Berry Berenson
Berinthia (Berry) Berenson (aka
Berry Perkins), (
April 14,
1948 –
September 11,
2001), was an American model, actress and photographer. She was best known as the wife of actor
Anthony Perkins, from 1973 until his death in 1992. She was also the mother of Osgood Perkins, Jr., an actor, and Elvis Perkins.
Following a brief modelling career, Berenson had a number of minor roles in big budget movies, including
Cat People, before starring opposite
Jeff Bridges in
Remember My Name. She then developed a career in photography, shooting many photos for the covers of
Life magazine, as well as fashion pictures for
Vogue magazine.
She died at age 53 in the
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack on board
American Airlines flight 11. She had been returning from a holiday on
Cape Cod to her California home.
She was the younger daughter of Robert L. Berenson, a U.S. diplomat of Lithuanian-Jewish descent whose original family name was Valvrojenski. Her mother was Countess Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor, better known as Gogo Schiaparelli, a socialite of Italian, Swiss, French, and Egyptian ancestry. (She is now Marchesa Cacciapuoti di Giugliano). Berry Berenson's maternal grandmother was the Paris fashion designer
Elsa Schiaparelli, and her sister is the actress and model
Marisa Berenson.
Berenson also was a great-great-niece of
Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer who believed he had discovered the supposed
canals of Mars, a great-great-niece of art expert
Bernard Berenson (1865 – 1959), and a great-great-niece of Senda Berenson (1868 – 1954), an athlete and educator who was one of the first two women elected to the
Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Memorial to Berry Berenson on the September 11 wiki
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CNN Showbiz Today—Cultural figures among the victims