Valerie Perrine

Valerie Ritchie Perrine was born on September 3, 1943, in Galveston, Texas. Her mother, Winifred "Renee" Perrine (nee McGinley), was a dancer of Scottish and Irish descent from Helensburgh in Dunbartonshire who had appeared in Earl Carroll's Vanities. Her father, Kenneth I. Perrine, was a career U.S. Army officer who retired as a lieutenant colonel; his family descended from the Staten Island Huguenot Daniel Perrin. She had a younger brother, Kenneth (Ken), who became a neuropsychologist in New York City.

The family moved with her father's postings. In 1946, when she was three, they went to postwar Japan, where at four she performed Japanese ceremonial dances with a local troupe. By 1950 they had settled in Arizona, living around Phoenix and Scottsdale, where her father struggled to find a civilian career. Perrine described herself as an army brat who grew up in Japan and Arizona.

Perrine briefly studied psychology at the University of Arizona before dropping out to dance in Las Vegas. She never took acting lessons. "I don't really know what I do. I don't think about anything until I get on the set. I just learn my lines, period," she said of her method, adding that for emotional scenes she drew on her own past, such as thinking of an old boyfriend who had hurt her during her crying scene with Dustin Hoffman in Lenny.

As a teenager Perrine left home for Las Vegas, telling People years later, "Mother cried, Daddy swore." She knocked on doors along the Strip until she was hired as a chorus girl in the Hello America show at the Desert Inn. She later negotiated a starring spot in the Lido de Paris revue at the Stardust Resort and Casino, where she was working in 1968, and earned about $800 a week as its lead dancer, sending money home to her parents. Stacey Souther later said she danced 12 shows a week in heavy costumes for about nine years, wear and tear that led to spinal fusion surgery in 2006.

In January 1969 her fiance, the Beverly Hills importer and gun collector Bill Haarman, was killed when a pistol tucked in his waistband fell to the floor and fired. Later that year she dated the hairstylist Jay Sebring, who invited her to a gathering at Sharon Tate's house on the night of August 8, 1969. Her understudy fell ill and she had to perform. Sebring, Tate and others were murdered there by members of the Manson Family shortly after midnight on August 9.

After moving to Los Angeles, Perrine was spotted at a dinner party by the agent Robert Walker. Her only photograph was of herself as a topless showgirl, which led Universal's head of new talent, Monique James, to arrange a screen test for the role of Montana Wildhack in George Roy Hill's Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). Despite what she called an awful audition, she got the part, and Kurt Vonnegut later told her he approved of the film.

In 1973 she played opposite Jeff Bridges in The Last American Hero and appeared in the PBS Hollywood Television Theater production of Steambath, broadcast on May 4, 1973, becoming the first actress to appear intentionally nude on American network television. Her breakthrough came as Honey Bruce in Bob Fosse's Lenny (1974), opposite Dustin Hoffman, which brought the Cannes Best Actress award, a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination.

She played W. C. Fields' companion Carlotta Monti opposite Rod Steiger in W. C. Fields and Me (1976), starred with Terence Hill in Mr. Billion (1977), and became Miss Eve Teschmacher in Richard Donner's Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980). She also appeared in The Magician of Lublin (1979) with Alan Arkin and The Electric Horseman (1979) as the former wife of Robert Redford's rodeo champion. Can't Stop the Music (1980), the Village People musical directed by Nancy Walker, was a flop she believed killed her career.

She went on to play Jack Nicholson's wife in Tony Richardson's The Border (1982), star with Michael Caine in Water (1985), lead the short lived CBS sitcom Leo and Liz in Beverly Hills (1986) with Harvey Korman, and play a vulgar, devoted couple with Dick Shawn in Maid to Order (1987). She appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in Nicolas Roeg's television film Sweet Bird of Youth (1989). In the 1990s she guest starred on Northern Exposure, Homicide: Life on the Street, ER, Nash Bridges, The Practice and Walker, Texas Ranger, and played Dolores Pierce on As the World Turns (1998 to 1999). She had a small but much praised role as one of Mel Gibson's assistants in What Women Want (2000), guest roles on Just Shoot Me!, Grounded for Life and Third Watch, and a late part in Silver Skies, her final feature film.

Perrine never married and had no children. Besides her fiance Bill Haarman and Jay Sebring, she was romantically linked over the years to Jeff Bridges, Elliott Gould and Dodi Fayed, and Nels Van Patten, son of Dick Van Patten and a former boyfriend, remained a close friend. She loved big dogs and at one time kept four Great Danes and a 250 pound mastiff. In the late 1970s and 1980s she hosted celebrated pool parties at her hilltop house on Longridge Avenue in Sherman Oaks. A series of bad business decisions and generosity toward younger boyfriends later cost her the house and most of her savings, and she spent a period living in Europe.

