(2 of 2)
In the last two years Actor Tony Perkins, 25, has become one of the most valued and versatile properties in show business. His tautly drawn acting and shy manner have won over both critics and bobby soxers. Like Gene Gant, Tony seems to be watching his development with a sort of awe. "Why has it all happened to me?" he asks. "I'm not good-looking, or experienced, or what you'd call a 'build.' "
But to Hollywood, Tony looks fine. His latest picture: Paramount's The Tin Star. Waiting to be released are three other films he cranked out for Paramount this year—The Matchmaker, with Shirley Booth, Desire Under the Elms, with Sophia Loren, and This Bitter Earth, with Jo Van Fleet. Two earlier Perkins films are still packing them in: Fear Strikes Out, the story of Red Sox Outfielder Jimmy Piersall, and Friendly Persuasion, made with his good friend and sometime mentor, Gary Cooper.
Tony has also provided some of television's most memorable moments, e.g., as a bewildered teen-ager in Joey, and RCA Victor is turning out disks of his throaty warblings (Moonlight Serenade and First Romance). Says Perkins with an apologetic grin: "I haven't had three days off in a row for the last two years."
The son of onetime Matinee Idol Osgood Perkins (who died in 1937), Tony scrambled into show business on his own. He finished 24th in a class of 25 at the Browne & Nichols school, later thumbed his way to Hollywood, got a screen test, ended up playing in The Actress with Jean Simmons. In 1954 he took over from John Kerr as the troubled adolescent in Broadway's Tea and Sympathy, and was on his way.
Even in success, Tony resolutely leads the simple life. He still lives in his old bachelor apartment ($50 a month) on Manhattan's West Side, drinks milk instead of martinis, dodges nightclubs, wears baggy tweeds. A trifle nearsighted, he reads voraciously (Wolfe, Camus, Fitzgerald), memorized the long, difficult part of Gene in one day. His main relaxation: late night TV and movies.
"I've never studied acting, and I'm deeply ashamed that I haven't," says Tony earnestly. "I'm not a 'method' man from the Actors' Studio, but I've worked with so many that are, I feel I know a good deal about the technique, and I'm very sympathetic with its aims. But I believe in the firm hand of the director. I'm no good unless I have a director who says, 'For God's sake, don't do that; do this instead.' "
As Gene Gant, Tony seems almost to be playing himself. Like Gene, he is introspective and quietly intense. His long (6 ft. 2 in.), lean frame is close enough to the gangling scarecrow that was the young Thomas Wolfe, and he still looks like a teenager. Remembers Tony: "I was a kid in high school when I first started to read Wolfe, and right away I identified myself with Gene."
His contract for Look Homeward, Angel will allow him to leave the show next June if he wants to. If Perkins decides to quit, he will not lack for employment. One likely job: playing Gene in a Paramount production of the Wolfe novel. Another possibility: bringing to life the bewildered young romantics in the early books of F. Scott Fitzgerald.