Valerie Perrine, who was Oscar nominated for her performance in Bob Fosse’s 1974 Lenny Bruce biopic and played Lex Luthor’s girlfriend in the Richard Donner Superman films, has died aged 82.
Writing on Facebook, the film-maker Stacey Souther announced her death, saying: “It is with deep sadness that I share the heartbreaking news that Valerie has passed away.”
He continued by asking readers to donate to a GoFundMe fundraiser to help cover her funeral costs. “Her final wish is to be laid to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery,” he wrote, “but after more than 15 years of fighting Parkinson’s, her finances are exhausted. Let’s come together to make her last wish a reality – she truly deserves it.”
Perrine was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, and her experience of the condition became the subject of a 45-minute documentary made by Souther, which premiered in 2019. In the face of the illness, wrote Souther, she showed “incredible courage and compassion, never once complaining. She was a true inspiration who lived life to the fullest – and what a magnificent life it was. The world feels less beautiful without her in it.”
A Hollywood Reporter profile of the star in 2023 further expanded on her illness, and how Souther had taken on a care-giving role for both Valerie and her brother, Ken, who also has Parkinson’s.
Perrine began her career as a showgirl in Las Vegas but left after her gun importer fiance accidentally shot himself in the heart. Once in Los Angeles, she had an affair with with the celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, but he was then murdered by members of the “Manson Family” cult in Sharon Tate’s home.
Later she was spotted by a talent agent at a Los Angeles dinner party and cast as a soft porn performer in the film version of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) and the girlfriend of Jeff Bridges’ racing car driver in The Last American Hero in 1973. In the same year, she became the first female actor to appear on US TV intentionally nude after appearing in a PBS play called Steambath.
The scene in which her character exits the shower went on to serve as a lucrative fundraising tool for the broadcaster, which operates on a non-profit basis.
In 1974, she played the stripper Honey Bruce, the wife of comedian Lenny Bruce, in Bob Fosse’s acclaimed biopic, Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman. She won the best actress award at Cannes for her performance, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award.
In the later half of the 1970s, Perrine became best known for her role as Miss Teschmancher, the moll of Gene Hackman’s criminal mastermind Lex Luthor, in Superman (1978) and its 1980 sequel. She also played the mistress of WC Fields in a biopic opposite Rod Steiger, whom she later called “full of hate for everything”, and the ex-wife of Robert Redford’s rodeo champion in The Electric Horseman (1979).
Other roles included Jack Nicholson’s wife in 1982’s The Border and a newly retired supermodel in Can’t Stop the Music, the notorious 1980 quaisi-biopic of Village People.
The film, which also starred Caitlyn Jenner and Steve Guttenberg, has since become a cult classic, but at the time Perrine regretted her involvement. “It ruined my career,” she said. “I moved to Europe after, I was so embarrassed.”
She worked less in the last four decades of her life, but did appear in 1985’s Water, calling co-star Michael Caine “the nicest human being I’ve ever worked with”, as well as playing a vapid office assistant in 2000’s What Women Want.
