Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins|url=https://ew.com/article/1996/09/20/split-image-life-anthony-perkins/amp|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|access-date=February 5, 2017|date=September 20, 1996}}</ref> on location filming ''[[The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean]]'' in 1971.<ref name=People/> He was in therapy with psychologist [[Mildred Newman]]. In his 2021 biography of [[Mike Nichols]], Mark Harris wrote that "Perkins and his longtime boyfriend, [[Grover Dale]], had both become convinced that their homosexuality was obstructing their happiness and wanted to restart their lives with women," adding that Newman and her husband–partner Bernard Berkowitz "clung to the belief that male homosexuality was a form of arrested development, and made a small fortune convincing willing clients that it was an impediment to getting what they wanted."<ref name="Harris 2021">{{cite book|title=Mike Nichols: A Life |first=Mark|last=Harris|isbn=978-0399562242|year=2021|publisher=Penguin Press|location=New York}}</ref> When interviewed for a 1999 documentary on Perkins, friend and collaborator [[Sidney Lumet]] said "I [asked him why he went into therapy and] said, 'Well, how about you?' [He said] 'I'm a homosexual{{nbsp}}...' From then on, he spoke about it completely openly, and I remember when{{nbsp}}... he said that period of his life was over with, and I said, 'Well, how come, Tony? How did it happen?' And he said, 'I just didn't want it anymore.'"<ref name=Biography/>

Many friends, partners, and colleagues have consistently said Perkins was homosexual rather than bisexual.<ref name=Biography/><ref name="Tab Hunter Confidential">{{cite web|title=Tab Hunter Confidential|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1533089|access-date=August 17, 2015|publisher=IMDb}}</ref>{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=110}}{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=118}}{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=159}}{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=207}}{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=275}}{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=324}} This is because, up until this point, Perkins had only homosexual relationships and expressed little interest in women. However, Perkins noted in 1983 that his mother and her sexual abuse might have had something to do with it: "She was constantly touching me and caressing me. Not realizing what effect she was having, she would touch me all over, even stroking the inside of my thighs right up to my crotch." This behavior continued on into his adulthood.<ref name=People/> This reportedly led to Perkins "being unable to see a beautiful woman," but many costars and collaborators remembered situations where he would leer over a woman walking down the street. Tab Hunter has called moments such as these a ruse: "You always saw what Tony wanted you to see, which was kind of sad in many ways{{nbsp}}... An actor plays a role, and pretty soon he takes on that persona. And we're all guilty of having done that. I think perhaps Tony's persona was the persona that he wanted people to see. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's that fine line of knowing how to divorce yourself from yourself."<ref name="sensesofcinema.com">{{cite web|url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2017/feature-articles/interview-tab-hunter/|title='I Love Vulnerability:' an Interview with Tab Hunter|website=Senses of Cinema|date=April 4, 2000 |access-date=January 14, 2022}}</ref>

Perkins' son Oz stated to ''[[People (magazine)|People]]'' in July 2024 that he and his brother grew up in a complicated upbringing by watching his father living two lives as either a closeted homosexual or bisexual man, a fact that their mother tried to shield them from as their father's private life was unacceptable to the mainstream society. Despite Oz and Elvis theoretically knowing of Anthony's sexuality, Berenson kept it "off-limits" due to thinking the truth was unsavory and that it didn't work for her children, though Oz admitted he doesn't resent his mother for her actions. This dynamic between themselves and their parents would later inspire his film ''[[Longlegs]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smart |first=Jack |date=2024-07-14 |title=Longlegs Director Explains Movie's Personal Connection to His Dad, Psycho Horror Icon Anthony Perkins (Exclusive) |url=https://people.com/how-longlegs-personal-osgood-perkins-exclusive-8677416 |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=People.com |language=en}}</ref>

====Therapy with Mildred Newman====
In 1971, Perkins ended a seven-year relationship with dancer [[Grover Dale]] for unknown reasons, after which he turned to friends [[Paula Prentiss]] and [[Richard Benjamin]] for help. Both encouraged him to see up-and-coming psychoanalyst [[Mildred Newman]], whose recent self-help book ''How to be Your Own Best Friend'' was rising up the ''New York Times''{{'}}s bestseller list.{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=285}} Their meetings became thrice weekly, and sometimes Perkins engaged in group appointments. He later became one of Newman's most vocal celebrity supporters. Perkins's posthumous biographer, Charles Winecoff, wrote: "Newman's therapeutic shtick that it was okay to love yourself without guilt and get the happiness and (mostly) the success that you naturally deserve seemed to be rubbing off on Tony."{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=288}}

That same year, Newman had written in ''How to be Your Own Best Friend'' that "analysts once thought they had little chance of changing homosexuals' preferences and had little success in that direction. But some refused to accept that and kept working with them, and we've found that a homosexual who really wants to change has a very good chance of doing so."{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=300}}

Later in life, Perkins referred to Newman as an almost peaceful person, "a crusader for a wider road, for choice and limitlessness."{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=302}} This, though, is not reflected much in Newman's actions or the sparse recollections Perkins related about their meetings. Sometimes their discussions ended in weeping spells, especially after Newman asked Perkins to imagine himself having sex with a woman. "'Why are you crying?' [Newman] asked. 'I don't know,' Tony answered. 'It's so sad, so sad.'"<ref name=People/> Other times, they were simple arguments: "She was constantly provoking me about women, asking why I was repressed in that area. We had heated disagreements, knockdown arguments. I would say 'I don't want to talk about this again today,' and she said 'I do want to talk about it.' We kicked it to pieces."{{sfn|Winecoff|1996|p=323}} After Perkins's death, Stephen Sondheim publicly labeled Newman and her practices as "completely unethical and a danger to humanity."<ref name="Harris 2021"/>