In the mid 1970s, flying to the San Sebastian Film Festival to support Lenny, she survived the crash of a small plane on takeoff in the Pyrenees with only minor cuts. In spring 2006 she met the actor and aspiring filmmaker Stacey Souther while walking their dogs in Beverly Hills; she was driving the orange 1973 Chevrolet Suburban she had bought after Slaughterhouse-Five, with plates reading RATS 1 (STAR backwards). They became inseparable, platonic best friends, and she said he was like a son to her. For her last years she lived in a Beverly Hills apartment with her Chihuahua Yorkie mix, Marcus.

Perrine described a philosophy of living in the moment. "I've always lived in the moment. I don't dwell on the past or worry about the future. I try to live for today, and Parkinson's hasn't changed that," she told Parkinson's Life in 2025. Her advice to people newly diagnosed was: "Be positive. Be strong. Stay active." She kept her own diagnosis private for years, explaining that her work ethic was that the show must go on. In later interviews she said she regretted nothing about her life and wanted no pity. She spoke openly about her relaxed attitude to nudity, which she said she had developed on stage in Las Vegas and on European beaches, and in a BBC interview with Michael Parkinson she discussed her sex symbol image, saying "I certainly didn't start it."

Perrine's Honey Bruce, which Fosse's telegram called the work of the best actress he had ever worked with, remains one of the most acclaimed performances in his films and won her Best Actress at Cannes only three years after her screen debut. Her Miss Teschmacher, who betrays Lex Luthor to save Superman in exchange for a promise to protect her mother in Hackensack, gave the 1978 film one of its most human moments and made her a fixture of Superman fan conventions alongside Sarah Douglas. In 2025 her official X account declared April 19 "Miss Teschmacher Day." Her openness about Parkinson's disease, documented in the film Valerie and in interviews, made her a visible advocate for people living with the condition. SAG-AFTRA, of which she had been a member since 1972, said she had left an impact on film and television with her bold and distinctive performances.

For Lenny (1974): New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (won, 1974) and nomination for Best Actress; National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress (won, 1974); Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress (won, 1975); Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama (1975); Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (1975), losing to Ellen Burstyn; BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles (won, 1976) and BAFTA nomination for Best Actress.

Other: Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Superman (1979); Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Actress for Can't Stop the Music (1980); CableACE Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for Faerie Tale Theatre (1985).

Perrine appeared in a Playboy pictorial in May 1972 and on the magazine's cover in August 1981. The New York Times profiled her in December 1974 under the headline "Valerie Perrine, or, The Return of the Hollywood Sex Kitten." She was interviewed by Michael Parkinson on the BBC and, in 2013, by screenwriter Larry Karaszewski at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, and she appeared in the documentary The Fabulous Allan Carr (2017). Stacey Souther's 45 minute documentary short Valerie (2019), about her career and her life with Parkinson's disease, includes footage Souther shot of her deep brain stimulation surgery, screened at festivals including Edmonton in 2020, and was later streamed on PBS, Tubi and other services. The Hollywood Reporter's April 2023 feature by Seth Abramovitch, "Ailing Superman Star Valerie Perrine Finally Finds Her Hero," told the story of Souther's care for her.

Perrine's nude scene in Steambath in 1973 drew controversy, and only some PBS stations chose to carry the broadcast, though the scene later became a fundraising draw for the network. She spoke frankly in later life about drug use during her years of stardom, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that cocaine was part of what made her parties famous. She also said she found Rod Steiger difficult to work with on W. C. Fields and Me, calling it her worst experience on a film set.

Around 2011 a sound engineer complained that she was rattling a cup and saucer on set, the first sign of a tremor. She was diagnosed with essential tremor and, in 2015, with Parkinson's disease. She underwent deep brain stimulation surgery, and in 2017 the nonprofit Smile Fairies funded dental surgery after medication left her teeth brittle. Between about 2015 and 2017 she went from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair, and she later developed aphasia that, to her doctors' surprise, partly reversed. Stacey Souther and a caregiver looked after her at home; her brother Ken was also diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Perrine died at her home in Beverly Hills on Monday, March 23, 2026, aged 82. Souther announced her death on her social media accounts, writing that she "faced Parkinson's disease with incredible courage and compassion, never once complaining." According to her death certificate, reported by People, the cause was acute cardiopulmonary arrest, with Parkinson's disease as the underlying cause and dementia as a contributing factor. Her final wish was burial at Forest Lawn, and because her finances were exhausted, a GoFundMe set up with her brother's blessing paid for the funeral. She was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) on April 16, 2026.