Berry Berenson was a model, actress, and photographer, who died on board the American Airlines 11 flight which crashed into the World Trade Centre. She was born Berinthia Berenson in New York in 1948 into a wealthy and highly talented family. Her grandmother was the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the art historian and collector Bernard Berenson, her great-uncle.
As a child she reportedly felt herself to be in the shadow of her elder sister, Marisa, who was to become a highly successful model and film actress. Berry also had a successful modelling career before she, too, moved on to Hollywood. Her film career did not take off, but she met up once more with the actor Anthony Perkins. Their marriage in 1973 caused some surprise in Hollywood, not just because she was a beautiful, talented 25-year-old and he a 41-year-old whose star had been in decline since the high point of playing Norman Bates in Psycho in 1960, but because he was known to be homosexual.
Berenson remained either unaware or completely discreet about this for most of their marriage, although eventually accompanying him to hospital for Aids tests and treatment. After he died of Aids in 1992, she said: ''He figured if anyone knew, he'd never work again.''
In the 1980s there were efforts to find a suitable script to feature both Berenson and Perkins, but she was doubtful, declaring: ''I didn't want to be killed by him in a Psycho remake.'' She appeared in episodes of the sitcoms Cheers and Friends, but was devoting more time to photography, which included covers for Life magazine, the photographs for a book, Dressing Up, written by her sister, and for a recently-completed book on the American designer Halston.
She is survived by her two sons, Elvis and Osgood Perkins.
Berry Berenson, actress and photographer; born 1948, died September 11, 2001.
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