Charles Winecoff's Split Image answers successfully the two main questions posed by Anthony Perkins' life: why, despite talent and opportunity, he never became a major, enduring star; and why, despite his homosexuality, he spent the last third of his life married to a woman. For the general reader, Perkins' biography also serves as a moving example of the poisonous effects of gay closeting.

While I heartily agree with my fellow reviewers' favorable assessment of Split Image, the book does have its flaws. The documentation is wanting: Winecoff's bibliography cites only books, not articles. He provides no footnotes or endnotes, and no appendix with Perkins' filmography and other work. Furthermore, Winecoff dwells too often on supposed parallels between Perkins' movies and events in his real life, particularly homosexual "double meanings" that the filmmakers obviously never intended. At times Winecoff also tells us more than we need to know about the specifics of Perkins' sexual habits.

These defects, however, do little to detract from the biography's main achievement: its compelling portrait of an elusive, contradictory personality, particularly during his early years. (Perkins' private life after marriage emerges less clearly, as some of those closest to him at that time -- most notably, his widow and children -- apparently declined to be interviewed.) Unlike the typical celebrity biographer, Winecoff pays due attention to the professional aspect of his subject's life and offers thoughtful assessments of Perkins' work, both good and bad. The narrative is well paced and filled with surprising anecdotes. Winecoff's prose, though no threat to the reputation of Virginia Woolf, is still superior to the pedestrian phrasings of most Hollywood journalists.

I recommend Split Image not only to fans of "TP," who surely have read it by now, but also to anyone who wishes to learn more about film history or gay issues - or who simply enjoys a well-written biography.

Too often Hollywood biographies rely on the glossy, fabricated images of their subjects for inspiration. Not SPLIT IMAGE. This remarkable biography meticulously weaves together the very personal story of gay actor Anthony Perkins with the changing social climate of America from the 1950s right up to his death from AIDS in 1992; the book is rich in gossip and scandal (a requirement for any successful star bio) but also full of insights on the effect of the times on Perkins's own troubled psyche. Author Winecoff relentlessly probes the dark side of Perkins's self-made boy-next-door image, which was not only his calling card in surly Method-acting-inundated Hollywood, but also his own private survival mechanism as a young man leading a very severe double life. Nothing here is taken at face value. The author's research, which is vast, covers everything from Perkins's (single) mother's lesbianism and the actor's terrifying experiences at college where he endured a gay witchhunt (along with the older brother of actor George Hamilton) to his love affair with hunky Warner Bros contract player Tab Hunter - violently hushed up by Perkins's studio, Paramount (the two men were given strict orders not to be seen in public together) - to his reliance on homophobic psychoanalysis for confidence, and his eventual marriage (at age 43) to socialite Berry Berenson, with whom he had two sons. It is to Winecoff's credit that the Perkins-Berenson marriage is treated just as fairly as the actor's numerous gay love affairs. Perkins literally brainwashed himself into becoming a heterosexual, so hard was the pressure to conform not only in Hollywood but in America. One of the book's strengths is in subtly showing how one man's story is in fact the story of a nation, the psychiatric community, the gay community. etc. Add to all this fascinating stuff a tearful ending, and you've got what is without a doubt the most intelligent, passionate star biography in years.

Is it any surprise that the brilliant actor who originated th ecreepy role of Norman Bates had a dark side? HELLO! Wake up, people! This is Tony Perkins, not Mickey Rooney! That said, let me add that I am just about THE biggest Tony Perkins lover on this side of the Atlantic - ever since I saw him in Tall Story when I was 11! I've been hooked ever since and this man is my drug![.] Anyway, yes this book is dark, but yes it has more info about His life than you are going to find ANYWHERE - and after you've read, you'll feel closer to Tony than ever![.] In ALL his complexity and love. And I mean ALL. This is Tony, people, not some airhead matinee idol. This is the one and only. This is the great. This is Tony Perkins. To love him is to love him with ALL his faults - and I mean ALL, people - AND his attributes. God bless him and his late wife.